He eventually became assistant manager at Small’s before moving in 1974 to the Old Compton Wine Bar, where he took over as head chef when the previous one quit. With no professional training, he kept the menu simple and it was here that he began his practice of sourcing ingredients from the small shops and produce markets in Soho. Cooking: Put about 3 tablespoons of olive oil into a large heavy pan, set over a medium heat and cook the onions, stirring. They must not colour. As they soften and go translucent, add the garlic and cook for another 2 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the contents of the pan to a colander placed over a bowl.

To make the zabaglione: in a large bowl, beat the eggs with the sugar until the mixture is stiff. Then, continuing to beat, pour in the hot melted butter in a thin stream, followed by the vanilla essence and Calvados. Serving: Scoop into balls with a spoon or ice- cream scoop and serve in the chilled glasses. I once went out after dark to get some mint from the garden of a friend's restaurant to garnish a sorbet. The portion was rapidly returned with the message that, no matter how authentic, the diner would prefer his sorbet without a caterpillar. So, as a general rule, do not decorate this sorbet with mint leaves.

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Alastair Little, who has died aged 72, was a leading figure in a new movement in London restaurants in the 1980s known as Modern British cooking, whereby intelligent, educated chefs employed French techniques but looked elsewhere for ideas and inspiration and featured simple, seasonal ingredients. By 2002, however, he had left the restaurant partnership. For most of the previous decade he had spent his summers running a cookery school near Orvieto in Umbria where, in 1995, he met Sharon Jacob, an Australian marketing manager whom he married in 2000. Preparation: First, the crumble topping: sift the flour into a bowl with the brown sugar and almonds and combine them using your fingers. Add the butter and continue to work for several minutes until the ingredients are thoroughly blended in and the mixture is very crumbly. Leave to rest for about 20 minutes. Simply printing recipes different in tone to those that had characterised food for a generation however would not, in all likelihood, have garnered Alastair Little the critical acclaim that he received though. This book is self-consciously polemical. Beginning by telling you what you should have in a kitchen (an unusual move for a chef not known from TV appearances) he preaches simplicity and seasonality in cooking. It is these points that people most probably mean when referring to the book's influence. The last of them was developed to a greater degree by another Glenfiddich Award winner: the thoroughly British The River Cottage Year. many people the word zabaglione conjures up images of the kind of trattoria where the host greets you with overpowering bonhomie. You sit at 'your' table (inevitably 'the best in the house', just next to the kitchen service doors) and grimly contemplate the cold antipasto - with its obligatory leaden aubergine - with growing foreboding. Forget all that. Here the zabaglione is cooked into a tart of apple and prunes held in a sweet crisp crust. I got the recipe from Rowley Leigh. He, in turn, had it from Yves Thuries, the French patissier.

A Provencal vegetable stew best served at room temperature, ratatouille should be a very basic preparation and not over-refined. Bad variations (vegetables diced too small, too much tomato, using dried herbs and so on) often debase one of the finest possible combinations of Mediterranean flavours.

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Cooking: Scatter the garlic in the prepared gratin dish. Then arrange the drained potatoes on top, cut sides upwards. Pour over the olive oil and dot with the butter. Season with salt and pepper.

Fusion food does make its mark in this book but it would be unfair to characterise the whole work as that; some dishes may be fusion inspired but others owe clear allegiance to a particular national culinary tradition. The vast array of those national culinary traditions does point in the same direction though: British, Italian, French, Chinese, Japanese, Thai and Morrocan flavours are all here in this publication. Make the anchovy sauce: split the chilli and deseed it, then dice it microscopically. Put the olive oil into the small pan with the diced chilli and anchovies and heat, stirring occasionally. Simmer for a few minutes, then add the breadcrumbs off the heat. Stir from time to time while the sauce is cooling, or it will set like cement. Taste, adding a squeeze of lemon juice if you find it too rich. The only problem with lemon juice is that it can discolour the broccoli. Preparation: Make the compote the day before: use a potato peeler to scrape off the zest from the lemon. The precise type of greens is not important, though dark-green and slightly bitter leaves such as pak choi or Brussels sprout tops are preferable to sweeter and lighter vegetables. Chinese cabbage is not suitable. Cantonese chefs would cook this dish in a wok, but I prefer to use a large and heavy frying pan. This is also an excellent method for cooking spinach or broccoli.Now the moment of truth: cover the top of the pan with your serving plate. Holding the pan by the handle (wearing an oven glove because it will still be hot), invert so that the pastry base is now against the surface of the plate, with the rim outside the circumference of the pan. Sit the plate on the table, rap the bottom of the pan smartly with a suitable implement and lift away from the tart.