Food

It took Paddington Bear to solve the age-old mystery of what the Queen keeps in her handbag. When Her Majesty pulled out a marmalade sandwich during the pair’s sketch at the Platinum Jubilee concert this summer, it did more than just tickle the audience. It also served to remind us of our national love affair with marmalade. Long before Paddington developed a taste for it, the preserve had been a stalwart of British popular culture, from Jane Austen (where Lady Middleton applies marmalade as balm for her daughter’s scratch) to Evelyn Waugh (where, in Brideshead Revisited, Charles Ryder eats ‘scrambled eggs and bitter marmalade with the zest which in youth

Dipping my toes in the Irish Sea on a family holiday last week, I encountered something slimy, muddy-brown and decidedly squelchy. I managed to flick it off my foot with minimal squealing and thought no more of it. But, looking back, perhaps I missed a lucrative opportunity – or a tasty treat for the kids’ dinner. For my beach find was in fact Irish moss, also known as ‘sea moss’ or ‘carrageen moss’ – the latest cult ingredient among experimental foodies, health-conscious celebrities and social media aficionados. Devotees claim the delicacy – reddish algae which grows abundantly on rocks off the coast of Britain, Ireland and North America – is

I moved down to Sussex over 25 years ago from South London. My family viewed living by the sea as a dream goal. I still remember the day when we packed up and cavalcaded down to Worthing, a charming seaside town in West Sussex. After the amazing experience of winning MasterChef, we opened our first restaurant Pitch in 2019 serving beautiful British inspired food from both the sea and the land. There has been a significant boom of food and café culture all around Sussex, and many areas such as Brighton and Worthing have flourished into destinations for those in search of culinary delights. Our second restaurant Bayside Social has capitalised on

What makes a kebab a kebab and why do we like eating things on sticks? That is the important question I have been mulling as we hit the steamy barbecue season. The debate was inspired not by kebabs, in fact, but by yakitori, the typically refined Japanese version of kebabs that essentially involve cooking every body part of a chicken on small skewers, and which also seems to be London’s most recent Japanese love affair following sushi, ramen, udon, and so on.  Yakitori though is really the extreme of food on stick eating. Take the menu of Junsei in Marylebone (excellent, by the way), which breaks the chicken down into

Good lord, it’s hot. I mean, really, really hot. Right now, the heat is so overwhelming as to feel like it is tangible, as if you could reach out and touch it. All we’re capable of talking about is the heat; any other polite conversation is too much for our fried brains. Normally, when our annual heatwave hits, I proffer some halfway house of a recipe: a dish that only needs the hob, not the oven, or is sufficiently refreshing or brightening that it justifies the added kitchen heat. But, this year, even that compromise seems unmanageable. At this stage, it would feel disingenuous, nay cruel, to offer up a

Nothing beats a spot of decluttering – throwing things out of your wardrobe that you don’t use or need to see what you have and make space for things you do need. I am useless at it when it comes to clothes and other clutter, but cookbooks are another matter. I review cookbooks; I probably had about 150 of them, some of which have been used for just one recipe. When it came to the point when they were falling off the shelves – and they’re hefty, being mostly hardback – I had to let some go. So, which ones justified the shelf space? Most of my cookbooks don’t get

Call it nominative determinism, but a lemon drizzle cake is perfect for disappointing, drizzly weather. It’s cheering: brightly flavoured, and packed with zest, but still comforting, filling your home with a warm citrus scent as it bakes. It’s also a more enjoyable food-based activity than picnics or barbecues when winds are high. A lemon drizzle cake is really just a pound cake – equal quantities of butter, sugar, eggs and flour – that’s then spritzed up with zest and juice. But it’s a pretty glorious one, managing to be both zingy and sweet, light and sticky. The key to a superlative lemon drizzle is packing in as much citrus as

There’s a story that foodie types like to wheel out about what a culinary backwater the British Isles used to be. ‘In the 1970s,’ they’ll begin. ‘The only way you could buy olive oil in Britain was as medicine for your blocked ears!’ While we might argue that Italian delis were importing olive oil to our cities since at least the 19thcentury, it’s certainly true that olive oil is better known here than it used to be. Indeed, the oil shelves at our markets are coming to look like those at a wine shop, with bottles arranged by style and origin. We’ve even seen the arrival of trendy olive oils

Focaccia is one of my favourite breads: glossy and golden on top thanks to the olive oil, but firm and crisp, with a chewy, aerated, oil-soaked crumb with a real spring. You should be able to squish a good focaccia with your hand and watch it slowly rise back up to its former glory. Focaccia’s a brilliant bread to make if you’re a little nervous of yeast and dough: the ‘shaping’ of focaccia is far easier than that of a traditional loaf, or even a ciabatta or baguette. To make focaccia, you spread your dough out in a tin – an imprecise art – and then paddle it with your

There’s no better time of year to tuck into one of the seasons finest ingredients, the strawberry. The crowning jewel of June’s harvest, its arrival signals the beginning of summertime – at long last. This strawberry sorbet is a winner. It’s deceptively easy to make, packed full of flavour and makes for the ultimate treat when served with a dash of Champagne. We love to serve this after a long al fresco lunch in the garden. It’s fresh and light and always goes down a treat. Rustle up some little shortbread fingers to accompany it and it’s the perfect pudding. Task the children with that whilst you crack on with

Northerners take their puddings seriously: Eccles cakes from Manchester, sticky toffee pudding from Cartmel, and Bakewell tart from Derbyshire. These hyper local puddings have been adopted by sweet tooths all over the country, but woe betide anyone who tries to mess with their traditions. In this, Bakewell tart provides its own challenges: the locals call it a pudding, and many will argue that it should have a puff pastry base rather than the shortcrust that it tends to have elsewhere, and even feature custard rather than frangipane. And we also have to contend with another variety – those made famous by Mr Kipling, which use a cherry jam, and decorate