The Clarks are the husband-and-wife team behind Moro, the iconic London restaurant that opened in 1997 and has made Moorish cooking a thing, as well as training a generation of chefs – Oliver Rowe and Jacob Kenedy among them. There are sections on the usefulness and frugality of breadcrumbs, black olive crumbs to serve with everything; impromptu puddings like peaches in wine with bay leaves or plum compote with ricotta and hazelnuts; pea dishes galore; superb versions of classics like chocolate St Emilion and pommes Anna; big dishes to serve a few such as marinated chicken with roast pumpkin salad; and essentials like a wild garlic purée.

The dressing is simplicity itself to make, a salad cream if you will, and don’t be shy with grating horseradish over the beetroot, both delighting in each other’s exuberance. In 2022, cookbook sales were down somewhat since the height of the pandemic, but sales remain buoyant and there is a multitude of books for every level of cook. Carefully lift the sardines and set them skin side up on the onion, then place the egg on the sardines – et voilà. For the last 10 years, however, Quo Vadis has been under the careful stewardship of the Scottish chef Jeremy Lee.Coupe Danemark, much loved by Lee and unknown to me, is a quick matter of melting very good chocolate in simmering cream and then pouring the mixture over a scoop of vanilla ice cream and strewn with chopped, roasted nuts. Lee was born in Dundee and credits his mother and father with providing a table ‘laden with good things’. Profiteroles, steamed puddings, hearty chops and savoury pies are among the soothing yet sophisticated recipes. He worked with the late, great Alastair Little and with Simon Hopkinson at Bibendum in its heyday and then opened the Blueprint Café above the Design Museum for Terence Conran.

COOKING: SIMPLY AND WELL FOR ONE OR MANY, the first book from Jeremy Lee, Oxford Cultural Collective Patron and Chef Proprietor of Quo Vadis in London’s Soho, was published in September this year, to great acclaim. But a scrape of the peeler reveals a surprising whiteness that will discolour swiftly after being pared. There are sections on the usefulness and frugality of breadcrumbs, whether black olive crumbs or parsley to serve on spaghetti, impromptu puddings like peaches in wine with bay leaves or plum compote with ricotta and hazelnuts, pea dishes galore, the most useful jams and jellies from a Dundee childhood, classics like chicken with asparagus, potatoes and wild garlic aioli, essentials like anchovy dressing. Recipes range from the intriguing (Stichelton ice cream with candied apple) to the straightforwardly pleasing (Lincolnshire poacher soufflé, which rose to the occasion when tested).Unusually for a baking book, this one is divided up by season and the fruits that are best throughout the growing cycle – strawberries, figs, blood oranges and rhubarb, as well as chocolate, nuts, flowers and herbs. The Arbroath smokies with sea purslane, green beans and potatoes recipe we tested was a success, even without the hard-to-find sea purslane. Mix together the chicken meat, mustard, leeks, vegetables, bacon, tarragon and parsley, then spoon into a deep, wide pie dish roughly 30cm.