Browsing Category
This journal isn’t organised as a sequence of finished dishes.
Instead, it’s built around components — sauces, proteins, accompaniments, stews, custards, purées, pies. These are the building blocks I return to again and again, whether I’m cooking at home or in the restaurant.
Alongside these components, you’ll find suggested dishes that show how they can be pulled together. Think of these as starting points rather than destinations.
What I really want to encourage you to do, though, is to decide what you want to cook first — and then work backwards. Choose the elements that make sense for that moment, that equipment, that appetite. Ask yourself whether they work together, and if they don’t, adjust.
This is not about following a fixed path.
It’s about learning how to assemble a dish with confidence.
Use the components as tools.
Use the suggested dishes as guidance.
With every dish comes the opportunity to learn something that can be carried forward.
Sometimes an entire component can be lifted exactly as it is and paired with different elements to create a completely new dish. Other times it’s a flavour combination you take with you — something you love — and apply through a different cooking process altogether.
This is how I read recipes, and how I write them. I’m always looking for what can be reused, rethought, or pushed somewhere else. Not because I want endless variation for its own sake, but because that’s how understanding builds.
Throughout this collection, I’ll suggest ways each recipe can open up new ideas. Some are simple — because sometimes that’s exactly what you want. Others show how the same thinking can be used to elevate a dish, change its context, or take it further.
The point isn’t to repeat recipes.
It’s to recognise possibilities.
That’s how cooking stops being about individual dishes — and starts becoming a way of thinking you can apply anywhere.
And trust your judgement when you start combining things for yourself.
That’s how this journal is meant to be used — not as a set of rules, but as a way of thinking about cooking.
