Food & Cooking

Yotam Ottolenghi’s favourite rice recipes | Food

By 3 months ago

Rice is one of my main comforts these days, not least because this special grain transports me wherever I want to go – all from the confines of my own kitchen, of course. The thing about rice is, it has a dynamic wardrobe. Yes, it’s small and unassuming, and it does subtlety really well –plain and buttered? I’ll definitely have that – but leave rice with a choice of costumes and, well, things soon get really colourful. Rice looks just as good dressed in the flavours of the Mediterranean as it does dolled up in Persian cardamom and lime. In fact, it looks good no matter what it has on, and I think it sort of knows it, too.

Mediterranean-style fried rice with anchovy lemon dressing (pictured above)

This has all the wonderful qualities of classic fried rice, with those lovely crisp bits and salty bits, except here they’re

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Thomasina Miers’ recipe for potato and chickpea curry | The simple fix | Food

By 3 months ago

When I was growing up, my father would cook a Madhur Jaffrey potato curry that I still make a version of to this day. Over the years, mine has evolved quite a bit – it’s saucier than Madhur’s and I love to add chickpeas or fresh peas. There is something pleasing about the way tooth meets the tender-firm cubes of potato, not to mention the spicy sauce that envelops them, flooding the mouth with flavour and heat. It always hits the spot. There is time to make flatbread while the curry cooks (to mop up that sauce), but otherwise sit back, crack open a beer and think about how much you didn’t spend on a takeaway.

Potato curry with chickpeas and turmeric

In summer, I often swap the chickpeas for peas.

Prep 10 min
Cook 45 min
Serves 4-6

6 large potatoes
5 tbsp vegetable oil
½ tsp mustard seeds

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Nigel Slater’s recipes for cherry almond tart and strawberry parfait | Food

By 3 months ago

I’m packing a picnic. (Give me a pork pie, a punnet of cherries and a picnic rug and I could barely be happier.) The best picnic food is inevitably the simplest. Nothing fussy; nothing that will wilt or dry up or spill. Just lovely big food to share. A pie, a tart, a big bag or two of fruit. Oh, and a bottle of ginger beer.

If it is to be a proper picnic, there has to be some seasonal fruit. Generally, I would say that cherries travel most successfully when kept cool by ice packs, but another way is to bake them into a tart and take the whole thing, baking tray and all, with you. Make it a deep tart rather than the sort of shallow tart you find in

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When It Comes to a Recipe, What’s in a Name?

By 3 months ago

Back in May, the response was swift when Milk Bar’s Christina Tosi uploaded a video of what she called her “flaky bread.” Instagram commenters quickly pointed out that the unleavened rounds were essentially South Asia’s paratha by another name, while Tosi’s recommendation to add scallions might also call to mind a riff on Chinese scallion pancakes. With neither mentioned in Tosi’s description, critics on social media saw the dish as another food industry whitewashing gaffe. But this wasn’t the first time “flaky bread” caused problems online.

In 2014, Bon Appétit posted a similar dish. Developed by Alison Roman, that “flaky bread” recipe was simple, accompanied by no context besides a quick prep tip in the headnote. As with Tosi’s recipe, keen observers homed in on its similarity to paratha, and by May 2020, readers had begun weighing in with comments like: “Not a single mention of where

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