Adaptability and ease is the order of the day for this tinned fish crostata with chermoula topping and conchiglie with smoked oyster sauce

My cupboards are rarely without a tin or two (or three) of tinned fish. Sardines, anchovies, tuna, smoked oysters: they’re all usually on standby, and I’m crazy about all of them. I find them very reassuring, too, because they mean I’m never more than about two minutes from a meal, whether they’re just spread on toast, or mixed with a little Tabasco and lemon juice, perhaps, or some soured cream and herbs. I also use them to dial up all kinds of other dishes – pizza and pasta, say, delight in tinned fish as much as toast does, as do potato salads – and they can even be the main reason to make a particular dish. Starring role, not standby.

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If the Italians sitting near me looked confused at their pricey plates of sepia stodge, I can’t blame them

I am just a lone woman, eating a pickled egg and asking Poppies to love her. Yet, from my table in the new Portobello Road branch, the love is not reciprocated. Solo dining is one of my specialist subjects, and my advice for lone wolves hoping for a walk-in anywhere is to turn up slightly earlier than the rush, when the staff are likely to be less fractious and dismissive of you turning up to clutter a table.

Poppies starts serving its famous fish and chips from 11am, so I arrived 10 minutes before noon. Once inside, and as usual when I’m on my tod, I scan the room so I’m able to dispute whichever dismal crevice the server might try to stuff me in. By the toilet door? Next to the Epos machine? In this all-new Poppies, the worst seats out of the 64 available are those next to the open front door, where the queue is sorted into takeaway and eat-in diners. Armed with the knowledge that I’m intending to spend about £30 on regular fish with chips and a slice of apple pie, I fight the server’s urge to seat me there. “How about there or there?” I ask, pointing a hand towards a couple of nicer spots, but he seems to have suddenly become acutely myopic.

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Celebrate the freshness of a new season with ricotta gnocchi with raw pea pesto, fennel sausage penne and broccoli orecchiette

Prep 20 min
Cook 1 hr 25 min
Serves 4

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It’s not as complicated as you might think to make this superstar aromatic curry from scratch – here’s a definitive step-by-step guide

For many of us in the west, green curry, or kaeng khiao wan , was our first taste of Thai cuisine – indeed, just 30 years ago, the Irish Sunday Independent felt the need to explain to its readers that Thai curries were “very different” from Chinese or Indian ones. Fresh and fiery, this modern classic is still a wake-up call to the palate today.

Prep 20 min
Cook 20 min
Serves 2 , and easily doubled

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Three joyful dishes for a new year: a mild yellow curry, street food-style fried pork and a simple dish of baked mackerel and rice

Songkran , the Thai New Year on 13 April, is a vibrant and joyous celebration marked by a famous water festival that symbolises the cleansing of the past year’s misfortunes through playful water fights and anointing one’s elders with water at the hottest time of year. Traditional Thai dishes play a central role, reflecting the culinary heritage that unites families and communities at this auspicious time.

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All four Thai flavour sensations – salty, sweet, sour and fragrant – feature in a prawn salad with green mango and peanuts and a pineapple coconut lime loaf for dessert

I still remember the first time I tried Thai green mango salad. It was, and is, a heady combination of flavours: salt, in both crystals and from fish sauce; sugar, preferably unrefined; fresh chilli, lots of it; citrus tang from the lime; and lots of aromatic notes from the herbs. It’s also very simple to bash together at home, as is this embellished version with prawns and peanuts. Just make sure you have a large pestle and mortar, which is the secret to many a great sauce.

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There is two Michelin star-level ingenuity going on here, even when they’re only slinging oysters in the deep-fat fryer or doling out bread

Pearly Queen , a newish seafood restaurant in east London, refers to the majesty of oysters, though there will be readers, older ones especially, who associate the phrase with those pearly queens (and kings) in suits and dresses festooned with mother-of-pearl buttons. They were always on the telly back in the 1970s, on shows such as That’s Life! and The Good Old Days , belting out Knees up Mother Brown and offering a route back to a golden time when all of London loved jellied eels and the pavements were clogged with folk doing the Lambeth Walk . Pearly Queen, the restaurant, instead takes a regal attitude to the likes of Carlingford Lough and Gallagher Atlantics , and serves them with scotch bonnet hot sauce and lime. It also serves crisp buffalo oysters, which involve dredging Carlingford number twos in panko breadcrumbs, deep-frying them at 190C, then drizzling them with a sauce made with sriracha and clarified butter, and finishing the whole, crisp, jammy, hot, salty mess with ranch dressing.

Pearly Queen isn’t slap-bang in the middle of Shoreditch’s head-thumping epicentre, but is instead, and rather wisely, down the quieter end, between Aldgate and Spitalfields, and opposite the fantastic pulled noodle spot Xian Biang Biang Noodles and the ever-reliable Sunday lunch spot The Culpeper . Just like chef Tom Brown’s first solo restaurant, Cornerstone , his new place isn’t terribly formal, even if the food is certainly serious. There are no strings of pearls or cummerbunds required, but you’ll definitely need the capacity to eat Cornish brill poached in squid stock and butter, with a potato velouté and white asparagus and dotted with squid ink, or cuttlefish lasagne topped with a 36-month aged parmesan-enriched bechamel.

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Crisp hake fillets with clams basted in a power-packed sauce of chorizo and dry sherry – let everyone dig in straight from the pan

Today’s recipe epitomises the vibrant spirit and rustic charm of so much Spanish cooking. I’ve always cherished the incredible power that food has to unite people, and to infuse gatherings with warmth and joy. This dish, a big favourite of my mother’s, uses succulent hake fillets and hearty clams, all bathed in a flavourful chorizo and sherry sauce. It’s essentially a tribute to Spain’s rich coastal traditions, but it also blends the earthiness of the land with the freshness of the sea, creating a glorious chorus of flavours. Perfect for sharing, it captures Spanish conviviality and the simple pleasures of a meal cooked with love.

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Whether small, waxy new potatoes in a salad or big floury spuds best for baking, you can always turn to spuds for satisfaction

When my garden was more of an allotment, there was nothing I enjoyed growing more than potatoes. The planting and earthing-up, the first green leaves poking through the soil and the mauve and white flowers like tiny stars were pleasures enough; the real business started when I plunged my garden fork into the earth and dug them up.

I no longer grow them – this garden is tiny – but I will pounce on any good-looking tattie when I’m shopping. Potatoes, pasta and polenta get me through the winter and those first chilly days of spring. Waxy fleshed or floury, “new” or as big as a brick, I always come home with a few potatoes, to bake, steam or sauté till their edges are crisp and golden.

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