Yotam says: “This is a dish from Berlin, where my mother’s father is from, and she used to prepare it when I was growing up. My mother wasn’t very particular about the ingredients – it’s a great user-up for day-old potatoes and any odd bits of cooked meat – but frankfurters are probably the best. Pork sausages aren’t normally found in Jewish homes, but my mother would go out of her way to get some. I guess the German in her was slightly stronger than the Jew. Us kids loved it for the naughtiness, even though we were under strict instructions not to make too much noise about it to our friends, so as not to offend. On a couple of occasions I made this for my own kids, and though there’s no wickedness involved, they still wolfed it down happily.”

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 8 large eggs
• 2 tbsp double cream
• 5g chives, cut into 1cm lengths, plus 1 tbsp extra to garnish
• 40g unsalted butter 
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 large onion, halved and sliced ¼cm thick
• 250g cooked waxy potatoes (such as Charlottes), peeled and cut into roughly 2cm cubes
• 200g frankfurters, sliced at a slight angle ½cm thick
• 1 green pepper, cut into roughly 1½cm cubes
• 80g mozzarella block (low-moisture mozzarella), roughly grated
• salt and black pepper

Method

Beat together the eggs, cream, chives, half a teaspoon of salt and plenty of pepper and set aside.

Put 30g of the butter and all the oil in a large, non-stick sauté pan over a medium-high heat. Once hot, add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 6 minutes, until softened and lightly browned.

Add the potato and frankfurters, half a teaspoon of salt and a good grind of pepper and fry until starting to brown and crisp up, stirring occasionally, another 5 minutes. Stir in the green pepper and cook, for about 7 minutes, or until softened and everything is nicely coloured, shaking the pan often.

Turn the heat down to medium and add the last 10g of butter to the pan, swirling to melt. Pour over the egg mixture and sprinkle with the cheese. Cook for about 3 minutes, using a spatula to gently fold over the mixture in a few places, without completely mixing everything together. Sprinkle over the extra chives and serve directly from the pan.

Israeli-born Yotam Ottolenghi is a chef, restaurateur and food writer, whose books include Plenty and Ottolenghi Test Kitchen

Thomasina says: “The seemingly endless car journeys of my childhood, gazing out of the window at the grey tarmac of motorways, or Welsh hillsides dotted with the occasional turreted castle, bickering with my siblings… If these are still strong in my memory, so, too, are the arrivals at our respective grandparents’ houses. Exclamations of joy, comments on appearances, large whiskies poured and the much-loved dishes we always had on those Friday nights, appearing magically from the depths of the Aga and filling the kitchen with the most delicious smells.

“At one grandmother’s, it was her leek quiche with buttery shortcrust pastry, plumped up with the molten leeks and golden cheese crust; at the other’s, sometimes a bobotie, a dish from her South African childhood, but more often than not her fish pie. In those days, the glimpse of a pink prawn was wonderfully exotic, although the dish itself, I fear, did not always live up to the memory of it, steeped as it was in the pleasure of arrival at that cosy home of tiddlywinks, After Eights and the great outdoors.

“Fast forward 40 years and my parents have taken those familiar recipes, including the marmalades, hot hams and waffles, and imprinted on them their own particular mark. They adore cooking – it is a passion that accelerated when we flew the nest, leaving them the time to experiment. It was about this time that my mother threw down the gauntlet and announced she would no longer cook on Saturday nights. My father met the challenge with his customary mix of feigned amusement and quiet determination. His first Saturday was a day and a half spent in the kitchen grappling with three or four Madhur Jaffrey recipes and the ensuing feast was resplendent, even if it left the kitchen in chaos. His love affair with Heston soon followed and it is from that love that this exquisite fish pie recipe was developed, using my grandmother’s inherited version, my mother’s inherent skill for making simple ingredients sing and my father’s meticulous interpretation of Heston’s perfect mash. My mother does the base of the pie and my father the top, a sinfully delicious mass of silky smooth, mustard-and-Cheddar rich potatoes. 

“The result is a jaw-droppingly mouth-watering, deeply pleasing plate of food that restores far more than basic hunger. It is a dish we unconsciously pray for as we walk through the door, now with a small brood of our own, arms reached out for warm hugs and that tumbler of whisky and soda thrust towards us.”

