Even before our guide Mike Roser took us through the origins and history of apple cultivation, I had it in my head that the National Fruit Collection (NFC) at Brogdale was about collecting and preserving traditional British varieties of apples, alongside other fruits such as pears, plums and cherries. I was wrong on at least ... Read more »
Although I find our Masterchef series has become dull and formulaic I really enjoy Masterchef Australia, hosted by Gary Mehigan, George Calombaris and Matt Preston. Although the occasional over-the-top sycophancy of some of the contestants can be a little grating, mostly they are just exhuberant and gung-ho in a way we seldom embrace in the ... Read more »
I had been looking forward to dinner with friends at Kirazu for weeks. This tiny Soho restaurant describes itself as “Japanese Tapas” – a cross-cuisine shorthand (for the small dish menu) that is guaranteed to drive my friend Mr Noodles to near apoplexy. Reviews since its launch in April seemed positive and one of our ... Read more »
I love home-made ketchup, and it’s even more satisfying making it from home-grown tomatoes. In the past, I’ve made several batches of ketchup with red tomatoes and a couple of batches with green ones but this is the first batch I’ve made with beautiful orange sungold tomatoes, a variety we’ve been growing for the last ... Read more »
In the current economic climate, the easiest thing to say about organic food is that it’s expensive; there’s no getting around it – organic food is universally more expensive than its non-organic equivalents. (And there are good reasons for that, which I’ll come to later). But that’s not all there is to say about organic ... Read more »
Flavoured salts, also known as finishing salts, are a great way of adding flavour during cooking and, of course, when finishing a dish. Whilst it’s true that salt is salt, most commercially sold salt contains about 2% of something else and that 2% is enough to make a huge difference to flavour (not to mention ... Read more »
Quite a few recipes call for tying up flavouring ingredients such as herbs and whole spices inside muslin to add to the pot during cooking; this makes them easier to fish out once the flavours have infused, ensuring no one bites down on a clove, cardamom pod or piece of cinnamon stick when the dish ... Read more »
Greg Malouf’s recipe for Persian Baked Yoghurt Rice with Chicken (Tahcheen-e morgh), within a review of his book Saraban: A chef’s journey through Persia, remains a popular post on the blog, and it has been lovely to see how many readers have given the recipe a go and enjoyed it as much as we did. ... Read more »
I’d never made a potato salad before this one. Well… actually I had made warm salads that include potatoes… but never the classic version I think of when hearing “potato salad” – new potatoes bound together in a mayonnaise-based dressing. Several years ago, the American Head of IT where I worked shared his potato salad advice ... Read more »
Do you remember shandy ice lollies from the ice cream van? I only ordered them occasionally, flitting between my love for cornettos, those lollies with a thick fruit shell around a vanilla ice cream core and of course, the amazing screwball with bubblegum balls at the bottom of an inverted dalek of soft white ice ... Read more »
The Place of Onions, in old Lille. After last night’s rainstorm the intense sticky heat has broken and today is cool, breezy, fresh… I love it! A drop of… [more]
We went to Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire at The Void this morning, an amazing VR experience where we got to be Rebel Alliance members going undercover as… [more]