Are you an old-school supermarket baguette fan, do you prefer a simple Italian-style toast or have you your own approach to combining cloves and loaves?

Something I never order, never make, yet would be very happy if a plate of it appeared in front of me.

[I] can't help wondering whether such pizza fanaticism is actually a tragic case of diminishing returns: that no matter how good a pizza can be, the edible world is a wide place, with more to offer than a single dish. Treating pizza as a gourmet product defies the dish's own history, it defies logic and reason and a lifespan measured in years rather than millennia. It's only cheese on toast, after all.

Gremolata, a mixture of parsley, garlic, and lemon zest, offers heat and fresh herb and citrus flavors to assertive leg of lamb. The best part of this recipe is that putting it all together for a dinner party or weeknight meal is a snap. Serve the lamb with a carrot mash or roasted potatoes.

When did ratatouille disappear? I can't remember the last time I saw it here, but in France it can still be found on many a menu. The ripe tomatoes, courgettes, aubergines and peppers (all technically fruits), are cooked to a velvety texture on the edge of collapse. The flavour is heady with garlic and basil. It is too good to be consigned to the scrap heap.

Frank Falcinelli, one of the two Franks behind the popular Frankies Spuntino in New York City, learned this dish from his Naples-born, Brooklyn-raised friend Tony Durazzo. Tony is the inspiration for the raisins and pine nuts; they add texture and a hint of sweetness. Two factors that will make or break your meatballs: a good sauce, and using 90 percent lean meat, no fattier. (Note that this is the baked meatballs recipe from the Frankies Spuntino cookbook; there’s also a pan-fried version, which is what the Franks demonstrate in their CHOW video for their Go-To Dish.)

This no-fry, no-bake meatball recipe is bare-bones. Just slip the raw meatballs into simmering tomato sauce. Take these basic ingredients and the technique and have fun with it—add pine nuts, finely diced prunes, and ricotta for a Sicilian version; use pecorino instead of Parmesan; or add mint, chives, or tarragon to the parsley mix. Serve with some bread or Godfather style, over pasta.

The fact is that there is no definitive recipe for a bolognese meat sauce, but to be worthy of the name, it should respect the traditions of the area. There's nothing wrong with a tomato-based beef ragu, rich with garlic and olive oil, except that it's not what, traditionally at least, they'd eat in Emilia Romagna, which is dairy country. As for serving such a hearty meat sauce with delicate spaghetti – well, that is wrong. But it still tastes pretty good.

I have used both fontina and taleggio on pizza before now and been happy with the result. The cheese gets so little time in the oven that its qualities remain pretty much intact. I have tried pizza dough at every temperature short of the one on the mega-hot self-cleaning setting and it is always a case of the more the merrier. I now go as high as 250C/gas mark 9 and leave them in for barely 10 minutes.

I can't grow enough rhubarb for my own needs, so I carry the slender stalks, as pink as Blackpool rock, back from the farmers' market. Whatever else I do with it, there is always some that is chopped into pieces the length of a wine cork, tipped into a baking tin, sweetened with sugar, honey or maple syrup, then baked till they are soft enough to take the point of a knife. This becomes a template for breakfast or pudding.

This is a real blokey, gutsy yet simple pasta dish – but saying that, girls tend to like it as well! It hasn’t really got a sauce of any description because all the flavour that comes out of the ingredients will stick to the pasta and that’s enough. I will even go so far as to say that this is one of my top ten pasta dishes! Remember to buy the best sausages you can afford – if you get cheap, dodgy sausages it just won’t work.

Dan's recipe is foolproof and the dough keeps well, sealed in the fridge, for a couple of weeks. Whenever you feel that pizza craving coming on, simply break off a lime-sized piece of dough and get rolling. Makes eight small pizzas.

Theo Randall makes Italian-style roast lamb with rosemary, olives, anchovies and garlic

This quick supper dish should be salty, piquant and hot. The saltiness comes from anchovies and olives; the piquancy from the tomatoes and the effect of the capers; the heat from dried chilli flakes. Spaghetti puttanesca is not a genteel dish – it should in fact be a little coarse and the flavours should explode in the mouth. It is the best of all standby dishes, ready in minutes and made from ingredients you probably have.

'It is indeed difficult to overestimate pizza's importance to America or America's importance to pizza, even if today's chain pizzas would make a Neapolitan fume. . . . However, while Pizza Hut and other chains have brought a standardized pie to the world, it was eventually by unstandardizing, Helstosky shows, that chain pizza has flourished globally, taking on the foodways of different countries.' --Nina C. Ayoub, The Chronicle Review

Do you have a passion for pesto? What's your favourite recipe, and is there any better way to eat it than with linguine and green beans?

The deeply satisfying classic soup pappa al pomodoro is an excellent way of using up a glut of tomatoes. A thick soup, no doubt designed to make tomato soup substantial enough to eat as a main course, it is often made entirely with canned tomatoes, but better if you include some sun-ripened fresh ones.