Food: The ultimate beans on toast and other tales from the River Cafe

THE MENU

Sourdough bruschetta with borlotti beans

Green summer soup with pancetta, spinach and peas

Pan-roasted red mullet with olives, capers and tomatoes

Raspberry sorbet

Photographs by Oscar Paisley

As I sat on a terrace overlooking the river with the sun blazing down, a chilled citron presse in hand and a sourdough bruschetta with borlotti beans on the way, I found it hard to believe this wasn't Italy. When May puts out wonderful weather, nowhere calls louder than a table outside the River Cafe overlooking the Thames.

Rose Gray was just back from a gastro-glam publicity tour of the States with her partner, Ruthie Rogers, which had included celebrity dinners and endless TV and radio slots, yet she was supremely relaxed.

Over here, 400,000 aspirational Brits have already bought the two River Cafe cookbooks. We want to be told how to cook ribollita, followed by roasted sea bass and chocolate nemesis. But, better still, we would like to be shown how. Hence a new six-part series, The Italian Kitchen, presented by Rogers and Gray, on Channel 4.

I am normally no great fan of TV cookery shows, but this one is different, not least because it is that great rarity, a cookery programme solely about food. "We're chefs and restaurateurs, not TV chefs," says Gray. "We have a slightly different way of looking at cooking from, say, Ainsley Harriott, but the main thing is that the way we look at food comes across in the programme."

This was clear from watching Gray cooking in the kitchen at the restaurant. A lemon is not just a lemon, it is organic and thick-skinned, rich with essential oils and not over juicy, it is cut open and smelt. The raspberries are not judged on packaging or colour, but tasted, and if they fail to thrill, are then rejected. The fattest fresh borlotti beans have not lost their appeal. "I love borlotti beans, they're exceptional," she says, "nothing else has that soft, nutty flavour."

One criticism often levelled against the River Cafe is that it isn't real Italian food, which is unfair, given that they don't claim that it is. "It's Anglicised," says Gray. "But nearly everything we cook has originated in something we've eaten in Italy. We have a lot of connections through friends and people whose wine we sell, and that's really where we develop anything that's new." Hence the chickpeas that arrive on your plate at the River Cafe tasting like no chickpeas you have ever cooked. These were inspired by a dish of chickpeas with fried chillies, rosemary and vongole that Gray and Rogers ate in Puglia. "The chickpeas were just so incredible," says Gray. "I asked the woman how she cooked them and she said they were the new-season chickpeas." She explained how she soaked them, adding, perhaps, a potato to the cooking water. "We come straight back to the restaurant and say, this is how you cook chickpeas. We'll look for a new supplier and take it from there."

This approach to ingredients means that to achieve good results with their recipes you need to be a dedicated shopper. If someone had time to shop only at a supermarket, I would steer them away from using the River Cafe's cookbooks. Rogers and Gray don't hang out in supermarkets. But they do cook at home and this is where most of their dishes are born. Gray trawls Middle Eastern shops for artichokes, courgettes, rocket, fresh herbs and spinach. She might buy from Harvey Nichols Fifth Floor, Soho's Camisa or Sally Clarke's shop in Kensington.

If you live in Blackpool, you probably find all this annoying, but Gray also has a daughter who lives in Wales and says: "Shopping shouldn't be exclusive. When I'm in Wales, I just go round all the shops until I find the right tomatoes. If I lived in the country at this time of year I'd go to the pick-your-own farms."

Gray says what she misses most when cooking at home is being able to delegate, so she gets her guests to help. "I get someone to chop the parsley and someone to wash the fish." I like this idea. In future, instead of issuing invitations for 8.30pm for 9pm, they'll be 6.30pm for 9.30pm. There again, an invitation to pod peas while chatting to Rose Gray in her kitchen is one of the more sought-after invitations in a cook's social calender. The average Brit can only try to cook like Rose Gray and Ruthie Rogers. But I've got the cookbooks and I'll be watching the programme.

