Recipes

Score! Found some guancale so naturally I made carbonara. Hands down one of my favourite pasta dishes.

The recipe is pretty simple (for which, read there’s nowhere to hide).

Serves 4 people.

Cooking time: about half an hour.

Ingredients:

• some guancale. I like it sliced thin so you get slivers of flavour, but some like it cubed. How much? I used about 100g.

• 500g of pasta. Spaghetti works well here, but bucatini is better.

• Egg. I like to do 1 egg yolk per person plus one whole egg per two people. So, for four, four yolks and two whole eggs.

• Black pepper. Freshly ground. More than you think.

Now some people will tell you that’s all you need (and all you’re allowed for an ‘authentic’ carbonara) but I also salt the pasta water and use some of it in the final saucing.

1. Boil a lot of salted water. Add the pasta. Cook it.

2. Meanwhile, in a heavy based pan, fry the sliced guancale (or pancetta, or if all else fails some unsmoked streaky bacon). You need something like a cast iron or enamelled Le Creuset because we need heat retention later.

3. Also meanwhile separate the eggs, loosely whisk and then start grinding black pepper and grating cheese. Grind slightly more black pepper than seems sensible and add it to the eggs. For the cheese I like to use a 50/50 mix of parmesan and pecorino. I don’t know amounts but if your pasta takes about 8 minutes then grate, stir pasta, grate, stir guancale, grate, repeat, until there’s about one minute left on your timer.

4. With one minute to go scoop up a cup of the pasta water. Then make sure your eggy cheesy peppery mixture is nicely combined.

5. When the pasta is done, turn of the heat on the guancale. Drain the pasta and then add to the guancale, tossing it until all the pasta is coated in the oil.

6. Add half the reserved pasta water to your cheeggy mixture and stir well to temper the it. Then pour into the pan with the guancale and pasta. Stir it! You want the egg to gently cook in the heat of the pan, but not scramble! So stir it, keep it moving until it’s barely saucy. Then add the rest of the reserved pasta water again and stir again until it hits a creamy but not wet consistency.

7. Serve with some more freshly ground black pepper.

No photos because you want to eat this while it’s still hot! Maybe next time.

I have a bunch of go-to online sources for recipes that I use, from NYT cooking (subscription required but worth it) to Serious Eats (Kenji FTW!) to BBC Good Food.

But my all time favourite online writer is Felicity Cloake who does an utterly brilliant series in The Guardian.

The premise is simple: for any given dish, she takes a bunch of recipes from various chefs and food writers, tries them all, and discusses what works and what doesn't, then publishes her best version of all of the above.

Whether it's pierogi, nettle soup, cheese empanadas, or pasta ai funghi her articles are great because you can see why she's made the decisions she has for her final recipe. You can pick and chose from the various recipes she tried.

Strongly, strongly recommended.

Chicken and asparagus risotto

Serves 2

Ingredients

• asparagus, one bunch - for this, where the asparagus is chopped, I like quite thin stalks, if I'm serving it whole as a side I prefer thicker stalks
• chicken breast, 250g cooked, and chopped - this is a weeknight meal, if I was taking time I'd poach and shred some chicken breast fresh for it
• risotto rice, 250g - I like Carnaroli most, but only had Arborio in the cupboard so that's what I used here
• shallots - I had some huge Echalion shallots and just used a couple, finely sliced
• garlic, 2 cloves, finely slived or minced
• butter, an ungodly amount, in 1 cm cubes - some for frying and some to finish. Maybe 100g
• 1 cup of dry white wine
• stock, 1L - I used half chicken and half veggie
• flat leaf parsley, 1 fistful, chopped
• Parmigiano Reggiano, 50g, finely grated
• salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper

Method

1. take a bunch of asparagus and snap off the woody stems (don't bin them!). Cut the asparagus into roughly 1.5cm to 2cm pieces on a slight bias.
2. bring some stock to a bare simmer and toss in the woody asparagus stems. I used about 1L stock total.

3. bring half the butter to a low simmer in a heavy bottomed pan (an enamelled dutch oven is perfect here, a Le Creuset or other similar). Gently cook the chopped asparagus in the butter, until fragrant and softening, maybe 3-4 minutes.
4. remove the asparagus and reserve.
5. add the chopped shallots to the pan and let soften, about 5 minutes.
6. add the garlic to the pan and let soften, about 2 minutes.
7. turn the heat up under the pan to medium, add the rice, and stir in the rice. Fry until you can smell a slightly toasty note from the rice, stirring often.

