This week’s book was: River Cafe Two Easy by Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers. We had some pescatarians with us for Sunday lunch, so we tried out something which turned out to be a rather fantastic dish; a whole side of salmon grilled on the barbecue. We served it with Roast celeriac, squash & fennel served with potatoes and greens. We had the rather lovely Lemon Apple Cake for dessert – a bit like a lemony, appley clafoutis.
Another interesting recipe this week was Slow Roast Chicken and Vermouth, which we served with Potatoes and some of the leftover vegetables from the grilled salmon. The oven was set to 80C for the chicken, and it was cooked over about four hours. This approach meant the chicken was very moist and was a really lovely take on a simple roast chicken.

Next up was an excellent Tagliatelle with Tomato and Basil. A few years ago, we regularly ate at Cafe Caldessi in Marylebone, a lovely Italian brasserie and restaurant (with a fab cookery school too) and often had their pasta with tomato sauce. This river cafe recipe came as close to that recipe as we’ve tasted. It was a belter.

The final recipe this week was Sea Bass, Tomato and Potato. A brilliant one tray dish. All in all, River Cafe Two Easy had some cracking dishes this week. Next week is the original River Cafe Cookbook – the blue one!