Serves 8

Ingredients

• 2 medium onions, finely sliced fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• ½ tsp brown sugar extra virgin olive oil
• 1kg mixed white fish, skinned 
• 200g smoked, undyed haddock, skinned
• 400ml full fat milk
• about 50 peeled prawns, preferably MSC
• 3 hard-boiled eggs

For the white sauce:

• 100g butter
• 4 heaped tbsp plain or spelt flour
• 400ml fish stock
• anchovy essence, to taste 
• nutmeg, to taste

For the topping:

• 1kg peeled floury potatoes 
• 200g very cold butter 
• 200ml full fat milk
• 3 free-range egg yolks 
• 100g Cheddar, Lincolnshire Poacher or Comté
• 1 tbsp wholegrain mustard
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 2 tsp good quality horseradish sauce

Method

Put a splash of olive oil in a pan, add the onions, sugar and a little salt, and fry gently until caramelised – about half an hour. Cut the fish into even, bite-size pieces.

Bring the milk to the boil, take off the heat, add the fish and leave to cool. Use that milk to make the white sauce, in the usual manner, melting the butter in a pan until sizzling hot, stirring in the flour for a few minutes to cook out its raw taste, then vigorously beating in the milk and stock, little by little, to create a smooth white sauce. Season generously with salt, pepper, nutmeg and the anchovy essence.

Spread the fish in a single layer over the base of a baking dish. Sprinkle evenly with the prawns, followed by the sliced eggs and lastly the onions. Spread the sauce over the top.

To make the mash, cut the potatoes evenly into ½ in slices and rinse in cold water. Heat plenty of water to 80C, add the spuds and cook at a constant temperature of 70C for 30 minutes. Drain and rinse under running water to cool. Put the spuds back into the saucepan with cold salted water, bring to a boil and simmer until completely tender. Drain, return to the pan and dry over a low heat.

Cube the butter into a bowl and press the spuds through a potato ricer onto the butter. Fold spud and butter together, then push through a fine sieve. If eating immediately, heat the milk to a simmer and fold into the spuds (otherwise mix in the milk cold and keep somewhere cool). Mix in the rest of the ingredients and don’t forget to season.

Spread the potato mix evenly over the white sauce. Bake the dish at 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4 (or in the bottom of the top Aga oven) for 30-40 minutes until puffed up and golden.

Thomasina Miers is a chef and founder of the restaurant chain Wahaca, whose books include Meat-Free Mexican

Ravneet says: “As a family we’ve always enjoyed proper puddings – those absolute classics you get in the supermarket: steamed syrup sponge, treacle tart, trifles, hot chocolate puddings. Nobody in my family baked when I was growing up, so the supermarket was always our friend. My mum tried baking a few times with packet mixes and even the Delia cookbook, but it never quite went to plan. I was a really fussy eater as a child, though my pickiness never applied to sweet things. Often, at school dinner times, I’d forgo the savoury options and head straight for the hot sponge and jam pudding with custard. Eventually, I learnt to bake and started giving it a go myself. I’ll never forget the magic of my first self-saucing pudding: re-reading the recipe over and over again and wondering if pouring hot liquid on top of cake batter was madness. And then, the sense of enjoyment and pleasure when it proved me wrong and came out baked just as it should be, with sauce on the bottom and a delicate sponge on top. The recipe here is a slightly funkier update of the self-saucing idea. The ricotta in the cake batter makes it as light as air, while the date molasses forms the most addictive sauce at the bottom.”

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 40g unsalted butter 
• 40g caster sugar
• 1 medium egg
• 50g self-raising flour 
• 40g ricotta
• pinch of salt
• 30g date molasses 
• 10g cornflour 
• 110ml boiling water
• 10g demerara sugar

Method

Preheat the oven to 200C/180C Fan/Gas 6.

Beat together the butter and sugar until light and creamy. Stir in the egg until well combined, then the flour and salt. Finally, stir in the ricotta. Dollop the mixture into a dish (I use a 13 x 18cm pie dish) and sprinkle demerara sugar on top.

Mix the date molasses with the cornflour and boiling water and pour over the pudding.

Bake in the oven for 17 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the cake part (don’t poke into the sauce layer or you won’t be able to tell if it’s cooked).

Serve with cold pouring cream – obviously.

Ravneet Gill is a pastry chef, baking columnist for The Telegraph and judge on Junior Bake Off

These Delicious Things by Jane Hodson, Lucas Hollweg and Clerkenwell Boy (£25, Harper Collins) is out now