Recipe

I’d always assumed that the hummingbird’s cake derived its name from its unapologetic sweetness: a cake so singing with fruit juice and soft caramelly sugar that it charms the (humming)birds from the trees. The origins may in fact be more prosaic: originally called the Doctor Bird cake, it was named after the national symbol of Jamaica, a type of hummingbird, only found on the island, and it first came to fame outside of Jamaica thanks to a bit of a PR stunt. It was a marketing tool, really: one of a number of recipes exported by the Jamaican Tourist Board in 1968 in little press packs sent to the USA.

Turkey curry, as a means of using up festive leftovers has become something of a joke: the turkey curry buffet in Bridget Jones is the true low point of Bridge’s festive calendar. The prospect can strike fear into the most Christmas-spirited of souls. But actually, on boxing day, or the day after, the last thing you really want is the same meal you’ve been eating for the past two days, looking a little tired and fridge-worn, all the best bits gone. Don’t get me wrong: I’ll be first to the table for cold roast meats and my fifth serving of stilton in 48 hours, and if you hesitate for a

I watch a lot of Great British Bake Off. I’d like to say it comes with the baking territory, but the truth is, I’m simply hooked. I love all of it: the triumphs, the disasters, the crap jokes, the obscure technicals, all of it. My dedication to GBBO has taught me a couple of things: the Hollywood handshake has been so devalued in recent years as to be completely worthless; it’s probably worth breaking down and having a cry over your macarons just to get a hug from Noel Fielding, and swiss rolls are a bloody nightmare. They’re fiddly: they require whisking the yolks and whites separately, and then gingerly

The cheeseboard is, arguably, the highlight of any dinner, but there’s an art to crafting a delectable selection. From selecting the right cheeses and serving them at their best to the ensuring a balanced pairing of sundries and sippers, the craft of the cheeseboard is a skill to learn. It’s time to do away with whipping out a Stilton wheel straight from the fridge. We asked top cheese experts, Hero Hirsh and Sam Wilkin, about the do’s and don’ts of Christmas cheese eating: How much cheese should you serve? As a rule, around 100g-150g per person should be plenty, but keep in mind that buying generously ensures your stock will

Christmas baking should be a source of joy. It should be something we look forward to, a break from the hectic organisation of dozens of presents, reams of wrapping paper, cosy-but-thoughtful decoration, enormous meals, endless Christmas parties, and stressful hosting. But Christmas baking can take on a life of its own: fruit cakes that ‘should’ have been made months ago (that three members of your family will tell you loudly they do not like and will not eat), puddings that need hours on the hob, edible biscuity decorations with boiled sweet centres that will inevitably stale on the tree. It can just become another chore. Now, I love a Christmas

If you’re looking for an alternative to Christmas cake (or an addition to it), then panforte is the bake for you. Sufficiently similar to our traditional Christmas cake in its flavours of Medieval spice, dried fruit and candied citrus that it can’t fail to evoke the Christmas spirit, it is still entirely distinctive. Panforte is shallower than Christmas cake, and more solid; the honey in the mix means that it is chewy rather than crumbly, and where a Christmas cake is stuffed full of vine fruits and cherries, panforte majors in dates and figs. A slim wedge of the dense, spiced bake is more than sufficient and even, whisper it,

There are some dishes on which I am well aware I hold strong opinions: toast (well done but not burnt, real butter, generously spread; must be eaten hot), crumble (crunchy, not soggy, lots of it; simply must be served with custard, ideally cold), roast chicken (cooked hot and fast, with more butter than is sensible, until the skin crackles; the chicken oysters are always cook’s perks). But some catch me unawares. I don’t realise that I feel strongly about a particular recipe of foodstuff until I’m staring down the barrel of a recipe, or contemplating something that doesn’t meet my surprisingly exacting standards. I’ll find myself holding forth on the

At this time of year, nothing beats a cosy tavern with steamed up windows, a roaring fire and hearty food. ‘Gastropubs’ have come under some justified criticism over the years: trying too hard to be restaurants and with prices to match, pricing out their former loyal clientele. Too many regular pubs meanwhile are happy to serve microwaved food or, as is the fashion nowadays, mediocre Thai cuisine. Pub or gastropub, the most successful food offerings at a good watering hole are often the pies. With any luck there will be options: picnic pies with hot water crust pastry (Crystelle from Bake Off recently produced a good-looking curried chicken and potato terrine

Marble cakes are a simple concept, but such a satisfying bake, with that delightful reveal when you cut into the cake and expose the hidden pattern. They are made by dividing the base cake batter, and adding colouring or flavouring to one part of it, and then mottled by dolloping light and dark batter alternately into the same cake tin. They were a feature of my childhood, but feel a little passé now, which is a shame, as they’re well worth your baking energies. I think it’s time to bring them back. Now, many marble cake recipes will simply use a basic pound cake recipe, and introduce a couple of

There’s never been a better year to celebrate Bonfire Night. Late night, outdoor, responsible fun to enjoy now that there’s precious little else to do after 10 p.m. Plus it’s surely therapeutic to remind ourselves that while things are currently a little tough going and hosting a dinner party in your home is an act of high treason, the country had its fair share of problems in 1605 too. Round-the-fire cooking isn’t the same as barbeque cooking: utensils are at a minimum; heat control is down to a wing and a prayer. This is ‘chuck it near the heat and pray the kids won’t go hungry’ cooking. So here are