8. toss in your white wine and keep stirring frequently until it's been absorbed.
9. remove the woody asparagus stems from the stock and chuck.
10. a ladle or two at a time, add some stock to the risotto and keep stirring often until the stock has been almost completely absorbed. Repeat until you've used almost all the stock. Test the rice. You want no chalkiness, but still a little but of a bite to it, it shouldn't be mushy.
11. add the chopped chicken and the fried asparagus to the pot along with the last ladle or two of stock. Keep stirring until it's at about the consistency you're looking for[1].
12. add the chopped parsley and the rest of the butter. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve.

My wife declared it to be as good as the M&S microwave Chicken and Asparagus risotto ready-meal, so you can't get much better than that, can you?

[1] - the perfect risotto should 'creep' across the plate, ie when you add a ladleful to a plate it shouldn't maintain a heaped shape but should gradually relax and spread a bit. Mine, here, was a bit thick, but what can you do?

Kedgeree

Serves 4

Ingredients

• two or three good-sized fillets of smoked haddock (I prefer undyed but it can be harder to find)
• 300 ml milk
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tbsp garam masala
• 8 eggs
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tbsp mild curry powder
• 1.5 cups of basmati rice, washed and soaked
• a small bunch of flat leaf parsley, chopped
• salt
• lemon to serve

Method

1. Add the milk, bay leaves, and garam masala to a pan large enough to take the haddock fillets in a single layer, and bring it to a simmer. Once it's reached a simmer, add the haddock fillets, cover, and turn off the heat. Leave for about 10 minutes. Then, remove the fish and save for later. Strain the milk into a jug.
2. Hard boil the eggs. I like to use J. Kenji López-Alt's method for easy-to-peel eggs. I usually let them cook for 10 minutes, then straight into a cold bath before peeling them.
3. Gently fry the chopped onion and garlic for five minutes, then stir in the mild curry powder. Once ithe mixture is fragrant, stir in the rice and add a good pinch of salt.
4. For 1.5 cups of rice I like to use a little over 2 cups of liquid. I add one cup of the reserved milk, and one cup of water. Bring to a simmer, cover, and turn the heat down as low as it will go for about 10 minutes.
5. While the rice is cooking, chop the parsley and flake the fish (discarding any skin if it was present). When the 10 minutes is up, check the rice to make sure the liquid has been absorbed, then top the rice with three quarters of the parsley and the flaked fish. Put a sheet of kitchen towel over the top of the pan, then re-cover, turn the heat off, and let it rest for about 5 minutes.
6. While the rice is resting, cut each boiled egg into 4 quarters.
7. Gently stir the rice, fish, and parsley into each other, then split between bowls. Add the boiled eggs and garnish with the remaining parsley. Serve with wedges of lemon.

One of my favourites. And the kids eat it too since it's basically giant chicken nuggets!

Ingredients

• One chicken breast per person
• plain flour (I like to season mine with a little salt and pepper)
• 1 egg, beaten
• breadcrumbs (I use Paxo Natural, but you could posh it up a bit with artisinal breadcrumbs)
• a frying oil (eg sunflower)
• salt and pepper
• parmesan
• lemons to serve

Method

1. Preheat an over to 75'c to keep things warm. Put in a baking tray lined with kitchen towel or greaseproof paper.

2. Pop a damp sheet of kitchen towel on your worktop, then a chopping board on top of that. Get a large piece of clingfilm (double the size of the chopping board, rest it over the board, then place a chicken breast on the clingfilm and finally lay the rest of the clingfilm over the chicken. Using a meat mallet, a rolling pin, or even another chopping board, bash your chicken breast to an even 1cm or so thick. Repeat for all chicken breasts (if you have decent quality clingfilm the same piece should hold up for multiple chicken breasts).

3. Heat the oil in a large frying pan.

4. Lay out three shallow bowls, each big enough to take a flattened breast. Put the flour in one, the egg in another, and mix the breadcrumbs and parmesan with a little salt and pepper in the third.

5. One by one, dredge the breasts in the flour and shake excess off, then dip in the egg and drip the excess off, then finally into the breadcrumb / parmesan mix and again shake off any excess.

6. Fry each coated chicken breast for 3 to four minutes on each side (check the internal temperature with an instant-read thermometer: chicken should reach a minimum of 70'C / 158'F according to the World Health Organisation - most recommend higher but the WHO is good enough for me). Transfer the cooked chicken breasts to the oven to keep warm while you do the others.

7. Serve with lemon wedges, a really simple tomato spaghetti, and a green salad.

A tomato-less pasta sauce cooked for many, many hours until the beef and the onions melt into each other.

The result is a rich, creamy sauce that makes a nice change from the Bolognese.

Relatively low effort as long as you’re staying at home and can give it a stir every half hour or so.

