The delights of cookery writer Elisabeth Luard's new Spanish recipe book

Once upon a time, chefs cooked in restaurants and cookery writers wrote recipes. There were exceptions, of course: no one would remember Auguste Escoffier if he hadn't published his epoch-defining Guide Culinaire in 1903. But most chefs wrote (and sometimes still do) for their peers rather than for the general public.

The sphere of domestic cookery was ruled by writers, and their great strength lay in the fact that they led the same kind of life, roughly speaking, as their readers. They brought up children, did the shopping, cooked on ordinary domestic equipment, and wrote about the kind of food that normal people cook in their everyday lives. They practised the art of quotidian cooking, not of the grand occasion.

If there is one contemporary cookery writer who exemplifies the idea of quotidian cooking, it is Elisabeth Luard, who has just won the Glenfiddich Trophy at the 2007 Glenfiddich Food and Drink Awards. The trophy goes to the contestant deemed to have made the greatest overall contribution to public understanding of food and drink. Luard won the Cookery Writer award for her work in The Oldie. She beat nine others, including the Michelin-starred chefs Giorgio Locatelli and Heston Blumenthal - both of whom have a far higher public profile.

But this was no vote for quotidian cooking over restaurant cooking. After the judges (of which I was one) had chosen all their category winners, they wanted to choose someone who'd made a sustained and substantial contribution over many years.And Elisabeth Luard met that criterion better than any other winner. It is gratifying to see acclaim accruing to someone who has spent most of her professional life celebrating the joys - and sometimes the anguish - of ordinary family life.

Elisabeth Luard was the child of career diplomats, and spent much of her childhood in South America. She moved to England to attend boarding school in the 1950s and went on to Eastbourne School of Domestic Economy ("I learnt to be a housemaid and I know how to clean a chimney") for a year. She lived in Paris after that, then attended art school in London while working at Private Eye. ("I never told either of them that I was doing the other thing.") Here she met the writer and journalist Nicholas Luard, whom she later married. She became a painter and illustrator, exhibiting her work, and continues to illustrate her own books. She had also acquired fluency in French and Spanish, which stood her in good stead as a cookery writer.

But her real cooking life began in 1970, when she moved to a remote village in Andalucia with her husband and their four children. Armed with books by Elizabeth David and Jane Grigson, Luard started cooking in earnest to feed her family. Later they lived in France, England and Scotland.

Luard discovered in Spain the themes that have informed her writing since: the challenges of getting food from the earth round one's feet, and the pleasures of transforming raw ingredients into something nourishing. InThe Barricaded Larder (1988), she writes: "... the preparation of food by simple people, people who live close to the earth and are dependent on it for their survival, is in itself a celebration of success."

Those themes have persisted in her writing, which began with European Peasant Cookery (1986). This book ranges widely, from Spain all the way to Finland and Iceland by way of Romania, Turkey, and almost everything in between. Dividing the subject according to ingredients, she looks at how local cooks have used their ingenuity to turn them into good food. The chapter on potatoes is a small masterpiece all on its own. The New York Times food writer Mark Bittman, placing this book on a list of the best cookery books of the 20th century, described its subject as "the cuisine of the necessary."

Luard's next book was The Princess and the Pheasant (1987), a collection of work published originally in The Field. In The Barricaded Larder, her next book, she examined the store cupboard in the same synoptic way she had used in European Peasant Cookery. This book looks at different countries' solutions to an age-old problem: how to make enticing meals from the simple foodstuffs that were always on hand, and which they had to eat because they were cheap (or free) and local. The dishes are heavy on preserves - potted meats and cheeses, conserves and the like - because the people cooking them relied completely on local production and the seasons.

Luard then publishedEuropean Festival Food (1990) before turning her attention to Spain, and Andalucia in particular. She has published several books on the subject, beginning with The Flavours of Andalucia (which won a Glenfiddich Award in 1992). More recently she has turned her attention to Central and South America, though her most recent book is Truffles (2006).

Truffles might seem an unlikely subject for a writer who has specialised in the cooking of ordinary people, but it's entirely consonant with her other work. Though the most expensive of foodstuffs, truffles are still harvested by a gatherer, working alone with a pig or a dog, far removed from the haute-cuisine restaurants where the prized jewels will be served. The connection with the earth is still there, and always will be. Just as it is in the work she does for The Oldie, one of her award-winning articles was about how to collect, prepare, and cook the snails that eat the flowers in your garden.

