Recipes

Gennaro Contaldo · Gennaro's Hidden Italy

When I was a child, we would often have polpette (dumplings), made from stale bread and cheese, especially on Fridays and during Lent when meat was forbidden. To me, it’s a shame that this dish has declined in popularity over the years, with the preference for minced meat taking centre stage in most meatball recipes, as here, the bread and ricotta make the polpette so soft they almost melt in your mouth. This is delicious cooked in a tomato sauce and served with a green side salad for a meat-free meal.

Letitia Clark · For the Love of Lemons

A tub of ready-to-go cannellini beans is invaluable when you are short of time or what the Italians call voglia (which translates as ‘want’ or ‘desire’). Of course there are always tins, jars and cartons if you don’t have time to soak and cook them yourself, but if you have been fruitful and cooked them, they can sit in the refrigerator for a good few days and wait to be used. The added bonus of cooking them yourself is that you can flavour them with anything you wish (perhaps some onion or garlic; herbs such as bay, thyme, rosemary or sage; a sun-dried tomato or two; or any combination of these), and they make a great starting point for this broth. I cooked these simply with water, a few tablespoons of oil, a clove or two of garlic and a sprig of rosemary, which meant they were the perfect bland carbohydrate-canvas to build on, and allowed the simple sweet and summery flavours of the other ingredients to stand out. You can use a stock cube or homemade stock as you wish.

Letitia Clark · For the Love of Lemons

I may have resisted the temptation to call this ‘lemonisu’ (partly because it doesn’t sound right anyway) but I could not resist writing a recipe for a pale yellow, lemony tiramisù. Of course, a real tiramisù should have coffee and cocoa (and in my mind, marsala and brandy), but this is a truly heavenly (if heathen) version, which, quite apart from being delicious, has a strong aesthetic argument behind it; such swathes of lemon yellow and pale cream seem like some sort of divinely luxurious sofa, smug and snug in the corner of an idyllic Amalfi residence. If you happen to have any leftover lemon cake, use that as it will be even better. Some people like to soak the sponge layer in limoncello, but I find it both too sweet and too strong, so I have left it out. This version is innocent, unapologetically creamy and child-friendly.

Claire Ptak · Love Is A Pink Cake

This recipe originally came from my mom, Elisabeth. She always made excellent lemon bars when I was growing up. Mom loves anything lemony and tart and I’m just the same. I’m so lucky that she is always so willing to share her recipes with me. We make these at the bakery with a torched meringue topping for fun. It’s worth getting a small kitchen blowtorch to raise the bar of presentation in your home baking.

Lee Watson · Peace & Parsnips

These little fritters are bursting at the seams with flavours, and the herbaceous horseradish yoghurt tops things off very nicely. A punchy zesty sauce is perfect with any fried food, lighting the palate up. The sweet earthiness of the beetroot and the fragrance of cumin were, very simply, made for each other. I like to use any green peas or beans for this, but the edamame probably have the edge due to their nice crunchy texture, which adds an almost nutty bite to the fritters. Use any flour you like but I prefer to keep them gluten free. Gram (chickpea) flour would work well.

Leah Hyslop · The Brownie Diaries

This recipe was born one quiet, rainy Saturday afternoon when I couldn’t work out if I wanted brownies or cookies. With the self-assurance of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin planting their flag on the moon, I crowned a tin of brownies with a layer of chocolate chip cookie dough, and haven’t felt bad about being indecisive since. If you don’t want to use raw egg in the cookie dough, replace it with 3 tablespoons of whole milk. You’ll need 40g less flour.

Ursula Ferrigno · Cucina Dell'Emilia-Romagna

This is a very celebratory, but also light and utterly divine dish. I am always proud to make and serve this lasagne to my family and friends, especially on a special occasion.

