Recipes (my own and from reviewed recipe books), reviews of cookery books and cookery classes, food and kitchen equipment product reviews – if it’s about cooking or eating at home, it’s here!

Choux Buns With Coffee Custard Filling

Indulgence Coffee is a book about nostalgia. Published in April, it’s part of a series by Murdoch Books which aims to celebrate vintage style and “a bygone era when dressing up, serving tea in fine china and writing personal thank you notes afterwards were regarded as simply good manners.” In that, it succeeds, full of ... Read more »

Urban Farming with Celia Brooks Brown

Books on growing your own fruit and vegetables seem to be ten a penny at the moment, as publishers leap onto the latest bandwagon, keen to milk the home farming phenomenon. Often dull and weighty tomes, they add little to the existing excellent literature already available. Celia Brook Brown’s New Urban Farmer makes a refreshing change, ... Read more »

Learning to Cook Japanese + Hashi Cooking’s Recipe for Beef Tataki & Creamy Sesame Sauce

I first learned of Reiko Hashimoto-Lambert’s Japanese cookery lessons, held in the spacious kitchen of her Wimbledon Park home, by way of Luiz, the London Foodie’s blog post last year. Luiz has attended most of Reiko’s Hashi Cooking classes during the last 3 years and often puts what he’s learned to good practice, much to ... Read more »

Wild Garlic Part 1: A Leafy Stuffing

Wild garlic is enjoying a surge in popularity this year, or so it seems to me. I first had it only last year, at Konstam and absolutely loved the pervasive garlic flavour in the wilted leaves. At around the same time a porkchop-blagging blogger quickly became London’s best-known source. A few months later, it entered ... Read more »

Cooking A Crab!

I can’t believe I’ve never actually cooked a crab before. It’s one of my favourite sea foods, such a wondrous thing. I order it often in restaurants. And the one occasion every decade that my dad cooks, he cooks a hot and spicy Bengali crab curry. I even buy dressed crab now and again when ... Read more »

Lipsmacking Tamarind Ketchup

Tamarind Ketchup

My family call this sauce imli (tamarind) chutney. The word chutney comes from the Hindi chaatni which describes a tangy condiment that makes you lick your lips at it’s flavour! Although the verb chaatna means to lick I think lipsmacking is a better translation.. I refer to it as a ketchup or sauce because I’ve ... Read more »

Catch of the Day at Billingsgate Fish Market

“I have to get up at WHAT time?!?!” “4.30 am” “What?! Whyyyyyyyyyyy?” “Because the course starts at 6.30 with registration at 6.15” And so, we witness a time of day we’ve not seen for quite a while, especially since we’ve been on our extended holiday sabbatical. But we have good reason: We’re attending Billingsgate Seafood ... Read more »

Cuisinier Gascon: Braised Ox Cheek Bordelaise

Cuisinier Gascon: Meals from a Gascon Chef by Pascal Aussignac

I’ve been desperate to cook some of the delectably tempting recipes in Cuisinier Gascon by Pascal Aussignac since I got my mitts on it just before leaving for the Falklands. It’s a really, really beautiful book, full of mouth-watering recipes and beautiful images, not just of some of the dishes but also of life in ... Read more »