Luard has also published two novels, Emerald and Marguerite, two autobiographical works, Family Life and Still Life, and written cookery columns for a wide range of newspapers and magazines. I have often wondered when she has time to sleep. But if sleep has sometimes had to give way to work, her loss is our gain. This is a distinguished body of work. We Glenfiddich judges were proud to give it due recognition.

Potaje De Lentejas Con Chorizo Y Morcilla (Lentils With Chorizo And Black Pudding)

A one-pot stew for a cold day, relatively quick to prepare since lentils are the only pulses which don't need soaking. The enrichment and flavouring are whatever comes to hand - a length of ham-bone, chorizo, or a link of black pudding. The family version when we lived in Spain was prepared with our own home-made marjoram-flavoured chorizos, a product of the yearly pig matanza, a somewhat traumatic event in which all our neighbours assisted. For a more sophisticated contrast of flavour and texture, hold back a few slices of chorizo and morcilla to crisp with a handful of croutons.

Serves 6-8

250g/8oz green lentils

1 whole head garlic

Short length Serrano ham bone or 1 tablespoon chopped Serrano scraps

1-2 links, about 125-225g/4-8oz, soft chorizo

1-2 links, about 125-225g/4-8oz, morcilla (black pudding)

1 onion, chopped

2-3 sticks green celery, chopped

1 large tomato, diced

1 dried mild red pepper (preferably nora), de-seeded and torn

1/2 teaspoon crushed peppercorns

1/2 teaspoon crushed coriander seeds

1 bay leaf

2-3 cloves

To finish

1 large potato (about 450g/1lb), peeled and diced

2 handfuls shredded cabbage, chard or tagarninas (thistle rosettes, gathered from wild in spring)

2 tablespoons virgin olive oil

Salt

Remove any tiny stones from lentils. Singe garlic head, holding in gas flame or popping on electric ring to char papery covering. Put all ingredients in large pot with 1 litre (one and three-quarter pints) of water, bring to boil, turn down heat, put lid on loosely and leave to bubble gently for 30 minutes.

Add potato, bring back to boil, turn down to a simmer and leave for another 20 minutes. Lentils need about 40 minutes' cooking, after which they should be quite soft - if old, they take a little longer. Top up with boiling water if necessary. When lentils and potatoes are tender and floury, stir in shredded greens, add olive oil, bubble up again and cook for 5 minutes. Taste and season.

Serve in deep soup-plates, with bread for mopping or (even better) with a scattering of migas - cubes of stale bread - fried in manteca colorado, a deliciously creamy pork lard, coloured and flavoured with pimenton.

Coca D'Espinacs (Spinach Pizzetas)

The coca, a flatbread which may or may not be leavened with yeast and can be any shape you please - round, oval, rectangular or square - is distinguished from the Italian pizza at first glance by the absence of cheese. Traditionalists will tell you the true coca is simply a flour-and-water dough allowed to ferment in the sun, kneaded into a ball, patted out into a disc of a size suitable for a single portion, salted, drizzled with oil and baked in the embers of a goatherder's campfire. The traditional fuel being goat's droppings, you could expect to find little bits of burnt dung adhering to the base. This version is topped with spinach but you can play around with slices of sobrassada, fresh sardines and small, fragrant air-dried vine-tomatoes. Fresh garlic can replace the onions and garlic clove.

Serves 2-4

For the dough

110g/4oz strong bread flour

1 hazelnut-sized piece fresh yeast (or equivalent dried)

4 tablespoons warm water

1 tablespoon olive oil or lard

For the topping

250g/9oz spinach leaves, rinsed, dried and shredded

2 large spring onions, trimmed and finely sliced

1 fine, fat garlic clove, skinned and cut into slivers

1 tablespoon pine-kernels

1 tablespoon raisins, plumped in a little wine (optional)

