Recipe for chicken liver and quince paté

The secret to a relaxed New Year's Eve, if you're doing the cooking, is the same one that applies to any laid-back dinner party: it's all about the planning. That may sound a bit dull, but even I, the original fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants cook, have to accept it's also true. If you can spend any time at weekends or midweek preparing food in advance, you'll always have treasures to pull out of the fridge or freezer when friends come round and you're short of time.

And no dish is greater proof of this than today's luxurious, silky chicken liver paté. I've taken pots of the stuff on half-term trips to the Isle of Wight, to parties up north and even on holiday to Mull. For something so simple, it's remarkably versatile and can act as both the most delicately sophisticated starter (paired with a chicory salad, say) and as a crowd-pleasing addition to a less formal lunch table. It also freezes well, which means you can make it way in advance; or just make double the amount and freeze half for another get-together at a later date.

Chicken liver and quince paté
Leave out the bacon, if you prefer, but otherwise follow the recipe slavishly. It will keep for up to 10 days, though it's unlikely to last that long. Serve with good bread and pickles or a crisp salad dressed with olive oil and sherry vinegar. Serves six to eight.

500g chicken livers
8 rashers streaky bacon
500g softened butter
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
8 shallots, peeled and finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
1 handful thyme sprigs, leaves stripped
2 fresh bay leaves
2 tbsp brandy
2 tbsp port
1 tbsp quince (or redcurrant) jelly

Cut off and discard any white membranes from the livers. Cut off and discard the bacon rind, and cut the meat into 3cm strips. Gently melt 75g butter in a small saucepan, then skim off any foam and pass through a fine sieve (lined with muslin, ideally) to get rid of all the solids: you now have clarified butter.

Season the livers generously. Put a large, heavy-based frying pan on a high flame until it is smoking hot. Add a small (ie, 10-15g) knob of butter, then sauté the livers in three batches for 40-50 seconds a side, until the outsides are caramelised and coloured, but the insides are still pink. Tip into a food processor, then repeat with the remaining livers, making sure you bring the pan back up to smoking-hot heat and adding a knob of butter between batches.

Once all the livers are cooked, melt another knob of butter in the same pan and fry the bacon strips until the fat has rendered out and the rashers are cooked. Tip the bacon into the food processor, too.

Add another knob of butter to the pan, then gently sauté the shallots on a medium heat for five minutes and season generously. Stir the garlic, thyme and bay leaves into the onions, and fry for a further five minutes, by which time the onions should be soft and translucent. Pour over the brandy, bring up to a simmer, stir to deglaze the pan, then tip the lot into the food processor.

Add the port, jelly and remaining softened butter to the food processor bowl, then blitz until you have a very smooth paté. Check for seasoning and adjust as necessary, then transfer to a bowl. Pour over the clarified butter, then put in the fridge for at least four hours to chill and set. Serve with toast (sourdough is my preference) and a green salad. Alternatively, put the cooled paté in a freezerproof container, cover and freeze: it will keep for months.

And for the rest of the week…
I like to use quince jelly in my paté, because that way I know I'll have some left over for the cheeseboard. I buy lots of streaky bacon at a time from the butcher, too: it keeps well in the fridge for pancakes and maple syrup – they're a must for Christmas holiday brunches round our house – and freezes very well, too. If you have any excess port, use some up in port and orange jellies: they're ethereally light and incredibly good. Finally, raw chicken livers also freeze well, so buy lots and freeze the extras for use in quick, healthy January salads with bitter leaves and a sharp dressing.

Roast lamb with anchovy butter recipe

The recipe
Season a 350g lamb neck fillet with salt and pepper. Heat 2 tbsp of olive oil in a shallow pan over a high heat, then lower in the lamb. Let the meat colour on the underside, then turn and brown the other sides.

Remove the pan from the heat, cover it with a lid and leave it to rest for 20 minutes. Bring a pan of water to the boil. Wash and trim 140g of rainbow chard. When the water is boiling, lower in the chard and cook briefly, for 2 or 3 minutes, then remove the leaves and plunge them into iced water.

In a small pan, melt 70g of butter. Chop 4 anchovy fillets finely, then add them to the butter. Chop 2 tbsp of lemon

thyme leaves, then add them to the butter. Warm the butter, then drain the chard and add it to the pan, turning the leaves over in the anchovy butter. Lift the leaves out on to 2 warm plates. Roll the lamb in any butter that remains in the pan then cut it into 8 thick slices. Serve with the chard, adding a little more salt and pepper should you wish. Enough to serve 2.

The trick
Browned and adequately rested, the lamb here will be rare and perfectly pink. Should you like it a little more well done, then leave it in the pan with the heat lowered a notch or two, for a further 5 minutes. The browning should be both thorough and even. I like mine a little charred here and there as a contrast to the pink interior.

The twist
Rosemary leaves, finely chopped, make a perfect seasoning for the lamb. Include them instead of, or as well as, the thyme. A little garlic, a single, juicy clove sliced as thin as paper, can be lightly cooked in the butter before adding the herbs.

Rachel Roddy’s four bean-based recipes suitable for vegans

Friday nights at Pizzeria Remo run like boisterous clockwork. Whether you've been going there all your life, or it is your first visit, the routine is always the same. You put your name and number on a list, then stand in line until you're called, the disorderly queue spilling from the pavement into the street. If all your group has arrived, you bump your way through the narrow pizzeria – past the wood oven and the three pizzaioli, with bandanas and floury hands, spinning and paddling – to a table that seems far too small, but you all fit in anyway. Once you have all got your legs under the table, you immediately have to dislodge them so the waiter can cover the table with a paper cloth, which you help tame as he dumps on to it a pile of small plates and cutlery, a slip of paper – the menu – and a blue biro with which to mark up your order.