This was the first time I made it so I pretty closely followed this recipe.

Edit to add: this would probably work pretty well as a slow cooker recipe.

Italians, look away now, because guanciale is hard to get round these parts. Besides, I bet your nonna used pancetta at least once in her lifetime and you didnt't even notice.

Carbonara is actually pretty easy, although like all recipes with a very limited set of ingredients it can seem quite intimidating because there's nowhere to hide.

• Slice or chop 150g of the best pancetta you can find (guanciale if you can get it but it's hard to source) and gently fry until golden brown but not crispy. If you can't get either then an unsmoked streaky bacon will work at a push while also upsetting everyone in Italy.
• Cook your chosen pasta (I do 500g for 4 people) to al dente in a pot of well-salted water. I've tried carbonara with various types of pasta: spaghetti, bucatini, linguine, fettuccine, tagliatelle (always tagliatelle with a ragu alla bolognese, I serve a tag bol in my house, not a spag bol) as well as short pastas like rigatoni and cavatappi (the best pasta for mac and cheese). Personally, I enjoy a tagliatelle carbonara.
• While the pasta and pancetta / guanciale is cooking, whisk eggs, cheese, and freshly ground black pepper together. I use one whole, free-range egg per person, and an additional yolk per two people (I really like Burford Brown eggs because of the exceptional colour of the yolks). I use a mix of approximately 50/50 pecorino romano and parmigiano reggiano. Loads of both.
• Once the pasta is cooked, reserve a cup of the cooking water, then drain and chuck it in with the meat. You don't need to be super careful about draining the pasta - any excess water will be incorporated into the sauce.
• Turn off the heat under the meat and pasta. This is important and we're close to the only challenging bit of cooking a carbonara. We're going to add the cheesy egg mixture to the pasta and we want it to cook super gently to avoid serving our guests scrambled egg so we want it to cook in the residual heat, not any direct heat. Spend a minute or two tossing the pasta in with the meat and the oil that's rendered out of the meat as it's cooked.
• Add the cheesy egg mixture and stir vigorously for a minute or so to combine with the pasta. Add as much of the reserved pasta water as necessary to make sure the sauce is creamy and luxurious. It can soak up more water than you expect!
• Serve immediately with a few more grinds of black pepper.

Greek-style roast chicken

To achieve maximum juiciness, I like to brine the chicken for 24 hours before cooking.

• Put a layer of sliced red onion on the bottom of a deep baking tray, a cast iron skillet, or a Dutch oven
• Stuff the cavity of a large free-range chicken with some oregano, onion, a lemon wedge, and a lot of garlic, season all over with salt, pepper, and more oregano
• Place the chicken, breast side down, on top of the onions
• Season some new potatoes and slice them in half if they're biggish, then put them around the sides of the chicken
• Add 250ml chicken stock, 50 ml white wine, and a little lemon juice
• Roast for one hour at ~ 180c
• Turn the chicken over so it's breast side up (the potatoes will fall into the space where the chicken was, but that's ok, just rest the chicken on top of them), and check there's still a little liquid in the bottom of the pan (add a drop more stock if neeed be)
• Roast for another 30 mins to an hour (depending on the size of the bird) until done
• Rest and serve with a Greek salad or a simple green salad.

Chicken Ramen

This is a quick meal which I've done in as little as 20 minutes, start to finish. Using the Itsu broth is a huge time saver but you could elevate things by using a home-made stock.

Serves 2 adults, 2 children

• Season 2 large free-range chicken breasts with salt, pepper, and chinese five spice. Gently fry in toasted sesame oil
• In large pot bring one carton of Itsu classic ramen broth and one carton of Itshu chicken broth to a simmer (the photo is of one I made a while back, with two of the chicken broth cartons, but I prefer the mix)
• Cut the bak choi, separating the white stems from the green leaves, then add the white stems to the broth (reserving the leaves) along with some frozen edamame
• Bring a large pan of salted water to a boil. Add your ramen and cook according to packet instructions. For the four of us I use three servings of Yutaka frozen ramen which only take one minute to cook
• Add the green leaves to the broth and turn off the heat
• Drain the noodles and split between bowls
• I use a slotted spoon to scoop out the veggies and split them evenly between bowls, then pour in the broth
• Slice the chicken and add some to each bowl
• Add more fixin's as desired: chopped spring onion, finely sliced red chilli, chopped coriander, sesame seeds

I thought it might be cool to see what different meals people have in the week and maybe provide some inspiration for others!

Rough sort of recipe - I tend to wing it without very accurate measurements of things:

Serves 4 adults.

