A couple of weeks ago, my old friend Najam Sethi was passing through London, and we agreed to meet for lunch at the Frontline Club. This is a well-known venue for journalists to meet, and there are interesting discussions on politics and current affairs in the small auditorium. Benazir Bhutto has spoken here, as have many others, including this hack. This is where Julian Assange, of Wikileaks fame, stayed for two months as a guest of the owner, Vaughan Smith, before moving to his Norfolk estate.

While upstairs is the private club that houses a bar, the ground floor is the venue for an excellent restaurant. Najam and I had a good meal over which we chatted about the old days in Lahore, as well as the endlessly tedious Pakistani politics. In the early 1980s, before his marriage to Jugnu, we would often cook together in my big, gloomy kitchen in Mayo Gardens.

One dish Najam introduced me to was roast chicken stuffed with rice, raisins and pine nuts (chilghozas). Fairly straightforward, it was a major advance in my very limited repertoire in those days. Basically, you boil a cup of rice, mix it with a handful of raisins and pine nuts and fill the bird’s cavity before sticking it in the oven.

Experimenting or playing around with given recipes often gives better results

Since then, I have refined and elaborated on this simple recipe: I now only use organic, free-range chickens with their skin on as the fat between the body and the skin keeps the roast moist. Then I insert slivers of garlic into small cuts, and use rosemary leaves to impart a fragrance into the dish. And over years of cooking turkeys on festive occasions like Christmas and Thanksgiving, I have often used Najam’s stuffing instead of the moist bread recommended in most cookbooks.

It’s autumn in England now, and getting on to the time of the year that game becomes easily available. My butcher had no venison for me at the Devizes covered market last week, but did have a couple of packets of pigeon breasts. Feeling adventurous, I decided to curry the little birds. Normally, I would have roasted them in red wine and some herbs, but we had Robbie and Clare, two of my favourite people in England, coming for the weekend, so I thought I’d cook something different for them.

After carefully detaching the meat from the small bones — a time-consuming exercise — I browned the meat in the usual mix of spices, onions, salt, pepper, garlic and ginger, sautéing it for around 20 minutes before throwing in a few spoonfuls of plain yoghurt and a cup of water. The dish was covered and allowed to simmer quietly for another 45 minutes. The thing to remember is that the breasts of wild pigeons are all muscle, and take some time to cook through. But game should not be overcooked, and when it was served, the pigeon was just right: neither tough and chewy, and nor soft and mushy. A sprinkling of fresh garam masala finished off the dish. Kali masoor ki daal is sold here as Puy lentils, and, accompanied with plain rice and raita, made for a hearty autumn meal.

The season’s larder has much to look forward to: venison, pheasant, grouse and wild duck are some of the offerings our butcher will usually have on his weekly visits during the famer’s market every Thursday. He often also has venison sausages and duck eggs, both my favourites. Usually, you want the strong gamy flavour to come through, so go easy on the spicing. And as game has very little fat, you needn’t feel guilty about tucking in. Amazingly, venison costs as much as lamb, and deer fillet is actually cheaper than beef. So it’s a win-win when you cook game.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, October 5th, 2014