Years ago I had a job that took me to Milan in Italy several times a year. On a cold and miserable fall day, jet lagged, soggy and in need of sustenance, I stumbled into a small restaurant in a little street close to the Duomo di Milano. Once fortified with a glass of red I asked the elderly waiter to bring me whatever he’d like to eat on a day like this. What arrived ten minutes later has turned into one of my favourite recipes of all times, rigatoni with winter squash.

Here’s how to get the taste of a fall day in Italy into your house:

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds peeled and cubed butternut squash
• Good olive oil
• 4 large cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 large red onion, peeled and thinly sliced
• Red pepper flakes, to taste
• Thyme
• Chopped Walnuts, about a cup
• Rigatoni pasta, enough for four to six people

In a deep skillet or pan, heat the olive oil. Add onion, a three fingered pinch of salt, and the red pepper flakes, then cook over low to medium heat heat, stirring occasionally, until the onion starts to caramelize. This can take up to 30 minutes. Put your heat up to medium, add the cubed squash, season with a little more salt and your thyme, then cook until the edges of the squash start developing some colour. This should take no longer than five minutes. Cover the pot and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, until the squash is tender but not mushy, another five to ten minutes.

In the meantime, cook and drain your pasta, keeping back a little of the water. When the squash is ready, add the cooked pasta and about a 1/2 cup of the pasta water. Give it all a good but gentle stir. Serve sprinkled with chopped walnuts and grated parmesan.

Since that day in Milan, I’ve prepared pumpkin and squashes like this many times, but not always served them with pasta. With the addition of a little smoked paprika and served with a poached egg on top, heavenly with a duck egg, this turns into a spectacular brunch dish. Cold, it livens up a simple salad but goes equally well with some cold ham and home made bread. Add some good stock and puree and you’ve got a delicious soup.

Entire families move out to their clapboard cottages, many painted a deep rich red, during the summer months; the breadwinners either joining them on weekends or even commuting back to the city by boat every morning. Old fashioned mailboats, a few still driven by steam, deliver provisions, meandering lazily from island to island, some of which are so small that they play host to just a single windswept structure.

This particular evening, the midsummer sun still high in the sky, my host came walking down from the cottage brandishing a shovel. “Let’s get dinner”, he said, walking towards the tiny sandy beach.

This of course set my mind racing. Were we about to dig out some mythical Norse root vegetables or was the plan to brain a small seal, then roast the flippers? The reality turned out to be somewhere in the middle. We walked up to a point just above the high tide mark and marked with a piece of driftwood stuck in the sand, then started digging down.

When my friend had dug down about two feet into the cool, damp ground, he reached into the hole and removed a sandy parcel about the size of a shoebox, tightly wrapped in old sacking.

Unwrapping it revealed a glass container containing something red swimming in a mysterious liquid, wrapped into a layer of plastic film. “Gravad Lax”, he nodded, Swedish for “Buried Salmon”. He had cured, wrapped and buried the fish three days earlier, in preparation for this evening’s dinner.

Back in the small cottage kitchen we unwrapped the fish, scraped off a thick layer of chopped dill and gave it a quick rinse under cold water before drying it with a kitchen towel. Later that night it was served in thin slices on black bread, with wedges of lemon and a dollop of hovmästarsås, a simple dill and mustard sauce.

It was utterly delicious, the fresh tasting fish with a slight tang of dill and lemon, accompanied by contraband German beer and Polish vodka, flavoured with more dill.

The good news is that this recipe is incredibly easy to recreate, without the need for a sandy beach or a tall Swede. A glass or porcelain container, some plastic film and a fridge is all you need. Here’s how to do it:

• 1 2-3 pound salmon fillet, skin on, bones removed. Make sure to get a nice fat piece cut from the middle.
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 3/4 cup salt
• dill, a large bunch.

Optional:
A swig of gin
Some juniper berries, bruised in a mortar.

You will also need a non-reactive container, ideally glass or porcelain large enough to hold the fish in one piece.

