Gourmet Pascale Smets on the perfect Easter meal and traditional Belgian Easter celebrations
The Easter meal
For me, a celebration is nothing without food and people to share it with. I grew up in a big family with a mother who loved to cook and celebrate and did it beautifully, frequently and with great style. Her mantra for entertaining (now mine too) was keep it simple, elegant, plentiful.
My aim is always to produce something seasonal and delicious, which requires minimum input for maximum effect. I rarely do a first course (too much faffing about), but providing great bread, an artisan cheese and a simple green salad require zero effort and adds a great deal to the table.
The meal below (despite the long instructions) is very simple and pretty much foolproof. In terms of flavour, English spring lamb is hard to beat and it’s lovely to serve something seasonal that feels so celebratory. There are a plethora of Easter lamb recipes from every country but my absolute favourite is the utterly delicious ‘Abbacchio alla Romana’ – an Italian lamb stew from Rome.
Because I prefer to serve a whole leg (it feels more festive), I’ve simply taken all the classic ‘Abbacchio alla Romana’ flavourings of sage, rosemary, garlic and anchovies and used them to stuff the lamb and infuse the thin, elegant, wine based sauce that the lamb is served with.
Typically ‘Abbachio all Romana’ would be served with garlic roasted potatoes, however since we’re not being purists about the dish I think cannellini or haricot beans are a great choice as unlike roast potatoes they will happily sit around waiting to be reheated at the last minute.
The fact that the lamb can be prepared up to the roasting stage the day before and the beans can be prepared entirely in advance makes this meal about as stress free as it’s possible to get. Add a simple green salad, boulangerie bread and provide a seasonal cheese such as a fresh goats’ cheese with radishes and crackers and you’re all set.
The Recipes
Roman Style Roast Leg of Lamb
Serves 8
Don’t be afraid of the anchovies; there’s no fishy flavour whatsoever. The anchovies dissolve and just intensify all the other flavours, and because they’re quite salty no extra salt is necessary.
For the roast
2.5kg leg of lamb
For the stuffing
1/4 cup of finely chopped rosemary (leaves only)
1/4 cup finely chopped sage
4-5 anchovy fillets finely chopped
8 cloves of garlic crushed
Enough extra virgin olive oil to make a thick paste freshly ground pepper
For the sauce
4 bushy sprigs of rosemary
6-8 sage leaves
6 chopped anchovies
4 large garlic cloves
250 – 350ml dry white wine
100-150 ml water
Preheat your oven to 220°C
While the oven is heating, pulse all the ingredients for the stuffing in a food processor until you have a coarse paste. If you’re feeling strong you can do this in a pestle and mortar.
Make 8-10 evenly spaced deep slits about 2cm wide all over the lamb leg, divide the stuffing equally between the slits, pushing it down as far as you can.
Rub the lamb with a little olive oil and place in a snug fitting roasting tin. (At this point you can refrigerate it for a day or two but make sure you bring it back to room temperature before cooking it). Place the lamb in the preheated oven for 25 minutes.
After 25 minutes pour off the excess fat taking care not to lose any of the stuck-on brown bits, deglaze the pan with 250ml white wine and dot the rosemary, sage anchovies and garlic round the lamb leg. Put it back in the oven and turn the temperature down to 180°C.
Continue to roast the lamb topping up the fluid levels with the remaining wine when necessary. After 1hr and 15 minutes check for done-ness by inserting a skewer, the tip should be warm and the juices running fairly clear. You can of course serve it quite pink but I think this particular dish is best served on the medium to well done side as you want the anchovies to heat up and ‘melt’.
Cook for a further 10 or so minutes if necessary. Remove the lamb to a warm place and allow it to rest. Meanwhile adjust the remaining sauce by sieving out the herbs (the anchovies should have dissolved but if not place the roasting pan on a high heat mashing them with the back of a wooden spoon). Return the sieved sauce to the pan and add the water to taste.
Herby Cannellini Beans
Serves 8 (with leftovers)
500g dried haricot or cannellini beans (soaked overnight) or 4 x tinned ones instead (thoroughly rinsed)
1 medium red onion finely chopped
4 carrots finely chopped
2 sticks of celery finely chopped
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Juice of half a lemon
Bunch of flat leaf parsley coarsely chopped
Discard the beans’ soaking water and put them in a large pan covered with several inches of water throw in a couple of bay leaves if you have them.
Bring to the boil skimming off any scum as it forms and simmer for 40-60 minutes until the beans are soft but still retain some bite. Cooking times vary depending on how long the beans have soaked, their size and age. 

While the beans are simmering, soften the onion, carrots and celery in the olive oil with a couple of pinches of salt over a low heat (make sure they don’t brown). Once softened squeeze over the lemon juice which will turn the red onion a beautiful magenta colour. When the beans are cooked and still warm gently stir through the mirepoix (carrot, celery, onion) and season with salt and pepper (at this stage the beans can be refrigerated for up to several days). Just before serving stir through the parsley.
Slice the lamb, heat the sauce, dish up the beans and serve everything with ciabatta and a lightly dressed salad.
Childhood Easters in Belgium
I had a Belgian father, so when I was a child we quite often had Easter at the farmhouse of my Walloon grandparents near Waterloo in Belgium. They had 19 grandchildren and it wasn’t uncommon for us all to be there on Easter day, so with uncles, aunts, the local priest and various hangers-on the numbers could swell to over thirty.
Easter was a really big deal, at least as big as Christmas – possibly even more celebrated and ‘la table de Pâques’ (our Easter breakfast table) was one of the highlights of our year. This is because being a bunch of Belgians, A LOT of chocolate was involved. We actually had two breakfasts on Easter day; the first was a bread roll before church, which we attended in our best clothes (this always seemed to involve a very itchy jumper) and when we got back there would be a massive egg hunt in the garden.
The Egg Hunt
At this point there was no chocolate, instead we would hunt hard-boiled, dyed hens’ eggs. It was perfectly normal for my grandmother to dye and hide over 100 eggs. My cousins, siblings and I would run around wildly, lobbing eggs into our little baskets. At the end they’d all be gathered in and carried off to the breakfast table.
La Table de Pâques
The table was laid for our second ‘proper’ breakfast and it was always decorated in the utmost secrecy by the adults. It always looked absolutely beautiful, with flowers and pretty crockery and baskets of the collected coloured hens’ eggs.
At each child’s place there would be a relatively modest chocolate egg or chicken, but the rest of the table was covered in little clusters of chocolate eggs and dishes of Easter sweets were dotted about among all the usual ham, cheese, pâté and bread that make up a typical Belgian breakfast. It was a sight to make a child weep with joy especially as we weren’t really policed, so we ignored all normal breakfast food and just stuffed ourselves with chocolate and sweets.
Traditions passed down
All these customs were faithfully copied throughout my childhood by my South African mother for the Easters when we weren’t in Belgium, firstly as children and then when we went on to have children of our own she did the same for her own 19 grandchildren. I in turn have done the same for my children and I’m pretty sure my children will carry on the tradition when their turn comes.
Pascale Smets is an ex-fashion designer turned journalist with a (probably) unhealthy interest in food, interiors, gardens and Instagram. She has written a novel as well as columns for The Times and The Daily Telegraph. She styled and created Style Notes for Living etc. She divides her time between London and Suffolk and lives with her large, chaotic family. Her homewares store in Norwich, Pascale (pascalestore.co.uk) was a winner of the House and Gardens Independent Shop Awards 2025
Pascale’s Instagram address is pascalehomewares
