Orecchiete means “little ears” in Italian, which gave Lyra a bit of a scare. “Are they really made from ears?” she asked – knowing it’s just about possible I would serve her a bowl of ears in the interest of reproducing some authentic regional dish.
I could see her trying to work out which poor animal’s ears they could possibly be before I set her mind at ease. Continue reading
Last November in Hong Kong we ate the most delicious stir-fried green beans one evening. Finding ourselves without dinner reservations on Saturday night, we were turned away from several places before finally landing a table in one of the many restaurants in the iSquare building on Nathan Road.
The love affair with zahatar continues around here. Is there nothing that isn’t improved by a generous sprinkling of this marvellous stuff?
This salad combines toothsome pearl barley with roasted vegetables and a creamy yogurt dressing. Essentially a cooked salad, it is freshened with peashoots and parsley. Continue reading
May is the start of strawberry season in the UK, and strawberries are going to feature large around here in the weeks ahead: strawberries on our cereal and in our smoothies, strawberry tops in our water, strawberry shortcake, strawberry ice cream, and Eton mess. Continue reading
While I’ve always found tabbouleh ever so slightly worthy, with kisir it was love at first bite. This Turkish bulghur wheat salad is a much more exciting number – from its vibrant orange colour to its fiery chilli kick. Continue reading
Mini meringues are a great favourite with the girls – both making and eating them. For years it was deemed necessary to dye these mini meringues pink, but we’re finally moving past the “all things pink” phase. Continue reading
Neither a risotto nor a soup, risi e bisi is one of the most comforting bowls of food imaginable. With so few ingredients, quality shows through. It’s wonderful with fresh peas and the pods used to flavour the stock.
Of Venetian origin, risi e bisi is traditionally served on April 25, St Mark’s Day, when the first fresh peas become available. In fact, Marcella Hazan says it should only be called risi e bisi when made with fresh peas. We’re not such sticklers around here, and I’ve been making this dish long before I heard of her. Continue reading
Frozen banana “ice cream” is a little bit of culinary magic – just sixty seconds in a food processor to transform frozen slices of banana into a smooth, silky dessert.
I first discovered it in David Cohlmeyer’s The Vegetarian Chef in my student days, and have been happily whipping up batches of the stuff ever since. Continue reading
I’ve made this curry a few times now, as it proved popular with both girls. I like the way the flavours and textures remain distinct – the soft sweetness of cauliflower, fresh pop of peas and crunch of cashews make for a very satisfying dish. Continue reading
These pear and ginger oat puddings are a cross between a fruit crumble and a flapjack. They are quick to assemble, take only fifteen minutes to cook, and are so light and healthy tasting that I’m tempted to make them for breakfast. Continue reading
Kabuli pilau is my first foray into Afghan cuisine. Considered Afghanistan’s national dish, Kabuli pilau is usually made with lamb, though I also found recipes that used chicken as well as meat-free versions. Continue reading
Parsnips don’t feature very often in Indian recipes – but they should. Their sweetness works really well with curry spices, and adding chunks of parsnip to red lentil dhal provides an interesting contrast in texture. Continue reading
Cooking the aubergines until they are soft and charred is what gives baba ghanoush its lovely smokey flavour. I achieve this by either roasting the aubergines under the grill or cooking them on the barbeque. Continue reading
These little dinner rolls are straightforward to make, and transform yet another “soup for supper” evening into something a bit special. If you have any leftover, they make nice little lunchbox sandwiches the next day.
The recipe is from Nigella Lawson’s Feast. Continue reading
These Gujarati green beans with mustard seeds and ginger make a lovely side dish to an Indian meal. The combination of stir frying and steaming results in vibrant green, crunchy beans. Continue reading
I’ve been taking things easy on the drinks front since our cocktail-tastic Christmas. But as the end of a busy work week loomed, the thought of a TGIF cocktail was pretty tempting.
The Manhattan has only three ingredients – rye whiskey, sweet vermouth and bitters. As a Canadian, I have a nostalgic fondness for Canadian Club, but there are a lot of rye whiskeys to choose from these days, and bourbon works as well. Continue reading
This zucchini bread recipe comes from my high school cookbook – which is quite the period piece now, with its marshmallow Waldorf salad, Waikiki meatballs, ham and rice ring and “sex in the pan”.
The original recipe calls for raisins, but after substituting chocolate chips once, I’ve never switched back. It also makes two loaves. Sometimes I’ve halved the recipe by beating the three eggs together and only using half, but usually stick the second loaf in the freezer for later. Continue reading
Very spicy delicious chickpeas is one of my favourite curries, and something I’ve been making forever. It seems like an excessive quantity of spices as you’re making it, but in time the sauce transforms into something thick, rich and delicious. Continue reading
One of my favourite Christmas gifts was the bag of Middle Eastern spices my friend Mary brought me from Bahrain. The zahatar is particularly wonderful, and I’ve been having fun adding to all sorts of things ever since, such as this feta cheese and almond dip.
Feta cheese makes a great base for a dip, and combines really well with nuts. I also make this with walnuts, but I happened to have a couple of bags of smoked almonds hanging about. I liked the smokiness so much, the next time I make it with regular almonds I’ll try adding smoked paprika. Continue reading
A bowl of vivid orange carrot and miso soup is a cheering sight on a chilly grey day. I really like how the Asian flavours of miso, ginger and sesame play against the natural sweetness of the carrots.
I’ve never seen the point of adding sugar to carrot dishes – honey-glazed carrot coins, tzimmes and the like – as they are sweet enough already. Of course, carrot cake is another matter entirely…
I remember reading about a study that demonstrated how forbidding foods triggers cravings. A group of schoolchildren with an equal liking for raisins and dried mango had access to one of them restricted.
