Cauliflower arrived in India in the 19th century and has become a very popular vegetable in Indian cuisine. In this recipe, cauliflower florets are stir-fried with spices and then scrambled in eggs to provide a wonderful contrast in texture. Read our full review of Indian Vegan & Vegetarian by Mridula Baljekar. Note that whilst this ... Read more »
Paneer, a non-aged fresh cheese made in India, is a common ingredient in Indian vegetarian cooking. Made by pressing fresh cottage cheese into a block, it’s often made at home but also readily available at the supermarket. As it has little flavour of its own, it’s a hugely versatile ingredient, and works in both savoury ... Read more »
Glancing at the cover of Indian Vegan & Vegetarian by Mridula Baljekari, with its colourful floral and vegetal design, you could be forgiven for thinking this is a gardening book – it even has the typical heft of one. On opening it we actually said “wow” at the abundant photos of brightly coloured dishes blazing ... Read more »
There’s something deeply comforting about the combination of gnocchi, cream and blue cheese with the lovely freshness of purple sprouting broccoli. Baking the dish intensifies flavours and creates a bubbling brown surface; the result is something rather special yet really simple to make. We use ready-made fresh potato gnocchi from the supermarket which makes the ... Read more »
Although this delicious Garlic Clove Curry from Eleanor Ford’s The Nutmeg Trail is suggested as a side dish, it’s so good that it deserves to be the star of the meal! Hailing from Sri Lanka, whole cloves of garlic are cooked in a savoury curry of coconut milk and spices. Despite the relatively short cooking ... Read more »
If you love a bit of chilli heat on the side, this delicious Tibetan Sepen recipe is for you! From the Taste Tibet cookbook by Julie Kleeman and Yeshi Jampa, this condiment combines the fiery heat of hot chilli flakes with the tingling numbing sensation and flavour of Sichuan peppercorns, the latter an especially loved ... Read more »
You might think that a recipe featuring home-made noodles would be fiddly but the noodles in this delicious vegetable soup are really straightforward and easy to make. They are served in a nourishing soup of vegetables and broth flavoured with Sichuan peppercorns, garlic, soy sauce and Chinkiang black vinegar. Serve with sepen (hot chilli dip) ... Read more »
I’m a sucker for biscuits made with dark molasses, like these Pevarini – white pepper biscuits hailing from Venice. White pepper is combined with cinnamon and molasses to create a warm and mellow flavour. This recipe is from Cinnamon and Salt: Cicchetti in Venice: Small Bites From the Lagoon City by Emiko Davies. Read our full ... Read more »
The first time you grill a whole aubergine on the barbeque or over open fire is a revelation! Such a very simple cooking method somehow transforms this vegetable into the very best it can be. In this recipe from Chasing Smoke: Cooking Over Fire Around The Levant by Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich, each aubergine ... Read more »
Grilled cabbage is one of those dishes that’s surged in popularity over the last couple of years, and this fantastic Grilled Cabbage with Chilli Garlic Butter (from Chasing Smoke: Cooking Over Fire Around The Levant by Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich) is no doubt part of that phenomenon, very much the kind of food Sarit ... 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]