The oven has always been at the heart of this kitchen. The glow from its glass door fills the space with a sense of warmth and hospitality. There are opportunities an oven can provide that are different from cooking over a naked flame, the roasty-toasty-crusty elements that make baking and roasting so welcome at the table and unlike anything you can produce with a pan on the hob. That said, we have to think carefully about how often we switch on the oven and for how long we use it. Energy consumption now figures in our cooking more than ever before. I find myself batch baking several things at once, just as my grandmother did. The days of baking a single potato or pizza for supper are long gone. I make cakes that last for several days, popping a tray of baked apples in at the same time as the gingerbread. I bake a piece of gammon that will be served both hot and, later, as cold cuts. I bake fish for eating with mashed potatoes and cream, but make sure I cook enough to use tomorrow in a different recipe. Good old-fashioned home economics, updated for today’s eating conditions. Rather than a deep-dish apple pie that takes the best part of an hour to cook, I have taken to making wafer-thin tarts that can be out in 20 minutes and possibly use that time to also bake a tray of biscuits. And although I’m not fond of sweet sharing an oven with savoury, I have found less transference of flavours than you might expect between main course and pudding. Just remember not to bake your garlic bread at the same time as a victoria sponge. Happy as I am to sauté, steam and fry, taking something out of a hot oven is somehow the very essence of hospitality. Bringing a dish to table, oven gloves in hand, will always be the ultimate gesture of welcome. Smoked haddock, parsley mash I find it useful and heat-efficient to cook enough smoked haddock for two meals at once. The first, a supper for two of smoked haddock and skin-on mash with parsley, then for the following day, a smoked haddock risotto. The fish will keep in fine condition transferred to a bowl in its cooking milk, and kept in the fridge. Of course, you can just make smoked haddock and mash for four if that suits you. Serves 2-4 smoked haddock fillets 1kg milk 500ml water 500ml black peppercorns 8 parsley stalks 6 onion ½, small, peeled cloves 4 For the potatoes potatoes 500g-1kg, white fleshed parsley a small handful, chopped milk from the haddock 100ml butter a little, to serve Preheat the oven to 180C fan/gas mark 6. Check the haddock fillets carefully for bones, removing them where necessary. Lay the fillets in a roasting tin. Mix together the milk and water and season with the peppercorns (no salt), the parsley stalks, the halved, peeled onion and the cloves. Pour over the fish then bake for 30 minutes till the fillets are firm. Test by teasing a large flake of fish from one of the fillets. It should be pearlescent within and easily separated. Remove from the oven and set aside. Scrub the potatoes (you will need 500g if you are serving 2 or 1kg for 4), then cut them in halves or quarters and cook them in a pan of boiling water for 15-20 minutes till just tender. Drain the potatoes then crush with the back of a spoon or a potato masher, breaking the skins as you go. Add the parsley and the 100ml of the warm milk from the haddock, letting the milk soak into the crushed potato. Serve the fish, about 250g per person, in shallow bowls, spooning a little of the cooking liquor over as you go, then adding a knob of butter. Divide the potatoes between the bowls and serve. Smoked haddock risotto with broccoli If you have kept the cooked smoked haddock in the fridge, remove for an hour or so before adding to the rice. The cooking liquor makes a flavoursome addition to the risotto. You will need about 400ml. Serves 4 broccoli florets 250g butter 50g onions 2, small, finely chopped risotto rice (arborio, carnaroli) 250g white wine a small glass hot fish or vegetable stock 450ml cooked smoked haddock 500g, from previous recipe, plus about 400ml of its cooking liquor Bring a pan of water to the boil, add the broccoli florets and cook for 2-3 minutes till bright green and tender to the point of a knife. Drain immediately and set aside. In a saucepan over a moderate heat, melt the butter, stir in the onion and let it soften for about 7-10 minutes. It needs to be soft and translucent. Stir in the rice so it is lightly coated in butter, then pour in the white wine. It will hiss. Stir for a minute or so and let the wine almost evaporate, then add the hot stock, a little at a time, stirring almost continuously. Let each addition almost evaporate, then ladle in more stock. Keep going until all the stock is gone then continue with some of the cooking liquor from the haddock, strained of its peppercorns. Total cooking time will be somewhere around 20 minutes, depending on your rice. When the rice is creamy (I like it with a little bite left but continue cooking until it is as you like it), check the seasoning then add the broccoli and smoked haddock, broken into pieces. Baked gammon with maple and miso A piece of gammon, baked with a glaze of miso and maple syrup, is a splendid thing to bring to the table and worthy of any occasion. Even better, to my mind at least, is to bake a piece large enough to cut and come to again in the following days. I can think of few things I would rather come home to than those leftovers in the fridge, the meat firm and easy to slice thinly, to be eaten with jewel-bright pickles and lashings of potato salad. I buy a large piece – over a kilo in weight – making enough for several meals. Thinly sliced and eaten with mustard and sprigs of watercress, it gives sandwiches of the first order, but also leaves you delicious scraps to add to a pasta sauce (with cream, mustard and spinach) or fried rice. Serves 4, plus leftovers unsmoked gammon 1½kg, boned, rolled and tied bay leaves 3 onion ½ black peppercorns 8 cloves 4 For the glaze maple syrup 125ml white miso 4 tbsp dijon mustard 3 tsp grain mustard 3 tbsp ground chilli ½ tsp Put the gammon, rolled and tied, into a very large, deep saucepan. Add the bay leaves, onion, peppercorns and cloves. Add enough water to just cover the top of the meat – you can expect that to be a good 2 litres. Bring the water to the boil, then skim and discard any froth that rises to the surface. Leave at a gentle simmer, partially covered by a lid, for an hour. Check from time to time that the water isn’t reducing too much – it should always be just covering the meat. Turn the meat over after half an hour. Set the oven at 160C fan/gas mark 4. Carefully transfer the gammon from its cooking liquor and into a roasting tin (the cooking water has done its job, you might as well dispense with it). Remove the string and skin from the gammon but leave all the fat in place. Score the fat in a lattice pattern with a large kitchen knife and place the ham in a roasting tin. Make the paste for the glaze by mixing the maple syrup, miso, mustards and chilli together. Spoon most of it over the meat. Bake for 25-30 minutes, basting the meat once again with the reserved marinade, and any from the tin. It will thicken as the meat cooks. Serve in thin slices. Long-lasting ginger cake with lemon frosting A sticky ginger cake that will keep for several days in an airtight container. It is good as it comes, cut into thick slices, but I like to ice it with clouds of sharp lemon frosting. It is one of those cakes where the texture and flavour gets even better after a day or two, though I have been known to eat it straight from the cooling rack on many an occasion. For the cake self-raising flour 250g ground ginger 2 level tsp mixed spice ½ tsp ground cinnamon ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda 1 tsp salt a pinch golden syrup 200ml butter 125g dark muscovado 125g stem ginger in syrup 60g (3 lumps) eggs 2, large milk 240ml For the icing butter 100g icing sugar 400g cream cheese 320g lemon zest 2 tsp, finely grated lemon juice of ½ small candied orange peel 40g You will need a square cake tin measuring about 22cm. Line the base and sides of the cake tin with baking parchment. Set the oven at 160C fan/gas mark 4. Sift together the flour, ground ginger, mixed spice, cinnamon, bicarbonate of soda and salt into a large mixing bowl. In a small, deep pan over a moderate heat, warm the golden syrup, butter and muscovado sugar until melted. Cut the ginger into small dice and add to the mixture, let it simmer for a minute then remove from the heat. Break the eggs into a mixing bowl then lightly beat in the milk. Pour the melted butter and syrup into the flour and spices, and stir gently but quickly until no flour is visible. Stir in the milk and eggs. Transfer the batter to the tin and slide into the oven. Bake for about 35-40 minutes, until it is lightly puffed and spongy to the touch. Leave to cool in the tin. Once the cake is cooled, you can either finish it with fluffy icing, or wrap it in baking parchment and foil and leave to mature for a couple of days and develop a slightly stickier texture. To make the icing, cream the butter with a wooden spoon (or flat paddle beater on your kitchen mixer) until soft – this is essential, as you really can’t beat icing sugar into rock hard butter. Sift the icing sugar into the butter, mixing the two together till soft and light, now beat in the cream cheese and lemon zest. Add the lemon juice, a little at a time, stopping when you have a pale, lemon flavoured frosting, thick enough to spread over the cake. (If it shows any sign of refusing to stay in place, mix in some more icing sugar.) Cut the candied orange peel into small dice and scatter over the surface of the cake. Cut into 16 pieces. Iced, the cake will keep for several days in a tin in a cool place. Apple and almond cream cheese tarts Crisp tarts with a cargo of apples and almond cream cheese, these require the oven to be on for only a few minutes. Gorgeous eaten when freshly baked, but they work nicely served cold too. For the record I used a single sheet of all-butter puff pastry, rolled out slightly larger. Makes 6 tarts puff pastry sheet 320g apples 4 medium butter 40g caster sugar 2 tbsp, plus a little for dusting egg 1, lightly beaten flaked almonds 3 tbsp For the filling cream cheese 280g caster sugar 2 tbsp ground almonds 75g vanilla extract ½ tsp You will need 2 baking sheets lined with baking parchment. On a board lightly dusted with flour, roll the pastry into a rectangle from which you can cut 6 x 12cm discs (the rectangle will be approximately 40cm x 25cm). Use a small plate or pastry cutter 12cm in diameter to cut 6 discs from the pastry. Place them on the baking sheets and refrigerate. Halve and core the apples. Slice each half into 6 segments. Over a moderate heat, melt the butter in a shallow pan then add the apples. Let them cook for 3-4 minutes till lightly golden, then turn each piece over and let the other side colour too (you may need to do this in two batches). Sprinkle with the sugar and let it caramelise lightly then remove from the heat. Set the oven at 200C fan/gas mark 7. In a medium-sized mixing bowl, briefly stir together the cream cheese, caster sugar, ground almonds and vanilla extract. Remove the pastry from the fridge and divide the almond mixture between the pastry discs, spreading it thickly with the back of a small spoon, leaving a 1cm rim of bare pastry around the edges. Brush the rim of each tart with a little beaten egg. Divide the apples and any sticky juices from the pan between each tart, then scatter with flaked almonds. Dust the surface lightly with caster sugar then bake for about 15 minutes till the pastry is golden brown and the cream cheese is lightly set. Leave to settle for a couple of minutes then place on small plates and eat while the tarts are still warm.