Within a very short time, the denied snack was in much greater demand, with some children resorting to violence to get their hands on the forbidden fruit. Which may explain my childhood obsession with canned pudding… Continue reading
Pasta cacio e pepe is the most Roman of dishes for me. With only three ingredients – pasta, pecorino and pepper – it sounds deceptively simple. The trick lies in successfully transforming the grated cheese and pasta water into a creamy sauce. Continue reading
Ever since our World Cup cooking experience last summer, I’ve been on the lookout for new African recipes. When I came across this video about the Ugandan rolex, I thought it seemed right up our alley.
A rolex is a thin vegetable omelette rolled up in a chapati, and is a popular street food in Uganda. They proved pretty popular around here too, when I made them for brunch last weekend. Continue reading
This is my go-to vanilla ice cream, and after lemon ice cream it’s the one we’re most likely to have in the freezer. I’ve made more complicated vanilla ice creams involving egg yolks and custard, ice baths and sieves, which produced delicious results. But in terms of time and effort needed to turn out a great vanilla ice cream, this recipe is hard to beat. Continue reading
This avocado lentil salad is one of my favourite lunches, and something I make whenever I have cooked lentils leftover from another dish. Actually, I enjoy eating it enough that I sometimes cook lentils in order to make it. Continue reading
This is a very satisfying smoothie, and the addition of oatmeal means you don’t end up wanting a second breakfast half an hour later. Continue reading
Chapatis are such an easy and satisfying thing to make, and so much better than the ones you buy. I make up the dough while my curry is simmering, then cook the chapatis when it’s almost ready to serve.
A basic chapati is made with just two ingredients – flour and enough water to turn it into a dough. I prefer to add a pinch of salt to the flour, and use milk instead of water, which produces a softer chapati. I also work a bit of oil into the dough while I’m kneading it to make the dough more pliable.
In spite of the watercress, this is a hearty, wintery sort pea soup. Not as rib sticking as the split pea soup I grew up eating in Canada, but very different to the chilled pea and mint soup we eat all summer.
Even after blending, I find that the soup still has a certain amount of texture. I like it that way, but if you’d prefer it smoother, you can always push the puréed soup through a sieve before serving. Continue reading
Snickerdoodles… the name alone is reason enough to make them. They are also delicious, with a cakey, almost doughnuty, texture. They are sturdy little numbers, well suited to packed lunches. When I worked as a bush cook, I would often make snickerdoodles for my tree planting crew. Continue reading
This carrot raita is a real favourite of mine. I love the way that gently cooking the carrot gives the yogurt a golden colour, and the earthy taste of the asafetida. It pairs really nicely with diced potatoes and spinach. Continue reading
Still working my way through the dregs of the Christmas cheese, I decided to make these comté and rosemary crackers. (Why I thought we’d eat our body weight in cheese over the holidays, I now have no idea. Perhaps all those cocktails I was imbibing clouded my judgement…)
The crackers went down a storm with the girls, who had been a bit sniffy about the Comté, despite my efforts to pass it off as “French cheddar”. According to Lyra, they are “even better than Goldfish crackers”, which is high praise indeed coming from her.
This quick cabbage and carrot salad is a pared-back, vegetarian take on goi ga (Vietnamese chicken salad). It’s a nice accompaniment to a piece of simply grilled fish or chicken.
These roasted pears with warm butterscotch sauce pull off the clever trick of being both light and decadent. They also make the kitchen smell wonderful while they’re cooking.
Until recently, I couldn’t have you the difference between butterscotch and caramel. But having Googled it, I now know that caramel is made with white sugar and butterscotch with brown. Continue reading
There are lots of recipes for red lentil soup out there. Having tried a few, I’ve pretty much settled on this lemony red lentil soup, which is adapted from a Sophie Dahl recipe I came across in Waitrose magazine.
We had this spinach and onion yogurt dip as part of a Middle East inspired meal I pulled together the other night from bits and bobs in the fridge.
Considering it’s essentially a bowl of yogurt mixed with spinach and onion, this dip tastes surprisingly rich. The original recipe is from my trusty Madhur Jaffrey’s World-of-the-East Vegetarian Cooking. Continue reading
This is my mum’s oatcake recipe. She used to divide the dough into four, roll each piece into an 8″ circle, then cut it into quarters before baking. I prefer to make round oatcakes using a biscuit cutter.
Falafel are another standby from my student days. With one tin of chickpeas you can produce a dozen crunchy little nuggets to eat alongside a salad, or stuff in a piece of pitta bread with tahini sauce.
Traditionally, falafel are made with uncooked chickpeas or fava beans that have been soaked overnight before being coarsely ground. This results in a nuttier texture than these falafel. While the outsides are crisp, inside they are soft – almost fluffy.
Spicy, creamy with coconut milk, and the most gorgeous deep yellow colour, this Indonesian squash and spinach soup is loved by the whole family. Plus, we have prawn crackers with it (served in individual bowls to avoid disputes over who’s had too many).
The original recipe comes from the Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant cookbook.
Since running out of turkey, we’ve been adding a spread of cranberry sauce to our grilled cheese sandwiches. But at the rate it was going, we’d have been eating cranberry sauce in April…
So I decided to knock the rest of it off by making cranberry oat muffins for breakfast this morning. I just substituted a cup of cranberry sauce for the usual mashed banana in my oatmeal muffin recipe.
It’s mid-January and I’m still incorporating Christmas leftovers into our meals…
When I discovered a forgotten wedge of Stilton at the back of the fridge, it inspired me to make this potato, leek and Stilton soup. While I’ve never really warmed (ha!) to vichyssoise, a bowl of this soup is my idea of a perfect winter meal.
Continue reading
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