• Cook 500g of macaroni or other appropriate pasta shape to al dente (I generally go about 2 minutes under the recommended packet instructions)

• Fry up 150g of well-diced chorizo and reserve.
• Melt 125g of butter in the same pan (there should be some oil left from the chorizo)
• Chuck in some flour (I guess about half a cup) and stir to a roux which is roughly the consistency of wet sand
• Stir until not lumpy
• Add some minced garlic, a level teaspoon of English mustard powder, a pinch of nutmeg, a bay leaf, stir and then immediately start adding the milk to bring the temp down a bit and make sure the garlic doesn't burn in the roux/napalm.
• Total of about 2 1/2 pints of whole-fat milk. You have to add it in dribbles to start with and stir vigorously. The roux will glump up into a claggy mess at first but gradually combine with the milk. Once it's a reasonable consistency you can pour in the rest of the milk.
• Bring the milk to about 85-90'C (185-195'F) then stir in some grated cheese. I used a mix of Emental, Extra Mature Cheddar, and Monterey Jack.
• Season with black pepper

• Once that's all thick and cheesy and gooey and nice, return the chorizo to the sauce, then stir in the cooked pasta.
• Pour the cheesy pasta into an oven-safe dish or pot, sprinkle breadcrumbs over the top and bake for 20 minutes at 180'C / 360'F.
• Check it's bubbling nicely under its breadcrumb hat then grill for 5 minutes to get those breadcrumbs golden.

• Let it cool for 5 minutes while whipping up a simple green salad.

  I like it with some OG Tabasco to taste.

Made this earlier and I always forget how quick and easy it is (despite the name) but also his tasty it is. Only variation I use is Asda's caramelised onion turkey sausages as I don't each much red meat.

Slice or dice some good quality (not smoked) pancetta and gently fry it to release some of that delicious fat, about five minutes or so should do. If you don't have pancetta some unsmoked steaky bacon will do. I like to use an enamelled Dutch oven for this (I use a Le Creuset, other brands are available).

Finely dice a large onion, a carrot, a rib of celery, and a few fat cloves of garlic and add to the pancetta. Add a little olive oil if you feel it needs it. Very gently fry for about ten minutes.

Side note: onion, carrot, and celery make a soffritto, the cornerstone of Italian sauces and soups. This is very similar to a French mirepoix, and only a little different to a Cajun or Creole 'holy trinity' which switches out the carrot for a green bell pepper.

Meanwhile, fry 500g or so of beef mince to get some colour on it. I tend to take the block of mince and sear it hard, on both sides, in a cast iron skillet, then break it up before adding it to the soft veggies.

Add a big ol’ glass of wine. White or red. Let’s face it, no nonna ever thought “I only have white wine in the cupboard, let’s get KFC instead”.

Simmer on a medium-high heat, stirring often, until most of the wine has evaporated. About 10 minutes. You could probably just simmer on a low heat for longer but I’m a very impatient man.

Add 500 ml passata, 250 ml whole milk, 250 ml beef stock. Yup. Milk. Trust me. Whole milk, obv. And go easy with the passata. This is a meat sauce with tomato, not a tomato sauce with meat.

Bring it back to a simmer and turn the heat right down to the lowest you can. Wait three to four hours while it simmers, checking and stirring every twenty or so minutes. If it starts to dry out, add a little more stock.

Test for, and adjust, seasoning, with salt and pepper, obv.

Then cook some pasta - I much prefer tagliatelle to spaghetti for a ‘bol’. Drain the pasta and add to the pan with the sauce. Mix it up good and proper, then serve with slightly more freshly grated Parmesan than seems sensible.

Nice.

That will make enough sauce for about 8 people. I usually ladle out half of it into some Tupperware and freeze it. If I’m making a double batch to freeze for several meals, I’ll add 500g of minced pork to the beef, and double all the other ingredients.

Now then. Let’s talk real. Italian food is gate-kept (gate-keepered?) more than pretty much any other cuisine in the world. But ‘spag bol’ is now an international dish and there are more variations of it cooked around the world than there are people in Italy, and that’s absolutely okay. If you want to add mushrooms, dried herbs, chorizo, or even – and I’ve seen it recommended – peanut butter, that’s up to you and if the people you’re serving it to like it then hurrah! One piece of advice though (and this is advice for life, not just for spag bol) avoid Worcestershire Sauce if you can. Henderson’s Relish is infinitely superior.

But if you do want to try the official recipe for Ragù alla Bolognese, you can find it here.

I made these, substituting gluten free flour for the wheat flour. It was DELICIOUS but very gooey. I struggled to get it out of the pan and to keep the slices together. However, they firm up nicely in the fridge. I'll definitely try them again, and put the whole batch in the fridge before I slice them.