Eleanor Wilkinson · One Pot One Portion

I feel as though I shouldn’t really have favourite recipes in this book as they are all very dear to me, but this lasagne holds a special place in my heart. Just don’t mention it in Italy, ok? A traditionally time-consuming, somewhat strenuous dish that leaves a mountain of washing-up, this version, though not traditional, fully replicates the flavours and feel of a layered lasagne in a simple, stress-free way. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Olivia Potts · Butter: A Celebration

You have to hand it to us Northerners, we know how to make the most of a potato. Lancashire’s butter pie has been a staple of the Preston area for centuries. Preston has always had a large Catholic community, and Catholics don’t eat meat on Fridays — so in Preston, they eat butter pie. Or, as it is also sometimes known, Catholic pie or Friday pie. Now it is sold throughout pubs and shops, but is most frequently enjoyed as a match day half-time favourite at Preston North End football club. It is, quite simply, a pie filled with potatoes, onion and butter; it has flaky pastry on the base, sides and top, and given the simplicity of its contents, a generous amount of salt and pepper. It is traditionally eaten with braised red cabbage.

Julia Busuttil Nishimura · Good Cooking Every Day

Bagnetto verde is a green sauce from Piemonte in northern Italy. It’s punchy, vibrant and a wonderful accompaniment to these lamb meatballs, which are simply flavoured with parsley, cheese and nutmeg. They are very much inspired by the polpette di Teresa from one of my favourite lunch spots in Rome – Trattoria da Cesare. On a recent trip, I ate them with a simple salad of puntarelle dressed with garlic and anchovies. A heavenly memory.

Georgina Hayden · MEDesque

All the things I like wrapped in pastry and (naturally) a great picnic snack. The lamb fat soaks into the pastry with the spices, then you have the sweet hit of nuggets of apricot; it all works beautifully together with the feta cutting through it. If you want to use pork instead of lamb, go ahead. They will still taste wonderful.

Salma Hage · Middle Eastern Sweets

This is possibly one of the most ubiquitous pastries across the Middle East, and one of the most intimidating to Western cooks because of the stringy, vermicelli-like kataifi pastry that is used to make it. In fact, kunafa is such a simple dessert to make that it can be on the table within an hour of turning the oven on to heat. Traditionally, kunafa is made with akawi cheese, a salty, halloumi-like cheese common in the Middle East, but as it requires 48 hours of soaking time to draw out the salt I have suggested the more readily available mozzarella, which gives a similar result.

Ozoz Sokoh · Chop Chop

This pencil-thin snack with tapered ends and a thicker middle tastes a bit like crunchy toasted corn tortilla chips. It is sold in a variety of lengths, from 4 to 24 inches (10 to 60 cm). If you’re ever on Lagos Island and see an enamel tray of thin, long sticks, buy some, wrapped in newspaper. Both yellow and white corn flour work here. Feel free to halve the recipe.

Edd Kimber · Small Batch Cookies

One of the classic British biscuits, a knobbly chocolate oat cookie is an incredibly moreish treat. Toasty from brown sugar and oats, it’s also crisp and a little bit crumbly. Sold in multiple varieties, I think it is fair to say that the chocolate-coated version reigns supreme and is therefore what I set out to replicate. It’s rare that I would claim to make something better than the original, but these knock the commercial version out of the park. Incredibly easy to make, they are the ultimate treat to dunk in a big mug of tea.

Alissa Timoshkina · Kapusta

I usually don’t play favourites with my food, but I am afraid I have to say that Slavic piroshki stand no chance against their Ashkenazi siblings – knishes. I have to confess, as someone who grew up eating piroshki, it never crossed my mind to make knishes. However, once I did, my heart was won over. Very quick and relatively easy to make, these little bundles boast the most perfect flaky buttery pastry and can be filled with anything from mince meat to mashed potatoes, sauerkraut, mushrooms and buckwheat; some recipes also offer sweet alternatives of twarog and jam. Consumed as a snack or a side to a soup, knishes are usually baked but can also be deep-fried. Knishes hail from the Ashkenazi diaspora in Ukraine, Belarus and Poland, where they are known as knysh or knysz (the word’s etymology goes back to German knitschen to ‘crumple’), and they were popularised worldwide by the Ashkenazi immigrants to the USA in the early 20th century. New York is their hometown and if you happen to b

Eric Kim · Korean American

A favorite (and regular) raw kimchi preparation in my family is this bibimguksu, which just means “mixed noodles.” For a cold noodle dish, this one is surprisingly comforting. I was testing it in the summer when Jean’s garden tomatoes were at their peak, so I added them and loved the fresh pops of umami they lent. Thick-skinned grape tomatoes are best here for their snap, but you can use whatever you like. My dad loves this.

