Stevie Parle's Easter menu

There are so many rich traditions to plunder for Easter eating. Traditionally, on Good Friday no meat is eaten; in Spain, Portugal and France there are salt cod recipes which are particularly associated with this day. One of my favourite is brandade de morue. Variants of this are found all over Europe, with different seasonings according to the place and the cook: in Italy, baccalà mantecato is often made with just olive oil, brandada de bacalao in Spain sometimes even contains a little cheese. For me, simple is best, though I do like a bit of potato: it makes the mixture less intense – and also cheaper. Good quality salt cod can be expensive. We don’t really eat that much salt cod in Britain – it’s not part of our culinary tradition, and it requires a bit of organisation before you get around to the actual cooking. You have to soak the salt cod for two days in water, changing the water every 12 hours or so. Dinner the evening before Easter Sunday should be a simple one, and what could be simpler than a roast chicken? My recipe for perfect chicken is as straightforward as can be: you just chuck it in the oven, heavy on the herbs and generous with the spice. Easter Sunday generally calls for lamb, though on my Easter Traditions menu at Dock Kitchen, where I’m exploring many of the more unusual Easter dishes, I’ll be cooking lamb some days and kid on others. Young goats are traditionally eaten at Easter in Italy; they have a wonderful taste, similar to a young lamb but slightly gamier. Easter Monday for me is a day for leftovers, much like Boxing Day. There should be some chicken left from Saturday, which you can tear up into a salad. It’s also lovely to do a little baking on Easter Monday. For some reason I’ve always associated garibaldi biscuits with Easter; making your own is fun and will entertain kids, and the results are perfect for afternoon tea. Stevie Parle’s Dock Kitchen Cookbook: Real Home Cooking from Around the World by Stevie Parle (Quadrille, RRP £25) is available for £16 plus £1.25 p&p from Telegraph Books on 0844 871 1515.