Chilling tends to reduce flavours, so always season these salads really well. Always taste them cold from the refrigerator, and add extra seasoning if you think they need it. Otherwise, you finish up with a bland mush that really tastes of nothing in particular.

In most of these recipes I have suggested the appropriate starch, but don’t forget that a loaf of good crusty bread is always very good with a salad.

However, I must own up – this method of cooking it is the cheat’s way – it shouldn’t be baked at all, but cooked on top of the stove in a non-stick pan. The traditional way to complete cooking is to slide it out onto a plate once the bottom has cooked and it is set on top, then upend it back into the pan. A slightly easier way than this to finish the cooking, once the bottom is cooked and the top set, is to place it under a hot grill until it cooks through. Cheating, though, makes the cooking of a frittata a whole heap easier!

A bain-marie is created by placing a roasting dish in the oven, placing the dish with the food to be cooked in the middle of the rosting pan, and pouring boiling water into the roasting pan to come halfway up the sides of the dish containing the food. If the cooking time is fairly lengthy, the water may need to be topped up with more boiling water – it must at all times come more or less halfway up the sides of the dish containing the food.

The most important thing to remember is that the flavour of soup is hugely improved if you make and use your own stock, chicken stock being the most versatile as all it does is enrich the flavours of your dish. Very easy to do: don’t toss out the carcass of your roast chicken when you have finished it – put it into a saucepan, and add water to cover. Bring to the boil, and add a couple of carrots, an onion, a few peppercorns, 2 whole cloves and a bay leaf or two. Simmer for an hour or so. Strain and there you have your stock. This is the cheapest way of making stock. When I was catering, every week I jointed uncooked chickens, and always used the bony backs for making stock. Some butchers will sell you the backs.

Beef stock is made using brisket and/or shin slices with root vegetables and seasonings and vegetable stock with whatever vegetables you have on hand, but not strongly flavoured ones like cabbage, cauliflower etc. Of course, you can always cheat and just use a good quality stock cube or stock powder. Maybe not as good, but certainly very acceptable.

Give the steak a deliberate prod with your forefinger. If the steak is rare it will be soft to the touch and an indentaton will be left. Medium-rare steaks are still soft to the touch, but spring back a little. Medium feels firm with a definite spring-back feel, and well-done is very firm, bordering on hard to the touch.

Personally I always like a well-browned, crisp loaf of bread, so I invert the loaf onto a baking rack about 5-10 minutes before the cooking time has elapsed, and replace it in the oven upside down on the rack.

The beauty of cooking with yeast is that the loaf won’t ‘flop’ or collapse when you take it out of the oven as an under-baked loaf made with baking powder would.

Bread made with fresh yeast seems to have the best flavour, but dry yeast is also excellent. Instant yeast works, but bread made with it tends to dry out very quickly, and the flavour isn’t as good.

Fresh yeast is dissolved in blood heat liquid – place a little of the liquid on your wrist: it should feel neither hot nor cold. Dry yeast must be dissolved in liquid that feels distinctly warm – sprinkle it on top of the liquid and leave for about 15 minutes.

Two pieces across the width tied tightly and knotted and another two across the length are all you need. You can buy special string from speciality shops for this purpose, but ordinary cotton string from the supermarket works perfectly well.

However ther is nothing wrong with a pot roast that is cooked and served immediately, and cut in thicker slices; it just looks more rustic!