Another of my staples - you can prepare the tuna ahead of time and let it marinate, then make the harissa potatoes, throw the tuna on a griddle pan and perhaps throw some green beans on there for an extra vegetable.

I found a couple of good recipes for chuck roast, so I combined them and made it myself. I never used a braising pan before or cooked a beef roast before.

Here's what I did:

1 pack of bacon, diced and cooked in olive oil on medium high until the edges were brown, then removed.

In the same pan, 2 diced carrots, 2 diced celery stalks, 2 diced Walla Walla sweet onions. Cooked on medium high until carmaelized, then removed.

3.37 pound (1.5 kg) boneless chuck roast. Patted dry, heavily salted and peppered, seared on one side for 5 minutes, flipped and then seared on the other side for 5 minutes and removed.

Added back 1/2 cup (118 ml) Grand Marnier and 2 cups (473 ml) of Malbec Wine. Deglazed the pan scraping up all the brown bits.

Put the bacon back in, put the veggies back in, stirred until well distributed. Added bay leaves, thyme and rosemary, several cloves of minced garlic, topped with the meat.

Brought to a boil then placed in a pre-heated 325° F (163° C) oven for 3 hours.

After 3 hours, beef was to temp and easily shreddable. (Finally! A reason to use the meat claws!) Resting on stove top while I cook some pasta to go with it.

Pasta was super simple. Boiled water and salt, cooked a bag of egg noodles for 8 or 9 minutes. Drained, removed, then melted a stick of butter in the pot, added a small container of heavy cream, added rosemary and thyme, brought it to a simmer then popped the pasta back in and cooked a couple of minutes.

About twenty-five chicken wings, marinaded overnight in yoghurt, lemon juice and a Tandoori spice mix.

I put these on a Kamado Joe barbecue at 120'C for about half an hour.

Then raised the temperature to 180'C for another, maybe half an hour, flipping the wings every five to ten minutes to make sure they got some char but didn't burn.

Meanwhile, I washed, soaked, and drained some basmati rice. Then I toasted some cumin and coriander seeds, then crushed them in a pestle and mortar. I added some turmeric and a pinch of kashmiri chilli powder, a couple of bruised cardamom pods, and gently fried the spices to let them bloom. I added half a chopped onion, a couple of cloves of garlic, and a little grated ginger. I continued to fry that gently for about five minutes then turned up the heat and added the rice, frying it in with the oil and spices for a couple of minutes.

Then I added 1.5 times as much vegetable stock, added a good pinch of salt, brought it to a boil, covered the pan, and turned the heat down as low as possible. I left it for just over 10 minutes until all the liquid had been absorbed, then put a piece of kitchen towel over the rice, lid back on, and let it rest for 10 minutes.

I also made some Cucumber Raita (grated cucumber, yoghurt, mint, and coriander), but the only photo I took of that makes it look horrid, so you'll just have to imagine it!

Nice.

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Jamaican Curry Chicken

Feeds 6 or so, I reckon.

• A dozen boneless chicken thighs, each cut into about 3 pieces
• 2 large carrots, sliced
• 1 large potato, diced
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 1 cup coconut milk

Marinade

• A hefty glug of oil
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, grated
• 1 bunch spring onions / scallions, chopped
• 1 scotch bonnet, chopped
• 1 tbsp Jamaican curry powder
• 1 tbsp Jamaican all purpose seasoning
• 1 heaped tsp ground allspice
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• A few decent grinds of black pepper

1. Mix all the marinade ingredients in a bowl, combine with the chicken, leave to marinate ideally overnight.
2. In a large skillet or dutch oven, heat some oil then fry the chicken in batches so as not to crowd the pan.
3. Return the chicken to the pan with the carrots, potato, and stock, stirring to deglaze. Mostly cover and simmer for 30-40 minutes or until the potatoes are cooked and the liquid reduced to a gravy.
4. Reduce the heat, add the coconut milk, stir and warm through for 5 more minutes.
5. Serve with rice and peas.

It's a simple recipe that I have simplified.

• Fry the chicken
• Add garlic and let it dry for a bit
• Add stock
• Add a tin of Campbell's condensed mushroom soup
• Add the thyme and tarragon (I just used the dried stuff
• Tip in a bunch of frozen mushrooms
• For an added vegetable, I tip in some frozen sweetcorn
• Want more veg? Do green beans on the side

Serve with brown rice if you want some more carbs with that.

This is the current favourite 🙂

One of my go-to vegetarian (technically vegan) - very quick and easy to get together using very few ingredients and it is very tasty indeed.