On 8 May I will be teaming up with Stevie Parle at the Dock Kitchen for a lamb nose to tail dinner. The evening will start with the acceptable face of offal: a welcome drink served with delicious chicken wings marinated in Aleppo pepper, allspice, Lebanese 7-spice mixture and cinnamon, lemon juice and olive oil and roasted in the restaurant’s tandur oven. For starters, we will offer a mini offal mezze: poached lamb’s tongues stuffed with pistachios and served on a bed of lemony mixed leaves and herbs (I learned the recipe at one of Aleppo’s best restaurants, Zmorod); lamb’s kidney baked inside a potato (I found the recipe in Ambrose Heath‘s Meat); and Jerusalem Mix bruschetta (Sami Tamimi gave me the recipe when I was writing Mediterranean Street Food, initially a sandwich, I have smartened it up into a bruschetta for the dinner).

For the middle course, we are providing some entertainment by serving each table with one or more lamb’s heads (depending on the number of diners) for you to eat with your hands, tearing off the cheeks and pulling out the brains and eyes — I will show you how this is done unless that is, you are familiar with lamb’s heads! The main course is one of my favourite dishes, ghammeh or stuffed tripe, served with a lemony/garlicky broth. As for the dessert, it will also be offal: candied cock’s combs (Chris Cosentino gave me the recipe for the new edition of Offal, the Fifth Quarter) served with a saffron milk pudding. I hope that those of you who are in London will join us. And if the weather is sunny, you will be able to sit outside by the river. The menu may be tweaked as we test the recipes in the restaurant’s kitchen. I will do an update here if it is.

Ps. It is a coincidence that Sustain are celebrating nose-to-tail eating for two weeks during May with many chefs taking part including the talented youngsters at Blanch & Shock!