

An English last meal
"Feasting is about how you eat as much as it is about what is on your plate. It is rarely about greed or ostentatiousness, large numbers...
May 16, 2022


Jalfrezi - fusion, leftovers - what's not to love?
The picture here is from The Times of India, and so, one assumes a truly authentic version. Well yes and no, because Jalfrezi is another...
May 14, 2022


Pasta con le sarde
"I have never experienced this dish in its native country. Paolo Moelli (Il Ghiottone Errante, 1935) describes it as 'discordant but...
May 12, 2022


Trifle - no little thing
“A trifle consoles us because a trifle upsets us.” Blaise Pascal, Pensées This is for you Jenny after your disappointment that morsels...
May 4, 2022


Curry from the jungle - a lucky dip
The dish shown above is not Jungle curry. It is a dish called Pork curry with eggplant from an old Women's Weekly booklet Easy...
Apr 26, 2022


Grains in a salad - ancient or new?
"The vast array of grains marketed as ancient—from quinoa to millet to spelt—are, yes, old. Maybe 3,000 years. Maybe 8,000. Who knows?...
Apr 25, 2022


Why don't I make curry more often?
"The complex flavours of curries are governed by just three things: generous spicing; onion, ginger and garlic done just right; and...
Apr 24, 2022


Scary carbonara
"A dish whose principal ingredients are eggs and bacon was always going to be a shoo-in for the British palate: certainly spaghetti...
Apr 23, 2022


Is there such a thing as mulligatawny soup?
"a cornerstone of the classic British Indian restaurant repertoire, always there, yet never ordered." Felicity Cloake I think this...
Apr 18, 2022


Welsh rabbit - or is it rarebit - or English or Scottish?
"Rarebit or rabbit? I like the latter; which (so the story goes) is what the hunter had for his supper when the rabbits had escaped his...
Apr 16, 2022


Scraps
"Winging it with what's to hand can be so liberating - flinging in this or that with the joyful abandon that comes from not trying too...
Apr 14, 2022


First recipe, first impressions and a Belgian salad
"we all know how first impressions linger the longest." Robert Carrier I'm not particularly uninspired today, but I'm in a clearing out,...
Apr 9, 2022


Confit - from duck to garlic and everything in between
"oil diffuses heat better than air, which is why meat confined and cooked under oil is so tender and almost velvet-like, rich but,...
Mar 29, 2022


Hasselbacking - variations on a theme
"My favorite thing about the humble, mighty potato is that just when you think you’ve tried all the ways to prepare it, you learn about...
Mar 27, 2022


When politics creeps into cooking - Maqluba and Yotam Ottolenghi
"Thanks to Ottolenghi’s best-selling books, we now have 'Ottolenghi hummus' and — believe it or not — 'Ottolenghi maqluba.' The latter...
Mar 15, 2022


A rubbish soup
"Now, don’t go thinking you’re gonna throw everything in a pot, Pippi Longstocking-style. There’s a method here." Good Cheap Eats It's...
Mar 14, 2022


Another lemon tart trauma
"Things taste so much better once you've forgotten the effort of baking them." Lucy Ellmann, Ducks Newburyport During conversation over...
Mar 13, 2022


In praise of tarts - the savoury ones
"The differences between a tart, a pie and a quiche are a blur." Yotam Ottolenghi "There is never enough crust. The layer of puff,...
Mar 9, 2022


Does anyone make soufflé anymore?
"It feels more like magic than cooking." Nigel Slater I'm attempting a bit of a tidy up of my desktop pile of books of potential...
Mar 1, 2022


A new kind of cauliflower cheese
"Cheese lava in filo form." Ever since I got Ottolenghi's latest book Shelf Love I have been dying to make this. Well virtually...
Feb 28, 2022