We mark up the same things every week: a marinara and a capricciosa, a small red pizza, water and a litre of house red. But first, fried things on squares of white paper, a battered and fried courgette flower (not as good as they used to be). And, always, a plate of white beans.

I love how Italian bean dishes could include meat and dairy, but so often don't – becoming, like so much good southern Italian food is, incidentally vegan.

At Remo, they are just small white beans – among them a piece of carrot and a ribbed inch of celery, around them some cloudy broth and a halo of olive oil – but they are delicious, at just the right point between floury and creamy: Romans say so' come burro, “like butter”. They come with two great cushiony slices of bread with which to sop up the broth. “I think they cook these beans in the pizza oven,” I tell my friend, another Rachel, before going on about ashes and beans in a flask. The waiter, his allegiance to Lazio emblazoned on both his T-shirt and his forearm, comes over to get plates. “You cook these in the wood oven?” I ask. He looks blank. I try again. “You cook the beans in the pizza oven?” At this he makes a sound, the Roman equivalent of “nah”, and tells me we are not in Tuscany. “We soak them, chuck them in a big pan with carrot and celery and cook them until they are soft like this,” squeezing his fingers. “Buoni, eh?”

Cannellini beans, borlotti beans, kidney, haricot, black-eyed beans ... I am not sure what we would do without them. They are as much the backbone of what we eat as bread, pasta and potatoes are. Italians have a way with beans that puts them firmly at the heart of everyday food, without the shackles of being good for you or good for your pocket – though they are both.

Various varieties of beans work, but mottled borlotti are particularly good for cooking into an almost roasted-chestnut-like softness for this Patience Gray-inspired stew of beans, potato, tomato and herbs. It lends itself to variation though, so try it with different varieties of bean, seasonal vegetables and herbs.

Patience Gray's bean stew (main picture)
For today's recipe, the beans do need soaking (I leave myself a Post-It reminder near the kettle).

1 Cover the beans with fresh water, bring to the boil for 5 minutes, then drain and rinse. If you are using fresh tomatoes, peel them by plunging in boiling water for a minute, then cold water, at which point the skins should peel away. For tinned, drain the juice. Chop the tomatoes roughly.

2 In a large, heavy-based pan over a low heat, fry the onion, garlic and a pinch of salt in the olive oil until soft and fragrant. Add the chopped tomatoes, crushing them against the side of the pan, then simmer for 2 minutes. Roughly chop the parsley and celery leaves, then add to the pan along with the thyme and allow to bubble for a minute more. Add the diced potato, beans and another small pinch of salt, stir then simmer for a minute more, cover with hot water and cook gently for 90 minutes or until the beans and potato are soft. The dish should be soupy, so if at any point the pan looks dry, add more water

3 To serve, sprinkle with a little more chopped parsley, a thread of olive oil, or some chopped red chilli, if you like.

Braised artichoke and butter beans
To serve four: Dice 1 onion, 1 carrot, 1 small leek and 1 stick celery, then in a large, deep pan with a lid, gently fry with a pinch of red chilli flakes in 6 tbsp olive oil over a low flame until soft and fragrant. Meanwhile, trim and quarter 3 globe artichokes, dropping the pieces into a bowl of juice of ½ lemon mixed with water as you go. Once ready, add the artichoke pieces to the pan along with 1 potato, peeled and diced and a pinch of salt. Stir so each piece glistens with oil, add 250ml white wine then reduce to a simmer, cover and leave to braise for 15 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender,stirring occasionally. Stir in 2 drained tinfuls of beans. Cook uncovered for 5 minutes, stirring, until soft and brothy. Season, set aside then gently reheat to serve with bread.

Pasta e ceci – pasta and chickpea soup
To serve four: Gently fry 1 onion and 1 stick celery – both finely diced – in 6 tbsp olive oil until soft and fragrant. Add 1 small, diced potato and stir until each chunk glistens. Add 1 sprig fresh rosemary, 1 tsp tomato puree and a small pinch of chilli flakes, stir and cook for a minute. Add 2 tinfuls of chickpeas, drained and rinsed, along with 1.2 lites of water and a pinch of salt. Bring to the boil, then reduce to a gentle simmer for 20 minutes. When cooked, decant half the soup from the pan, blitz, then return it to the pan. Season to taste, then bring to a steady but moderate boil. Add 120g small dried pasta. Stirring pretty attentively, cook until tender, adding water if necessary. Season and top with olive oil to serve.

White beans and wilted greens
To serve four: Fry 2 chopped garlic cloves, 1 chopped onion, 1 diced celery stalk and a chopped small dried chilli over a low heat for 8 minutes, or until soft and fragrant. Raise the heat and add 700g chopped greens (such as swiss chard, spinach, dandelion greens) a handful at a time, adding the next with a tiny pinch of salt when the previous one has wilted a little. Cover and cook for 5 minutes, or until the greens are soft. Remove the lid, cook for another 2 minutes, add 250g of cooked cannellini beans and a cup of their cooking broth, stir and cook uncovered for about 5 minutes. Serve with garlic-rubbed toast, grilled sausages or white rice. Alternatively use an blitz into a thick soup; top with breadcrumbs.