Sourdough bruschetta with borlotti beans, serves 6

Rose Gray is passionate about borlotti beans. This is really beans on toast. The method of cooking the beans has something in common with the Italian tradition of cooking them on top of the stove inside empty fiaschi (bottles). They are dropped one by one through the narrow bottle neck, with some olive oil, sage, garlic and water. The bottle is plugged with straw and placed over a very low heat, and as the beans cook they absorb the water and the fragrance of the herbs and garlic, and pop out lightly coated with oil.

For the beans

250g dried borlotti beans, soaked overnight, or 1.5kg fresh borlotti beans (500g podded weight)

1 head of garlic

14 head of celery, and 1 spear with leaves

1 very ripe tomato (approx 125g)

150ml extra virgin olive oil

Maldon sea salt, coarsely ground black pepper

For the bruschetta

6 slices 1.5cm-thick sourdough or Pugliese bread

2 garlic cloves, peeled

6 vine tomatoes (approx 125g each)

3 dried red chillies

2 teaspoons dried wild oregano

extra virgin olive oil

4 tbsp fresh marjoram

Heat the oven to 200C fan oven/ 220C or 425F electric oven/Gas 7. Pick over the beans to remove any that are broken or pale green. Place the remainder in a shallow porcelain or other ovenproof dish. In the centre of these put the whole head of garlic, the celery and the whole tomato. Just cover with water to 1cm. Pour a slick of olive oil over the surface so it is almost entirely covered. Lay a piece of foil over the top of the dish and pierce it in one place to allow the steam to escape. Bake for 1 hour if the beans are fresh, and for 112 hours if they are dried, until they have soaked up the water and oil and become creamy and tender. Taste the beans to check them, then remove the garlic, tomato and celery and season them generously with salt and pepper.

Toast the bread on both sides using a ridged griddle if you have one - lightly rub a clove of garlic over the surface, just wiping it across once or twice. Break open a tomato and squeeze the flesh from the skin, squashing it on to the toast so it is moistened and lightly coated, discarding the core. Season the bruschetta, break a little chilli over, lightly sprinkle with dried oregano and generously pour over your very best olive oil. Spoon some of the warm beans and their juices over part of each bruschetta and scatter over plenty of fresh marjoram.

Fresh borlotti beans Now and again you come across beautiful marbled mauve pods of borlotti beans, but they are rather more common in France and Italy. Wherever you are, snap them up. Their creamy texture and nutty flavour is exceptional. Failing this, the dried ones are fine.

Tomatoes The tomatoes for the bruschetta need to be really ripe, juicy and flavourful; rock-hard specimens simply won't do.

Dried wild oregano This is the kind of thing that you probably have sitting around the cupboard after holidaying abroad. If not, look out for it sold on the branch, otherwise simply resort to the standard stuff.

Green summer soup with pancetta, spinach and peas, serves 6

2 litres chicken stock, seasoned with Maldon sea salt and coarsely ground black pepper

50g unsalted butter

2 tbsp olive oil

1 red onion, peeled and finely chopped

14 heart of celery, finely chopped

80g smoked pancetta, cut into matchsticks

1 clove garlic, peeled and finely chopped

300g carnaroli or vialone nano risotto rice

1kg fresh peas, podded (350g podded weight), or 500g frozen petit pois

700g large-leaf spinach, tough stalks removed

1 large bunch mint (8-9 tbsp off the stalk)

100g parmigiano reggiano or grana padano

Heat the stock in a pan and check the seasoning. Melt the butter and oil in a large saucepan. Add the onion and celery and sweat together for about 5 minutes until the onion begins to turn golden. Add the pancetta and garlic and cook for a couple of minutes until the pancetta releases its flavour into the vegetables. Then add the rice and stir for a further minute until each grain is coated. Once the rice is translucent, start to add the hot stock, a couple of ladles at a time, waiting for the rice to absorb the liquid before adding any more. After about 20 minutes, leaving the rice al dente, remove the pan from the heat.

In the meantime, bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and once the risotto is cooked, add the peas, then add all the spinach and mint. Cover with a lid, blanch for 112 minutes then immediately drain. Place half the vegetables in a food processor with a couple of ladles of stock, and "pulse chop" three or four times to break them up without pureeing them. Stir these back into the risotto. Setting a few peas aside, coarsely chop the rest of the vegetables by hand on a board. Add all the vegetables to the risotto with a few ladles of stock. The finished dish should be the consistency of a soupy risotto.

