Traditional Easter lunch

Today being Palm Sunday, it is very tempting for the cook to indulge in the fruits of the palm tree. A banana split for pudding? A coconut cream pie or coconut macaroons, perhaps?

In many parts of the British Isles, Palm Sunday was known as Fig Sunday

In many parts of the British Isles, this was known as Fig Sunday, when fig pies and puddings would be served. One of the nicest recipes I have come across is for fig sly cake. It is easy to make. All you need are two rounds of rich shortcrust pastry.

On one, having left a narrow border, you heap a chopped mixture of figs, walnuts, currants, raisins and sugar, using a large proportion of figs to other ingredients. Moisten the border, cover with the second round of pastry and seal the edges.

Brush with water or milk, sprinkle with sugar and bake for 20 to 25 minutes at 180C, gas mark 4. Perhaps turn it into a Palm Sunday pie, replacing the raisins and currants with fresh banana and chopped stoned dates. It is delicious with vanilla, nutmeg or cinnamon ice cream.

The palm yields fruits suitable for savoury dishes too, not to mention syrups, wine and spirits. An abiding memory I have of a year spent in Nigeria before I went to university is of a party, where we cooked mounds of river crayfish, and squeezed hundreds of limes to add the juice to jugs of punch.

This was made with illicit gin, distilled from palm wine, one of the fiercest drinks I have ever tasted in my life. A much gentler use of palm wine is in the excellent and mild palm vinegar which is used notably in Filipino cooking.

It can sometimes be found in shops which stock southeast Asian ingredients. As can palm sugar, variously known as gur, jaggery and in Latin America, panela.

This has a wonderfully warm, toffee-like flavour and makes a delicious syrup. You can get something of the effect using a mixture of light and dark muscovado sugar. ‘Palm tree food’ is also another name for fusion food, especially the food you might find in places on the cusp of two or three cultures, Florida for example, or Australia.

But in the end, I return to the traditional kitchen, with thoughts of an Easter lunch for next weekend, when a roast rib of beef will serve a tableful of family and friends.

When I cook a large roast at home, I generally do not serve much before it, so that the joint becomes manageable, as it is the only thing I have to concentrate on. Thus it need not be at all terrifying to cook a three-kilo standing rib roast.

That will serve 10 or a dozen, with leftovers for potted beef. Sometimes, just for the two of us, I will cook a single rib roast. The principle is the same – a hot and quick oven, and plenty of resting time for the meat to relax. Not to mention the cook.

I recommend something simple and appetising to begin with, such as anchovy toast or smoked salmon with a glass of chilled fino sherry. Stilton and port will happily follow the beef, and then a dessert that you have made in advance will take the trauma out of Easter lunch, leaving you to concentrate on the roast, its gravy and Yorkshire puddings, if you are making them.

Mashed or jacket potatoes are what I would choose, but others might prefer them roasted round the meat.

One Sunday, I thought I’d cook and serve a large Yorkshire pudding in my new enamelled cast-iron rectangular roaster. Disaster. It remained as flat as a pancake. The secret to a good Yorkshire pudding is the thinnest possible tin, to keep the temperature high.

Since Easter also means chocolate, I have included an easy recipe for Sunday lunch dessert, a perfectly simple and rich chocolate pot. Chocolate is becoming more and more specialised, with individual grand crus being labelled with the region of production. Forthis recipe, use chocolate with 70 per cent or even 85 per cent cocoa solids.