I’m a Christmas pudding convert
I used to be a Christmas pudding denier. I couldn’t see the attraction of a dense pudding made mostly of…
The glory of gravy
In Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, when Ben Gunn is found by Jim Hawkins, sunburnt and wide-eyed after three years…
How to make the perfect pecan pie
A pecan pie has been on my kitchen table for the past few days, due to circumstances rendering every other…
Cullen skink is comfort in a bowl
They say not to judge a book by its cover – but what about judging a recipe by its name?…
Would you spend £30 on a Charlie Bigham’s ready meal?
Ready meals: the after-work time-saver, the dinner-party cheat – or a poor imitation of proper, cooked food? The proto-ready meal…
The secrets of sachertorte
My theory is that sachertorte is a victim of its own success. Over the past 150 years, it has become…
Bacon and egg pie, the perfect throw-it-together, please-the-whole-family dish
There are a handful of elements that make me nervous about tackling particular classic recipes. First, if it’s a dish…
The secrets of a British apple pie
‘As American as apple pie’, or so the saying goes. But what happens if the apple pie in question isn’t…
Save our sausages!
Who first thought of grinding up all those little unused odds and sods from an animal carcass and stuffing them…
Whatever happened to chicken à la king?
As sure as eggs is eggs, what was once comfort food will be reinvented as fine dining. Lancashire hotpots will…
What to do with the last of the summer’s apples
The double-edged sword of eating with the seasons is the glut. A blunt, un-pretty word, which is a joy in…
The glorious richness of rillettes
I admit to feeling a little intimidated by charcuterie. I have a clutch of books on my shelf all laying…
The magic of Danish dream cake
I am, for the most part, a rule follower and a people pleaser. It’s one of the reasons I love…
Salad cream is more than a poor man’s mayonnaise
Salad cream makes me feel oddly patriotic. It’s one of those products that is so distinctively British that it has…
The importance of bread as a symbol of Ukrainian resistance
Two authors writing in response to the war use baking as a prism through which to view the country’s heritage and its defiance of Putin
The key to a great American key lime pie
A few years ago, a friend wrote a cookery book for the UK market, full of gorgeous dishes, many of…
I love sausages!
‘Sausages,’ my son says to me, leaning forward from the back of the car, with the authority and confidence only…
Should family history, however painful, be memorialised forever?
What to hold on to and what to let go of is Samantha Ellis’s dilemma when trying to explain the complexities of their Judeo-Iraqi heritage to her young son
It’s time to reclaim tapioca pudding
‘Nothing will surely ever taste so hateful as nursery tapioca,’ wrote Elizabeth David. She’s not alone in her hatred of…
Devilled kidneys: a heavenly breakfast
Iam standing in my kitchen preparing kidneys for devilling. Snipping their white cores away piece by piece until they come…
The gobsmacking brilliance of baked Alaska
I have never seen a baked Alaska in the wild. Have you? I knew what they looked like, of course,…
The story of food in glorious technicolour
Jenny Linford explores the global history of cooking and eating through specific items from the British Museum spanning recorded history
Lamb is for life, not just for Easter
Roast lamb is as expected on the Easter table as turkey is at Christmas. But as a nation, we are…
The simple elegance of fondant potatoes
In 1999, a relatively unknown American chef wrote an essay in the New Yorker uncovering the secrets of restaurants. ‘Don’t…
Would you steal from a restaurant?
‘You wouldn’t steal a car…’ began the early noughties anti-piracy video. ‘You wouldn’t steal a television… You wouldn’t steal a…