Olive oil, for drizzling

Sift the flour with a little salt into a warm bowl. Dissolve the yeast in the warm water, then stir in the oil or lard. Sprinkle with a little flour and leave for about 15 minutes in a warm place until frothy. Make a well in the middle of the flour and pour in the yeast mixture. Knead well until the dough forms a ball which leaves the sides of the bowl clean - you may need more or less flour. Form the dough into a smooth ball, drop it back in the bowl, cover with a cloth or clingfilm and leave in a warm place until doubled in size - an hour or two, depending on the weather. Preheat the oven to 230C/450F/gas mark 8. Knead the dough vigorously to distribute the air bubbles. Either cut in quarters and pat out each piece into a disc about the width of your hand, or stretch out the dough ball and pat it out to fill a baking tray - it shouldn't be more than 1cm thick. Spread with a generous layer of the shredded spinach, salt lightly and top with a layer of spring onions. Sprinkle with the chopped garlic, pine kernels and optional raisins, drizzle with a little olive oil and leave for about 10 minutes to rise again. Bake for 12 to 20 minutes, until the crust is puffy and blistered at the edges. Sprinkle with a little more oil before serving. This is good with a bowl of trempo, a refreshing salad of mild white onions and wickedly fragrant tomatoes, on the side.

Caldereta Gallega (Galician Fish Soup)

This takes the name of the pot in which it cooks. The fish varies: candidates are those which have little commercial value.

Serves 4

1.35kg/3lb whole small fish, shellfish (shucked, meat only), crustaceans, cephalopods

4 tablespoons olive oil

2 large onions, finely sliced

1 tablespoon chopped parsley

1 tablespoon pimenton (paprika)

1/2 teaspoon pepper

To finish

1 glass white wine

Freshly grated nutmeg

1 dried chilli, de-seeded and torn

Rinse fish, slice any which are larger than bite-sized - most can go in whole - salt lightly and transfer to a roomy pot with rest of ingredients. Leave everything to marinate for an hour.

Add enough water to submerge everything to a depth of one finger's width. Bring gently to the boil, allow one big "belch", then add the finishing wine, a pinch of nutmeg and chilli. Cover, and simmer gently for 20 minutes. Taste and correct seasoning.

You can serve the soup as it is and allow your guests to negotiate the bones. Or tip into a large sieve set over a bowl to catch the broth and return visible pieces of fish to the broth, discarding bones. Press debris in sieve to extract remaining broth. Reheat to just below boiling and serve poured over slices of dry bread.

Alcachofas Rellenas (Artichokes Stuffed With Spinach)

A sophisticated dish from the market gardens of Cordoba. The raisins and pine-kernels add a Middle-Eastern sweet-and-sourness, while the cooking broth is the dry golden wine of Montilla, one of the wines produced by the solera system, the method used to make sherry.

Serves 4

4 large or 8 small artichokes

For the stuffing

450g/1lb spinach, blanched and finely chopped

2 tablespoons diced serrano ham

2 canned anchovy fillets, crushed

1 tablespoon raisins, soaked to plump

1 tablespoon of toasted pine-kernels

1 egg

For the sauce

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 small carrot, finely chopped

1 small onion, finely chopped

1 stick green celery, finely chopped

1 garlic clove, skinned and chopped

1 thyme sprig

1 bay leaf

2-3 mint sprigs, stripped from the stalks and chopped

To finish

1 glass Montilla wine or dry sherry

Salt and pepper

Trim hard outer leaves from artichokes. Slice off top of inner leaves so that most of what is left is tender enough to eat. With a knife, nick out hairy choke. Combine stuffing ingredients and form mixture into four large or eight small balls. Pop balls into space left by choke.

Warm oil in a pan and fry vegetables and herbs gently until they take on a little colour. Arrange stuffed artichokes in pan and leave to stew gently, lid on, for 20 to 30 minutes. Test for tenderness with point of a knife. When artichokes are nearly ready, pour in wine and same volume of water. Put lid on again and give everything another 10 to 15 minutes. Take out artichokes. Boil juices rapidly to concentrate sauce, taste and season if necessary. Serve artichokes at room temperature, bathed in their sauce.

Potaje De Berros (Watercress Soup With Pork And Beans)

The watercress is balanced by thebeans and potatoes. For a vegetarian version, omit the pork and finish the soup with extra olive oil.

Serves 4-6

125g/4oz dried white beans, soaked overnight

1 thick slice of pork belly or unsmoked streaky bacon

225g/8oz watercress

2 garlic cloves

1 teaspoon salt crystals

450g/1lb potatoes

Salt and pepper

2 tablespoons olive oil

Drain beans and put in a soup-pot with pork or bacon. Add cold water to cover beans to a depth of two fingers - about 1.5 litres (two-and-a-half pints). Bring to boil, skim off any foam, turn down heat and leave to bubble for one to two hours.

