Recipes

Every card in the box: slow pots, bread, vegetables, preserves and a few sweet things, all cooked at least four times.

Two hundred and fourteen cards, of which these are the ones worth typing up. Weights are in grams, times are honest, and every card says what goes wrong.

01 Slow pots Judión beans, burnt butter, far too much pepper The pot everyone writes to me about. Six hours, mostly unattended, and a lot of black pepper ground at the very end.

02 Slow pots Shoulder of lamb, in the oven at ten Put it in before you go out, carve it with two forks when you get back. It will not hold a knife and it should not.

The Tuesday loaf One loaf, no starter to keep alive, mixed on Monday night and baked before work. Nine years of the same three numbers. Bread and pasta

Pici by hand, garlic, fried breadcrumbs Flour and water rolled out under your palms, so uneven that it can only have been made by a person. Twenty minutes and no machine. Bread and pasta

Rye, caraway, a very slow oven Dense, dark, sliced thin. Better on the third day than the first, which is the only bread I know that improves by being ignored. Bread and pasta

Leeks over coals, hazelnut, October harissa Charred until the outer layers are no use to anyone, then peeled back to the sweet part. The best thing I cook and the cheapest. Vegetables

Tomatoes on toast, August only Four ingredients, eleven months of waiting. There is no version of this that works in February and I have stopped trying. Vegetables

Carrots, and a sauce made from their tops The tops usually go in the bin at the market. Ask for them, blitz them with garlic and oil, and you get the greenest thing on the table. Vegetables

Preserved lemons, four jars every October Salt, lemons, patience, and a jar you have to turn every day for a week. They last a year and they change everything they touch. Preserves

Harissa, made the week peppers get cheap Roasted, peeled, pounded, covered in oil. Hot enough to argue about, and the argument is the point. Preserves

Baked quince, thick cream, a small glass Three hours in a low oven turns them from inedible to garnet red. Nothing else on the plate but cream. Sweet

The olive oil cake that keeps Better on the second day, still good on the fourth. Made with the oil you would actually put on bread, not the one you fry in. Sweet