You may be forgiven, if you are a regular reader of this column, for thinking that my primary motivation in cooking is showing off. I’m always banging on about lovely dishes you can serve to unsuspecting guests that will guarantee plaudits and amazement. But while there is more than a kernel of truth in this,
Isn’t it awful that the older you get, the more you know yourself? It’s supposed to be a good thing, attributed to wisdom, experience and a deeper understanding of our place in the world around us. But good lord, self-awareness can be a cruel mistress. I have realised that my greatest culinary goal is simply
Pub food in Britain has had a mixed reputation over the years. For a long time, the most a pub would have to offer as food would be some pork scratchings or a pickled egg. There certainly wasn’t a brigade of chefs in white coats in a shiny chrome kitchen. This is midweek-teatime cooking, it’s
January kitchens are my favourite. This isn’t anything against Christmas – I love the spice, the frenzy, the ritual of festive cooking, but I also love the aftermath. There’s something calming about the kitchen once it’s all over – nothing is made through obligation, or with a deadline. I embrace the cosiness of autumn and
For as long as we’ve been serving food, we’ve been unable to resist a bit of culinary deception. Making one thing look like another thing – especially if it makes a sweet thing look savoury or vice versa – seems to have universal comedic value. There’s something Willy Wonka-ish about the visual wrong-footing, the surprise
There is a gentle irony to the dish coquilles St Jacques: a decadent, rich preparation of one of our most luxurious seafoods takes its name from a saint who has inspired centuries of pilgrimage, and whose emblem came to symbolise modesty. The eponymous St Jacques is St James the apostle, or James the Great. The
Sometimes, when it comes to culinary history, Britain is its own worst enemy. For a long time, British food has been seen as a joke among other nations, but also nearer to home. Even when the dishes are near indistinguishable, we’re still happy to poke fun at our own fare: we love panna cotta but
I often think of the first time I ate brown bread ice cream. I know how that sounds: it’s the exact sort of pretentious nonsense a food writer would say if they were about to press a recipe for brown bread ice cream on you. But it was long before I became a food bore,
There’s nothing more intriguing than a closely guarded secret recipe. Coca-Cola and KFC are two famous examples, with the precise ingredients for the soda syrup and special coating kept in guarded vaults: the story is that those who hold the information aren’t allowed to travel on the same plane in case of disaster. Lea &
When it comes to traditional recipes, there are few things we love more than an unlikely origin story, ideally one born out of clumsiness or forgetfulness. The bigger the kitchen pratfall, the more delicious the product. Setting pancakes on fire? Accidental crêpe Suzette! Nothing in the restaurant apart from lettuce and some pantry ingredients? The
I am sure there are beloved British dishes that inspire horror in those from different cultures, that are truly unappealing to the uninitiated. I can quite imagine that the bright green eel-gravy that traditionally accompanies the East End pie and mash could be figuratively and literally hard to swallow for a visitor. Or that our
Standing in the biscuit aisle of my local supermarket, I’m overwhelmed by possibilities. This isn’t unusual for me, but normally it’s fuelled by greed, and resolved by buying them all. Today I have to make a choice. I am making an American icebox cake, which requires a lot of one type of biscuits, and the
The Americans are weird about salad. I’m sorry, but somebody had to say it. Really, their use of the word ‘salad’ needs scare quotes around it. Where we generally mean ‘green leaves, and possibly a tomato if we’re feeling adventurous’, an American ‘salad’ can mean anything from pistachio cream with glacé cherries to tuna in
There are many old dishes in the UK that are hyper-regional, whose reach has never extended beyond geographical boundaries but remain much loved where they originated. Yorkshire curd tart is a good example: it is barely known beyond God’s own county (or God’s own four counties, which now technically make up what we think of
Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. It has been… too long since my last confession. Picture the scene. I am in the kitchen, almost literally spinning plates. I should have been focusing, prioritising the bits that needed to get done, keeping an eye on the clock. Instead I’ve been mucking about, making an unnecessary
I am evangelical about scones as a gateway bake – they are the perfect entry point for the nervous baker. They don’t require any nonsense. Rubbing the butter and flour together by hand and stamping the dough out is straightforward; and as long as a scone is risen and golden-topped after baking, then you’re fine.
Whenever I think of steak tartare, I can’t help but remember a heartbreaking passage in Nigel Slater’s memoir Toast. Slater, working at a French restaurant in a Midlands hotel as a young man, is desperate to try the steak Diane. He books a table there for himself and a date. In a moment of madness,
I have a complicated relationship with elderflower cordial. I love taking ingredients that have short seasons, preserving and squirrelling them away for future enjoyment. And I’m cheap, so the fact that the main component comes from the hedgerow is appealing. And it’s fun! It is a little like making a potion, dunking whole heads of
We all have our quirks when it comes to cooking. I have clear mental blocks over what is and is not a complicated supper, many of which do not follow any kind of logic. I wouldn’t think twice about setting a sauce or ragu going early in the day, blipping gently, returning to it every
I have become obsessed with the French idea of goûter, the time in the afternoon when French schoolchildren have a sweet treat to tide them over from the end of the school day until dinner. It’s just teatime, really, a pause for an afternoon snack – my kid has the same, but we don’t have
