When I was asked to write recipes featuring flat leaf parsley, I thought of the most parsleyish dish of all: tabbouleh. Tabbouleh is often thought of as a bulgur wheat salad, but it’s more properly a parsley salad. There should be just a few specks of bulgar wheat, to give it body, while the overriding taste and texture…
Vegetarian
Roasted Brussels sprouts on a stem recipe
Sweet and only mildly sulphurous, my adult palate rather enjoys Brussels sprouts. I’m always searching for new ways to cook them. Sprouts grow on a thick stem – something you can readily find in many supermarkets these days, both in green and purple shades. For a spectacular effect, to make something dressy out of the…
Chilaquiles, or nachos for breakfast
On my recent trip to Mexico, I discovered something called chilaquiles on a breakfast menu. Let’s not beat around the bush – these are a version of nachos, but ones that you are allowed to have in the morning. I grew addicted. They come with either a red or green sauce. The red sauce is…
Vegan Christmas: Pilaf Pumpkin
What to serve vegans and vegetarians at Christmas is a head scratcher for those used to the simplicities of a giant turkey as a centrepiece. Some people can only imagine meat as an impressive seasonal treat, and they are stumped when it comes to thinking of a similarly spectacular vegan or vegetarian dish. This stunning…
Espelette pepper pasta
I’m going back to Bordeaux tomorrow. One of the popular ingredients from thereabouts, grown further down the Atlantic coast in the Northern Basque region is espelette pepper. I like it because not only does it give an attractive orange colour to food, espelette is not too hot. It adds flavour, even some acidity rather than…
Thai Red Curry Recipe (Vegan)
It surprises people when I say that Red Thai curries are milder than green. We associate the colour red with heat. The key to some kind of authenticity in cooking is in getting the right ingredients. For this I ordered the correct chillies in advance: not bird’s eye but long dried chillies Prik Chee Fah….
Mattar paneer recipe
Mattar Paneer recipe My daughter and I always order this when we are ‘getting an Indian’. There isn’t that much dairy in Indian food but paneer is an easy fresh cheese to make. But I’ll level with you, I mostly buy it. A pack of paneer and a bag of frozen peas and you are…
My new roots
Veg boxes are pretty dull from January to the end of April, often called ‘The Hungry Gap’. I’ve been mucking about with new roots and tubers to add colour and flavour to my cooking. Oca What is it? a pink tuber originally from Peru. Taste: it’s hard to describe the taste other than citrussy potato…
Mexican adventures and a recipe for Chipotle en adobo
Chipotle en adobo is one of my go-to ingredients for an authentic Mexican flavour in my cooking. But it’s also good for anything else you fancy… in lasagne, on toast, in baked beans, in salsa. I absolutely love Mexican food, I think it is vastly underrated as a cuisine. What we call Mexican is mostly…
Butternut squash, apricot, pumpkin seed, preserved lemon and bulgar wheat tagine with rose harissa (Vegan/Vegetarian)
I’ve been playing with my tagine recently. The one I have is made of fine white porcelain, designed by Sophie Conran at Portmeirion (£63 but do shop around, you can get it cheaper on other sites). It looks so elegant, one can scarcely believe that you can use it directly on heat but you can. I…