A ragù is emotional. I’ve always found, after many years of cooking, that a ragù/ meat sauce, is deeply personal to everybody that cooks it. Even people who hate cooking/ don’t cook will always say to me that they make ‘a good bolognese’ or ‘a good lasagne’, and while this makes me happy, because I’d … Continue reading BEEF & ‘NDUJA RAGÙ
This recipe was a practice in self restraint. When I’m cooking, I am always forcefully guiding my own hand to not add flavours when they don’t belong because my natural inquisitive instinct always thinks a recipe needs to be ‘mooore’. This one doesn’t. It’s perfect. I long for simplicity in cooking. Not just simple to … Continue reading COURGETTES IN BEEF BROTH & OLIVE OIL
This is not, not a risotto? Right? Even typing that I can feel the weight of disapproval from my Italian cooking mentor, Antonella, who would absolutely tell me this is not a risotto, but I can’t help myself and I’m sure she’d understand. There’s a time and a place for a proper, stove side stirring … Continue reading MUSHROOMS & PEARL BARLEY
One of the real joys of being home cook is that I don’t have to cook for a focus group. When I cook, I don’t have to consider innovation or creation to impress, I can just potter at my own free will, experiment according to my own personal preference and learn from my own findings. … Continue reading GOCHUJANG BUTTER BEAN STEW
There’s almost like an unwritten rule with food writers that the minute the temperature so much as drops half a point, we all sprint to our Word processors to write about soups and stews and how ‘THIS recipe warms the soul‘ and ‘insert cute fireside bowl-clutching food blogger’ image here. This recipe could be that, … Continue reading LAMB CAWL WITH DUMPLINGS
A dal should be admired for its simplicity and adored for it’s potential, in my opinion. Not only is it an absolute breeze to make, but the dense little morsels of lentils absorb whatever flavours you throw at them, creating an eating experience that is as complex in flavour as it is wonderful to eat. … Continue reading TOMATO & COCONUT DAL WITH CRISPY SHALLOTS & BLACK ZA’ATAR NAAN BREADS
I’m going to do a really annoying bloggery thing now and not only reminisce about a country I visited that inspired a recipe, but also call for an ingredient within it that I bought from said country. Sorry. But also, not sorry at all. When I was in Greece recently (not sorry) I consumed my … Continue reading BEETROOT & OUZO SOUP
Both making and eating granola makes me feel like I have my life together. I know there are negative connotations around those who make their own granola – it conjures images of meditation circles, hemp and constantly having a muslin cloth with some dripping homemade labneh hanging over your sink faucet. I promise you can … Continue reading CHOCOLATE, ORANGE & PEANUT GRANOLA
In a digital world that fortunes the pretty and complex, sometimes the reset of preserving something a little familiar, simpler and humbler is the sigh of relief you need. I actually consider it to be a privilege to belong to a generation that knew what it was like to have a part of their lives … Continue reading VANILLA MILK PORRIDGE WITH CARAMELISED BANANAS
Nigel Slater, who I consider to be somewhat of a paternal figure to me in the kitchen, once said, ‘Whatever the xenophobic meat-‘n’-two-veggists say, pasta is now our national dish. The family no longer unites over a joint of beef. It unites over a bowl of pasta’. I’m sure the meat-‘n’-two-veggists reading this will be … Continue reading CRUSHED PEA, PRESERVED LEMON & PISTACHIO PASTA
MIKEY AND THE KITCHEN. 