I must have written thousands of words about my love of stews, braises, and slow-cooked dishes, but osso bucco must be one of my longtime, unchanging favourites. Osso bucco comes from the Northern Italian region of Lombardy, and is made from braised veal shanks. It’s a cut that not only benefits from, but really needs, a low slow cook, bathing in stock and booze, until the meat is tender enough to be broken apart with the edge of a fork. The dish name literally translates as ‘hole in the bone’, which quietly points to the magic of the dish (or, you could argue, misses it entirely). Inside that hole is,

I have always been a bit of a stew-pusher; it tends to be my answer to any of life’s dilemmas, culinary or otherwise. Friends coming round? Stew. Cold and dark outside? Stew. Feeling sad? Stew. To be honest, it doesn’t matter whether or not the weather demands it, I am always in the mood for stew. I’d eat mince and dumplings in June, a slow-cooked sticky oxtail ragu in high Summer. But once Autumn arrives, and my obsession is legitimised by the cold and the dark evenings, there’s no stopping me. In our household, it’s casseroles from now until Spring. I struggle to think of something more comforting and cosy

‘Casseroles,’ Julia Child wrote to her long-term penpal Avi DeVotos, ‘I even hate the name, as it always implies to me some god awful mess.’ On this, Julia and I are in full agreement: I have a real problem with the word ‘casserole’. And ‘stew’ for that matter. Both of them sound so unappetising, so school dinners. But Child and I are also aligned in our hypocrisy, because actually, deep down, I love a casserole, as long as you call it anything else. Like me, despite her vocal opposition to the casserole, Child loved bourguignons and carbonnades, coq au vin and poulet poele à l’estragon, and wrote about them with

Two of the misconceptions surrounding curry that it consistently struggles to shrug off are one, that it is unhealthy, and two, that it is difficult to make at home. I’ve always found both perplexing. Turks and Persians must be similarly bemused given the reputation of their archetypal food, the kebab. Yes the late night version, carved from a rotating trunk of greasy lamb with a mini chainsaw and then covered in garlic mayo, is a calorific car crash. But kebab as it was meant to be – meat simply grilled over charcoal and served with rice and salad – is perfectly healthy every day food. And yes a curry house

Being deeply unchic and uncosmopolitan, for a long time I assumed that croquetas were the same as the croquettes of my childhood: potato-based, probably a bit bland, and almost certainly coming from a bag that lives in the freezer. We’d often have them served with roast ham and cider sauce and green beans, as part of a main meal. To be fair to me and my culinary shortsightedness, the two bear strong similarities: both are breadcrumbed and fried or baked, soft within, and similarly shaped and sized. But, to my mind, croquetas are several levels above the French/English potato variant. Of course, Spanish croquetas don’t contain potato at all. The

I confess, the idea of a tres leches cake did not initially appeal to me. A dry sponge soaked in a variety of tinned milks sounds, at best, like bland nursery food and, at worst, tooth-achingly saccharine. ‘Milky’ has never been one of the words that I hope to see in connection with anything other than ‘coffee’ or ‘Way’. But I saw it likened to trifle and curiosity got the better of me – and I’m so glad it did. Actually, a tres leches cake is not terribly like a trifle at all, although I can see where the comparison came from. Soaked puddings are nothing new, and that’s really

I’m normally averse to leftovers: it’s not a trait I like in myself. I’d far rather be able to eat the same thing for days on end, especially when it’s seasonal veg, or an enormous, hearty stew that I’ve spent ages making. It’s a sensible way of cooking: healthy, seasonal, cheap, time-saving. But I’m easily bored, and the best laid plans of mice and men the night before, clingfilmed or tupperwared up, no longer appeal the following lunchtime. I end up parcelling those thoughtful, carefully prepared dishes onto my husband and plumping instead for so-called novelty in the form of toast, or a sandwich. For some reason, soup is the

Summer barbecues open up a wealth of opportunity for culinary exploration. Here are four tips for taking your barbecuing to the next level, followed by three of my recipes to try for yourself: lamb cutlets with asparagus, garlicky prawns and the delightfully colourful Pepper Piedmontese. Each of these dishes have been paired with wine chosen by Andrew Peace so that you can bring out the very best of those barbecue flavours.  Choose your charcoal wisely Food cooked over an open fire has a different flavour altogether than food cooked on the stove or in the oven. For the best flavour use sustainably sourced British charcoal which burns longer so you’ll use less

We have all become rather used to socialising outside. Thanks to the pandemic, for perhaps the first time in our national history, al fresco dining has become the norm well outside of the summer months. We shivered under wraps for the last nine months only to finally be allowed to socialise indoors once more just at the moment when we’re all keen to light up the barbecue and enjoy the warmth outdoors. Nothing compares to the pleasure of a lunch or dinner en plein air in the summer months. It sharpens the appetite and provides happy opportunities for people or garden watching when the conversation bores. Sometimes you can even

In one sense, a madeleine is simply a small cake. In fact, it’s an extremely classic cake, made with the genoise method. But there’s more to a madeleine than that: the proportions of madeleines, their miniature nature and scalloped shape, mean that they have a perfect contrast between their slightly sticky, almost crisp outside, and impossibly light and soft interior. Traditionally they are made with browned butter, which does what browned butter does best, bringing depth and complexity to a straightforward sponge. The dark muscovado and honey in the recipe elevate these little sponges from a miniature cake into something really special. The holy grail when madeleine making are those