1. Start by mixing the cure. Add the juniper berries if using them.
2. Spread half the cure into your container.
3. Put the fish on top, skin side down.
4. Spread the remainder of the cure over the top of the fish. It should be quite thick.
5. Spread the dill on top of everything, about a finger’s width thick. This uses a lot of dill, don’t be shy.
6. Pour in your gin, if using.
7. Wrap everything tightly into plastic film. The cure will remove water from the fish, creating a brine.
8. Put into the fridge, weigh down with a couple of cans of beans or tomatoes and leave for a minimum of 48 hours but not for longer than three days.
9. Unwrap, wash under cold water and pat dry.
10. Serve, sliced thinly, on pumpernickel bread with chopped capers and a spritz of lemon juice.

Leftovers keep in the fridge for up to three weeks, so get creative. Scrambled eggs, boiled potatoes, latkes all make perfect bedfellows with gravlax.

Add a dash of red wine vinegar, a three fingered pinch of brown sugar, then cover and let come together on a low heat for about 30 minutes. The natural flavour profile of a ripe tomato is sweet-sour, so by adding both sugar and vinegar to the dish we help the tomatoes to taste more like themselves.

Serve with the gnocchi and some good parmesan.

Served with roasted asparagus, topped with shavings of parmesan.

Thankfully, today was also one of the first cool days in a while, cool enough to make a velvety smooth soup from the vegetables and roast the tomatoes in a house with no AC.

There’s a simple trick to getting maximum flavor out of a root vegetable or squash soup. Clean, peel and chop the vegetables into pieces not bigger than your thumb. Heat a knob of butter and a splash of olive oil in a heavy bottomed pan, ideally you use cast iron here, on a medium heat. Add the vegetables, swirl them to coat them in the hot fat, add a three fingered pinch of kosher salt, cover and lower the heat all the way down. Walk away.

If your heat is low enough, and your pot heavy, the vegetables will start gently roasting in their own juices. At no time should they brown or stick to the bottom of the pan, if that happens you’re using too much heat. Leave them, stirring occasionally, for between 20 and 30 minutes, by which time the flavours will have become beautifully concentrated.

Now add the stock of your choice. I used a light home made chicken stock from the freezer, and bring to a gentle simmer. A vegetable stock will work equally well here, as will some light miso, diluted to taste in hot water. Leave everything for another 20 minutes, then, when the vegetables are about to fall apart, puree in a blender. Adjust the seasoning to your taste, then finish with a generous dose of nutmeg for heaven in a bowl.

If you feel like it, omit the nutmeg and instead add a pinch of cumin, coriander and turmeric to the hot butter before adding the carrots and pumpkin for a gently curried version.

Come fall, half a stick of cinnamon will add warmth and depth. Or stir in a spoonful of Greek yoghurt and finish with a sprinkling of chopped chives for a fresher, more summery version.

For the roasted tomatoes, cut them in half and arrange on a heavy roasting tin, cut side up. Drizzle with olive oil, then sprinkle with kosher salt, smoked paprika and sumac. Both of the latter can be bought at the House of Spice in Kensington Market.

Get your oven to 450º and roast the tomatoes for between 30 and 45 minutes, until the skin starts blistering and the sweet smell of roasted tomatoes fills the house. Awesome.

Sprinkle a three fingered pinch of brown sugar over everything, a splash of good balsamic vinegar, then give it a good stir with a wooden spoon.

The resulting sauce works beautifully served with a robust pasta, but is also great cold on a good baguette with a chunk of strong cheese and a cold beer.

For a non vegetarian version, cube, fry and add some good cold smoked bacon, for some extra pizzazz throw in some chili flakes. The possibilities are endless.

On a hot day, you can also roast tomatoes on the BBQ, as shown in the quick and dirty iPhone video below.

Boiled cabbage, that much hated staple of school lunches long past, doled out by chain smoking dinner ladies to lines of students too hungry to care and too browbeaten to protest. Overcooked cabbage, the smell of a thousand tenements, cheaper than potatoes and just as much a staple of the poor. But just like last week’s unlikely hero, the herring, cabbage can be delicious and used in a multitude of unexpected of ways.

Fermented, it turns into sweet acidic sauerkraut in the wooded hills of Alsace and mouth searing kimchi in the humid lowlands of Korea. Braised, it takes to coconut milk, white wine or beer with equal enthusiasm. Raw, it turns into Kohlsalad, or coleslaw, that most refreshing of summer sustenance, which has become a staple of southern soul food. Cabbage can help heal stomach ulcers and cabbage juice is a powerful anti-fungal agent. A truly multi-talented vegetable if ever there was one.