Rinse and finely chop watercress, keeping back a few sprigs, crush garlic with salt, and peel and dice potatoes. When beans are tender, remove pork or bacon and reserve. Add potatoes to bean-pot. Bring back to the boil, stir in watercress and garlic crushed with the salt, and cook for another 20 minutes until potatoes are soft. You may need more water. Mash a little to thicken.

Remove and discard skin from pork or bacon, and cut the rest into small cubes. Fry cubes gently in olive oil until crisp. Finish soup with contents of frying pan and reserved sprigs.

Perdices Con Naranjas/Andalucia (Partridges With Oranges)

A dish from Seville's hinterland. If you can't get wild birds, this gives a flavour of the wild to baby poussins.

Serves 4

4 partridges or poussins

4 bitter Seville oranges

4 cloves

75g/3oz serrano ham or pancetta

thyme sprigs

4 tablespoons olive oil

450g/1lb pickling onions/shallots

1 glass dry sherry or manzanilla

Wipe birds and trim feathers. Scrub fruit and cut into chunks. Tuck a chunk stuck with a clove inside each bird, reserving the rest. Roll the ham in bundles and secure with thyme. Fry onions and remaining fruit for five minutes, and push aside. Brown the birds in the hot oil. Remove half the onions and fruit. Add wine and a glass of water, then season. Put ham bundles on birds, turn down heat, cover tightly and simmer for 40-60 minutes until tender. Remove birds and keep warm, along with reserved fruit and onions. Boil remaining juices, mashing fruit until sauce is jammy and thick. Serve each bird on a slice of country bread.

Migas Del Pastor Con Espinacas (Spinach With Shepherd'S Breadcrumbs)

The idea is simple: greens, wilted in their own juices, are eaten with shepherd's migas. Migas are cubes of stale bread, soaked and fried in aromatic pork dripping, another of Spain's many stale-bread dishes. The spices are not essential, but they taste good. Any spinach-like greens, wild or tame, will do. If using chard, save the stalks for another dish.

Serves 4

For the migas

225g/8oz stale sourdough bread (at least 3 days old)

4 tablespoons pork lard or olive oil

4 garlic cloves, skinned

2 tablespoons diced serrano ham scraps or chorizo

1 tablespoon pimenton (Spanish paprika)

1 teaspoon dried oregano, crumbled

1 teaspoon ground cumin

Salt

For the greens

450g/1lb leaf-spinach or chard (leaves only)

4 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon wine vinegar

Prepare the migas. Dice the bread and put it in a bowl. Sprinkle with lightly salted water - don't soak it, use just enough to revive the crumb. Leave for a few hours or overnight.

Prepare the spinach. Rinse, shred and cook the leaves in a covered pan with a little salt and water. This will take about five minutes. Drain it well, toss it over the heat with the oil and finish with a sprinkling of vinegar. Heat the lard or oil in a pan and add the garlic and ham or chorizo. Let the garlic soften and gild, then stir in the bread, pimenton, oregano and cumin. Fry, stirring with a spoon, until crisp and golden. Serve in individual bowls with the greens - together or separately, as you please.

Olla Podrida (Stupendous Bean-Pot)

The Castilian olla podrida is probably the mother of all bean-pots. An olla is a round-bellied and narrow-of-neck earthenware cooking pot, and podrida means "rotten". Since podrido en plata - "stinking with silver " - is a description of the rich, this may be taken as an admiring reference to the dish's luxuriousness rather than a negative comment on its composition.

Serves 4-6

450g/1lb dried white beans

1 pig's trotter, split

1 pig's ear, scrubbed and singed

110g/4oz pork ribs (salted, if possible)

225g/8oz smoked streaky bacon (in a single piece)

225g/8oz chorizo

1 quartered onion, stuck with 2-3 cloves

1-2 large carrots, scraped and cut into chunks

225g/8oz cecina (dried beef-ham) - if unavailable, pastrami or fresh lean beef

225g/8oz morcilla (black pudding)

Salt and pepper

To finish (optional)

Parsley and garlic, finely chopped together

Soak beans overnight in cold, unsalted water. In another bowl, soak trotter, ear and ribs in salted water overnight. Next day, drain, scrubbing pork skin with salt until white and clean. Put beans, pork, bacon and chorizo in apot, add onion, carrots and cover with water, bring to boil, skim off any foam, reduce heat and leave to cook very gently for one to two hours. If you add water, make sure it's boiling. Bring beef-ham (or replacement) to boil in another pan, transfer it to bean-pot when tender. When beans are nearly soft, add morcilla. Ensure everything returns to boil after adding something new. Taste and season - you shouldn't need much salt. Finish, if you like, with parsley and garlic. Serve beans and broth as a first course, meats afterwards. Good with pickled chillies or chilli sauce.