Adjust the seasoning, ladle into flat soup plates and grate a little parmesan over each serving.

Pan-roasted red mullet with olives, capers and tomatoes, serves 2

2 x 250-275g red mullet, cleaned but with liver left in

Maldon sea salt, coarsely ground black pepper

1 lemon, thinly sliced

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, plus a little extra

6 very ripe vine cherry tomatoes

50g capers, rinsed

100g black olives, pitted

1 garlic clove, peeled and finely chopped

3 level tbsp marjoram leaves

3 fl oz dry white wine

Heat the oven to 240C fan oven/ 250C electric oven/or on its highest setting. Season the mullet cavity with salt and pepper and place two to three lemon slices inside each mullet. Now season the outside of the fish. Heat an iron frying-pan with an ovenproof handle, pour in the oil, add the fish and sear the base for a minute or so (do not turn over), then cook in the oven for 8-10 minutes. While the fish is cooking, break open the cherry tomatoes using your hands, and squeeze them to remove some of the juice.

Remove the pan from the oven and return it to the hob. Scatter the capers, black olives, cherry tomatoes and garlic into the pan and stir them around. At the very last minute, scatter over the marjoram, and, using a spatula, scrape the sauce around and carefully loosen the fish from the base. You are not actually cooking the sauce at this point, so all this should happen very quickly. Add a drizzle of oil, splash over the white wine and, moments later, remove from the heat and serve with the juices spooned over the mullet, with the reserved lemon slices.

Red Mullet There is a trend for filleting mullet, but it is a hassle to remove all those pin-bones with a pair of tweezers, and you lose a great deal of flavour. The livers are located just beneath the gills. If gutting the fish yourself, just pull out the belly and leave the livers in place.

Capers Rogers prefers salted capers for this, which have more flavour. To rid them of salt, run them under the tap for about a minute and then taste them, and if they need it, give them a bit longer. Never leave them to soak in water, otherwise the salt travels back into the caper. Once you have washed them, you can add a splash of vinegar to bring out their flavour.

Olives Ideally use the tiny Nicoise olives. The River Cafe prefers to buy these in brine and then to place them in oil. If you have ever tried to pit a Nicoise olive, you will know that they slip through an olive pitter. The trick is to crush the olive gently on a board using a small espresso glass or cup, this will split it open and the stone should pop out.

Raspberry sorbet, serves 6

Richard Rogers's mother, Dada Rogers, left Italy and came to England in about 1938. She developed this sorbet, using English raspberries, from her knowledge of Italian cookery. There is no syrup involved, nor is it sieved, so you have the texture of the broken raspberries and lemon once it is frozen. You do not have to use an ice-cream maker to churn it - originally it would have been frozen in a tray and forked over periodically.

1 lemon

350-400g caster sugar (depending on sweetness of raspberries)

800g raspberries

juice of 12 lemon

Wash the lemon, roughly chop it and remove the inner core of pith and most of the seeds, but don't worry about every last one. Place the lemon in a food-processor with the sugar and reduce to a wet, textured paste with small pieces of rind visible. Add the raspberries to the food processor and pulse together with the lemon and sugar. Add about half of the lemon juice, taste and add more if necessary. Raspberries vary enormously in flavour, so if they are quite intense, go easy on the lemon. Taste, too, for sweetness, bearing in mind it should be on the sweet side before it is frozen in order to be perfect when you eat it.

Freeze the mixture in an ice-cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. Transfer it to a container and freeze it for a further couple of hours. You can also freeze it in a tray without churning it, stirring it to break up the crystals every half an hour until it's solid, after about 112 hours.

Lemon This should be thick-skinned, so it is rich with the essential oil in the zest without containing as much juice as a thin-skinned lemon.

Raspberries The intensity of this sorbet is dependent on the flavour of the raspberries, which can frequently be dry and lacklustre. Look for really fragrant, juicy ones and try to taste before you buy

`The Italian Kitchen' begins on 3 June, Channel 4, 8.30pm. `River Cafe Cook Book Two' is out now in paperback, Ebury Press, pounds 15.