I rarely, if ever, buy orzo, the rice-shaped pasta, but I was intrigued by barbecue chef Melissa Thompson’s poll on her Instagram stories asking: “Do you have a half-finished bag of orzo sitting in your cupboard?” She had more than 600 responses, almost 90% of which said yes. Thompson turned hers into a salad with …
Lasagna is a classic for a reason: It’s reliable, great for serving large groups, and full of the heartwarming comfort we desperately need during colder months. That said, it can also be great during the summer! Let me pitch you zucchini lasagna. Stick with me. We’re swapping noodles for zoodles, and not just because they’re …
Salted fish, and salted hake in particular, reminds me of holidays. It’s very popular in southern Europe, where there are hundreds of recipes to choose from. The salting draws out some of the water and improves the fish’s flavour and texture, and it’s a method that pre-dates refrigeration, when salt was used to preserve food. …
Growing cress with my daughter is a fun activity, but she’s intolerant to eggs so can’t have the classic sandwich I grew up with. What else can we make with cress? Sophie, via emailThis is also a pressing matter for Rosie Birkett, author of the A Lot on her Plate Substack, because her daughter recently …
PHOTO: RACHEL VANNI; FOOD STYLING: MAKINZE GORE S’mores are the official snack of summer, and just when you thought they couldn’t get any better, we’ve stuffed them into snack-sized cookie bags and made them a transportable feast. A sweet spin on the other campfire classic, the Frito Pie (AKA a walking taco), this newest version …
Cherries are a big deal in Extremadura, where I’m from, especially in the Valle del Jerte to the north, where the picotas are some of the best in all of Spain: sweet, dark, no stalk and full of flavour. At home, we usually just eat them by the handful, fresh and cold, so when I …
Tuna melts are arguably my favourite sandwich, all melty, pickley and delicious. A general gripe I have is when there isn’t enough mayonnaise in the tuna mixture and it ends up tasting canned and metallic – so use lots and don’t be shy. But tuna sambal is so packed with flavour already, you run very …
I’ve made chef Tim Anderson’s okonomiyaki from memory for years, realising only recently that rice is not a traditional ingredient and that his recipe is, in fact, for rice yaki, a speciality of Kyushu. It’s the first cousin to okonomiyaki in that it’s a crisp cabbage pancake, but with cooked rice as the main ingredient; …
Celery divides people, perhaps because most of us are introduced to it in the form of batons dipped into hummus, which I don’t feel is its best form. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy raw celery – it has an earthy pepperiness that I find quite moreish – but I adore it in cooked form, …
I think a long enough time has passed since the heyday of Sara Lee to concede the magnificence of the OG BFG: that towering torte of cherry brandy-soaked chocolate sponge, cherries and whipped cream whose name nods to the German Schwarzwälder’s many cherry trees and the black, white and red of its traditional dress. It’s …