More from life

Sussex pond pudding: the perfect January pick-me-up

I always feel pulled toward citrus at the start of the year. Initially it was subconscious: I’d just find myself in the kitchen making a lemon drizzle cake. But now I actively plan my citrusy January. As Christmas recedes, I make notes of recipes that I’m craving, and almost all of them call for a

In defence of duck à l’orange

Duck à l’orange is so deliciously retro, it’s almost a cliché of kitsch. It seems hard to believe that there was a time when it was genuinely regarded as elegant, or subtle-flavoured, let alone exciting; that it wasn’t always a byword for naff. But as its name suggests, duck à l’orange had chic origins. And

A last-minute alternative to Christmas cake: boiled fruit cake

This time last year, I was disgustingly well organised. Awaiting the arrival of my first baby, with a late December due date, I’d ensured everything was squirrelled or squared away. I’d bought all my presents by October, wrapped them by December; I’d made my Christmas cakes and bought my Terry’s Chocolate Orange. For the first

You don’t need a fondue set to make fondue

‘This dish is very you,’ my husband says, as I serve up 650g of melted, boozy cheese to the two of us for a weekday lunch, alongside a teetering pile of bread cubes. He is, I’m afraid, right: it really is my favourite kind of eating. There’s nothing better than a communal pot in the

The ultimate American comfort food: how to make meatloaf

Meatloaf has some obstacles to overcome: it has an unprepossessing appearance, and an uninspiring, slightly off-putting name, which it shares with the famous singer. And it wasn’t a compliment when it was given to him: the singer’s father took one look at his newborn son and said he looked like ‘nine pounds of ground chuck’,

Moules mouclade, as big a hit as Beyoncé

Mussels were probably the first thing I ate as a child that I knew at the time was ‘an acquired taste’. They made me feel impossibly grown up, coming with a brigade of bowls, one for the mussels themselves, one for chips, one for bread, one for empty mussel shells, and a little lemon-scented bowl

The sweet satisfaction of a burnt Cambridge cream

If a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, then a Trinity or Cambridge burnt cream must taste as sweet as its French twin, the crème brûlée. The two cooked custard dishes are essentially identical: an egg yolk-rich baked custard served cold and topped with a layer of hard caramel. Both are similar

The ultimate chicken pie recipe

Laurie Colwin wrote: ‘No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, the wisdom of cookbook writers.’ It is one of my favourite quotes about cooking, mainly because it feels true: everything you cook

How to make a true apple strudel

It’s possible that, like me, your first encounter with the Grande Dame of the Austrian pastry world, the apfelstrudel, was not in fact in one of the famed Viennese grand cafés, but rather from the freezer aisle at the supermarket. If it was anything like mine, it was probably a latticed, puffed version; the one

Sole Véronique: there’s no need to fear fish and grapes

One of the joys of writing about old-fashioned food is coming across dishes that are new to me, and turn out to be such a delight that they gain a recurring role in my cooking. Of course, some I’ve encountered were already among my established regulars – boeuf bourguignon, coq au vin. Others were childhood

How to poach peaches (and why you should)

I’ve never been very good at leaving things be. I tend to gild the lily. I may plan to do something simple, but I always find myself adding to it, primping, faffing. This is true in every area of life, but never more so than when I’m cooking. For that reason, this time of year

Sundae best: how to make a knickerbocker glory

I grew up by the seaside. More precisely, I grew up near South Shields, on the north-east coast – somewhere which is British summer beach country for one, maybe two days a year, and salt-lashed and grey for the rest of it. But come rain or shine, ice cream is a permanent fixture. Ice cream

Why you should never buy scotch eggs

One of the perils of being a recipe writer is that people regularly ask me why I bother making things from scratch, because ‘You can buy that in the supermarket’. Now, let’s put aside the obvious question – do they think I’m not aware of supermarkets? – and engage with the issue. I love supermarket

The ingredient that guarantees the flakiest Eccles cakes

When I first made Eccles cakes, I’m not sure I really knew where Eccles was. I certainly didn’t think I’d end up living there a few years later. The only Eccles cakes I’d encountered were at train station coffee kiosks, or at London’s St John restaurant, where they are a permanent fixture on the menu.

The magical kitschiness of Black Forest gateau

Kitsch is something of my stock-in-trade. And it doesn’t get more kitsch than Black Forest gateau. Pots of cream, pints of cherry schnapps, a storm of chocolate shavings and some very baroque decoration: it ticks all my old-school boxes. Of course, we are very familiar with the Black Forest gateau’s – BFG to its friends

Steak Diane: the perfect date-night dish

Cooking for romance is no laughing matter. The stakes are high. Get it right and woo the love of your life — lifelong happiness, marriage, kids. Get it wrong, and who knows what will happen? At best, you’re serving up a disaster sometime around midnight. You’re not getting lucky. You may be poisoning your intended.