HOP TO IT FOR SOME RABBIT LASAGNE

Pheasant is also pleasant but there are substitutes if they’ve flown the coop

We are big fans of versatility in this column, as regular readers will attest, and dishes don’t come much more flexible than meaty pasta. It is a meal with boundless possibilities in which you can use anything from pork, beef, game or even offal.

It won’t cost an arm and leg, either. Robust, meaty pasta is often better with dried pasta — my favourite being cipriani or filotea, both of which cook in just a couple of minutes and have a really light texture.

You can freeze it, too. I always keep small batches of pre-cooked meaty pasta sauces in the freezer, packed flat in freezer bags, so I can quickly defrost them in water if needs be.

Lasagne is such a comforting dish and the addition of rabbit makes it that bit more luxurious. Though, that said, you can use just about any game for this.

If you do use rabbit, get your butcher to remove all the meat from the carcass and freeze the fillets from the saddle, as they are too good and tender to chop or mince up.

The Schinkennudeln is a recipe from Tom Parker Bowles’ new book, Let’s Eat

Meat, published by Pavilion, which I am very fond of.

The gnocchi recipe calls for the meat from two or three pheasants. That won’t be easy here. They tend to be a fair bit bigger than chickens, but smaller than turkeys, so adjust accordingly. Lean pork could also serve as a substitute.

Most offal can be incorporated into pasta dishes — chicken or duck livers and kidneys from either lamb or ox will give you a really economical pasta dish.

Hedgerow garlic, which is like skinny wild garlic, goes very well in the pappardelle, but won’t be the easiest ingredient to find here. Garlic chives or the long Chinese garlic chives will do.