Pastel Vasco Con Guindas (Cream Cake With Sour Cherries)

Serves 6-8

For the shortcake

Handful wild cherries, pitted and soaked in 1 tablespoon pacharan

Beaten egg, for brushing

350g/12oz plain flour

Half a teaspoon of salt

1 whole egg and 2 yolks

200g/7oz caster sugar

200g/7oz butter, chopped small

Juice and zest of 1 lemon

For the custard

225ml/8fl oz creamy milk

Seeds from a short vanilla pod

2 egg yolks

2 tablespoons caster sugar

1 tablespoon plain flour

To finish

Icing sugar

First make the custard - it needs to cool. Put all ingredients in a liquidiser and blend well, or whisk everything together until smooth. Heat gently in a heavy pan, whisking steadily. As soon as it boils, remove, and allow to cool. Fold in cherries and pacharan.

Preheat oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4.

Sift flour with salt. Make a well in middle and drop in rest of shortcake ingredients. Work together by handor drop in a processor and mix to a soft, smooth dough. Cover and leave in a cool place for 30 minutes.

Butter a 20cm (8in) cake-tin and line with baking parchment. Press two thirds of dough into base of tin. Spread custard over dough, leaving an edge as broad as your thumb. Pat out rest of dough to make a lid and place it over the filling. Brush with beaten egg and bake for 50 to 60 minutes, until nicely browned. Dust with icing sugar.

Recipes taken from the new paperback edition of Elisabeth Luard's The Food of Spain & Portugal published by Kyle Cathie, priced at £14.99. To order the book for the special price of £13.50 (p&p free) call Independent Books Direct on 0870-079 8897

The critical view

Sam Clark, chef and proprietor, Moro

"Before Moro opened, Elisabeth's Andalucian cookbook was a very important influence for us, and we used it a lot when we were setting up the restaurant. Since then I've had the pleasure of going on trips to Spain with her, and I've been very impressed by her thirst for knowledge of the authentic way to do things. Watching her extract recipes from unsuspecting Spaniards is very impressive. She's so thorough - she's been living in Andalucia for so long that she's extremely good at communicating and getting the crucial details for any dish."

Caroline Stacey, food writer

"She's one of the few cookery writers who has managed to combine cooking with bringing up a family. Her children grew up in Andalucia, eating the food she wrote about - and she writes about it beautifully. She started doing it at a time when cookery was much drier, but her writing has a real generosity and spirit to it. It's about real people eating real food."

William Sitwell, Editor, 'Waitrose Food Illustrated'

"I think Elisabeth has the rare ability to communicate a passion and knowledge of food to the everyday cook. There are plenty of food obsessives out there, but not many who can communicate that obsession as well as she can. She brings a lifetime of knowledge to the average cook, and her writing uplifts people. You can't help but like her. She's a great figure in the food world that all of us love and admire."

Terry Durack, restaurant critic, The Sunday Review, 'The Independent On Sunday'

"Thank God this award didn't go to a celebrity chef. Love them dearly, but for every celeb chef who has a food column or a book contract, one more food writer is silenced. And we need independent, intelligent food writers like Elisabeth Luard now more than ever. She protects the integrity of the traditional recipes she writes about while at the same time making you pant to eat them. Somehow she manages to keep the sunshine in the flavours she brings back from the Med. We can only hope that this is the start of a Luard revival."

Simon Hopkinson, cook

"I'm a big fan. Elisabeth has a deep understanding of what she writes about and a real love of cooking. She's more of an influence on cooks at home than on restaurants. She's very knowledgeable and passionate about ingredients. She doesn't talk about her ingredients in a grandiose way she just describes them as wonderful to cook with. She doesn't care whether they're expensive or on the menus of the world's three-star restaurants - they should simply be adored."

Angela Hartnett, head chef, The Connaught

"She's carried on the theme that Elizabeth David started, bringing Mediterranean cooking to British kitchens. It's important we continue that, because we're not there yet - if you go to Andalucia, France and Italy you can see we're a long way behind in terms of cooking with authentic, fresh ingredients."

By Tim Walker