There’s a chemistry...

So this is about using the acid in lemons or limes to cook the fish. It’s not new – soused herrings (vinegar), ceviche, escabeche, actually the whole process is just pickling really. The trick is not to keep it in there too long.

...so we decided to have a roast but not a roast. It didn’t feel like a day for thick gravy and roast potatoes so we went back to the old Bradford spring/summer favourite; crushed potatoes.

Not a gravy but not as pretentious as it sounds

So everything is a jus now but there are 2 important distinctions between jus and gravy. Gravy is pretty much a velouté which really means it’s thickened with flour and/or dairy of some sort. And gravy can have lumps of onion or whatever in it. Jus should be clear of any lumps.

Easy-peasy Lemon (or orange or lime or whatever you want or vinegar for that matter) squeezy!

Ahh, it trips off the tongue but you'll never eat mint sauce out of a jar again! So is it just a posh version of mint sauce? Not really. It has basil and parsley as well as mint and can be eaten with anything: try it with fish, it is fabulous.

Made it up before I knew it had a name. Not authentic but it went down well

I couldn't anything I fancied in the Mexican cookbook - seems like all the veg had cheese and/or bread of some sort so I thought about ratatouille with Mexican flavours instead. The Spanish do something called Pisto but it's very tomato-ey and I wanted it a bit less gloopy

This is probably the most important thing you need to know how to cook

There are ways of doing it; fresh tomatoes, passata, tinned tomatoes, in my view it doesn’t really matter but let’s face it, most British tomatoes don’t really taste of much; they’re not like the ones you eat on Holiday where the sun shines more predictably so I think it’s always better to use tinned tomatoes or passata.