This time of year, cabbages are everywhere, and seriously cheap. Stacked in crates at farmer’s markets and over flowing from the tables of corner stores, now is the time to indulge yourself.

For a simple weekday supper, on an evening where the first hint of a suggestion of fall is in the air, shred half a white cabbage as thin as you can get it, then stir fry it with a generous dollop of fiery Korean chili paste, a clove of garlic and a thumb of ginger, both minced. Finish with a spritz of rice vinegar and a three finger pinch of dark brown sugar. Remove from the pan, add fresh chili paste and stir fry the thinly sliced protein of your choice – pork, beef, chicken, prawns or tofu. Serve as an evening meal, with a side of steamed rice and sprinkled with sesame seeds.

But while the days are still hot, take advantage of the fact that cabbage loves few ingredients better than citrus, which lifts it into the realm of simple sophistication. For a wonderfully fresh summer salad, shred a napa cabbage, add slices of grapefruit and dress it all up with a splash of walnut oil and a generous smattering of chopped pecans. Earthy, acidic and sweet, all on one plate.

To slice cabbage, a mandolin comes in handy. But don’t think you need a $300 William and Sanoma monster you’ll never use again. Next time you’ll pass Nella Cucina on Bathhurst or find yourself in Kensington Market, pick up on of these little Japanese models. They’ll set you back between $25.00 and $40.00 (depending on where you’ll buy one) and they’ll be the last, and best, mandolin you’ll ever need.

Scarily sharp, use the included hand-guard, they slice a quarter of cabbage in seconds and process carrots or beets into matchsticks while they’re at it. You’ll see stacks of them in most restaurant kitchens, which is always a good signpost if you’re looking for a tool that works rather than impresses the neighbours.

I am talking of course, about the humble herring, a fish that despite it’s historical importance and beautiful flavour rarely gets the culinary love it so richly deserves. Skinny, fatty and full of small bones the herring tends to frighten the uninitiated, but reward those who take the time to get to know it with a fresh, clean flavour that lends itself to pickling, smoking and preserving like few other fish do. Also, if you care about treating the bounty from our seas responsibly, and you should, then the herring is an excellent and sustainable choice.

For me growing up in a German household that had both Jewish and Catholic roots, (I know everything about guilt there is to know), the herring, and specifically the pickled herring was a Friday staple. Served with sour creme, sliced onions and young potatoes boiled in their skin, this simple supper is a favourite of mine to this day, especially during the sticky dog days of summer. Sour creme has a delicious tang, a sharp, acidic nip in the back of your throat that goes well with the sweet notes of the pickled fish. A diced apple adds more acidity and sweetness and some chopped walnuts bring an undercurrent of earthiness to the table. The overall effect is one of richness, but with clean, sharp undertones.

Here’s what you need:

Rollmops, which delivers the clever mixture of sweet and acidic that we’re after. If you’re finding yourself in Roncesvalles, pick them up fresh from one of the Polish delis, but a jar from the supermarket will do just fine.

• Rollmops fillets 300g
• Cucumber 250g
• One tart green apple
• One small red onion
• A small stalk of dill
• White-wine vinegar or a little of the pickling liquid
• Sour cream 200g
• A small handful of roughly chopped walnuts

Peel the cucumber and slice it thinly-I use a small mandolin for this. Transfer the slices in a colander and scatter with some salt. Set the colander over the sink and leave for an hour. The salt will draw out the water from the cucumber and crisp it up.

Give the cucumber a quick rinse, pat it dry with kitchen paper and
transfer to a mixing bowl. Peel the onion and thinly slice half of it, finely chopping the remainder. Peel and dice the apple, add to the bowl.

Chop the dill fronds and stalks and toss most of them with the cucumber, the sliced and chopped onion followed by 2 tablespoons of the vinegar or pickling liquid.

Pat the herring dry, then slice it into short 1cm-wide strips. Add to the bowl, then the walnuts. Mix the soured cream with everything, season with black pepper and serve.

The salad improves by being made the day before you eat it. Let it rest overnight in the fridge and the flavours will have time to mingle and marry. When serving, scatter with the remaining dill and add some paper-fine sliced red onion. I promise, you’ll never ignore the humble herring again.