Kim Duke · Weekly Provisions

Dina Macki · Bahari: Recipes from an Omani Kitchen and Beyond

Qaranqasho is an Omani celebration that takes place on the 14th day of Ramadan, mainly across the north coast. Children dress up in traditional clothing and mothers prepare lots of nibbles and sweet baskets, then open up their doors to all. We call it Omani Halloween, where all the kids go “trick or treating” — but without the tricks! Everyone heads out after prayer time to visit friends, family and neighbours and collect sweets, little gifts and sometimes, if we’re very lucky, money. I got to celebrate one Ramadan as a child in Oman, and I still remember the excitement as we ran through the streets, looking to see how many sweets we could collect. Ramadan, specifically on Qaranqasho, is the only time of year you’ll see khaliat nahal. My Auntie Nasra always made this bread instead of sweets. She’d set out whole trays of it on a table and wait for the children to run up, tear away their part and eat it on the go. Even as adults, we still want this bread at Ramadan; we know what’s hidde

Kay Plunkett-Hogge · The Art of the Party

What's a party without a sausage roll? Especially when it comes to feeding the family at Christmas. Everyone loves these, warm from the oven and smelling of good times... Here I've customized a traditional sausage roll recipe with a festive twist. For US cup measures, use the toggle at the top of the ingredients list.

Katie and Giancarlo Caldesi · The Amalfi Coast

Although this dish originates from Sorrento, its comforting combination of soft potato gnocchi, rich red tomato sauce, moon-white mozzarella and aromatic basil is now served all over the Amalfi Coast. These potato gnocchi are also delicious with ragù or clam sauce. Potatoes that are neither too floury nor too waxy are best used to make gnocchi. Gnocchi freeze really well, uncooked. This can sometimes give a lighter result, so consider doubling the quantities and freezing half. To freeze, spread them out on a well-floured tray so that they are not touching. When frozen, shake off excess flour and transfer to freezer bags, seal and freeze. Use within three months. Cook from frozen, allowing 1–2 minutes extra cooking time. This is our best tomato sauce recipe ever (in 17 years of writing Italian recipes!), using a combination of preserved and fresh tomatoes. Many Italians bottle their home-grown tomatoes in summer to eat throughout the cold months. Unless, like them, you have an abundan

Kate Winslow and Guy Ambrosino · Onions Etcetera

Crisp, chewy, deliciously greasy — scallion pancakes are fun to eat, but they’re good fun to make as well. The technique of brushing the dough with sesame oil then rolling it into a spiral and rolling it flat again is a form of lamination — similar to what happens when you add sheets of butter to dough when making croissants, with the effect of creating flaky layers. Making scallion pancakes sounds more complicated than it actually is, but after making one or two, you’ll feel like a pro. For photo guidance on rolling the pancakes, please click here.

Katarina Cermelj · Baked To Perfection

If there is such a thing as a food crush, this is mine. These caramel brownies are simply amazing on every single level. First, there’s the combination of textures: fudgy, slightly chewy brownies with gooey caramel oozing from the centre. Then, there’s the melding of flavours: the slight bitterness of the chocolate with the sweet–salty caramel deliciousness. Every bite feels like a sensory explosion, and the recipe honestly isn’t much more complicated than a standard brownie recipe. But the result? Life changing. (And, trust me, I don’t make such a claim lightly.) PREP TIME: 1 hour COOK TIME: 15 mins BAKE TIME: 30 mins

Gurdeep Loyal · Mother Tongue

It was the daytime clubbing scene where the boundaries of bhangra and Asian underground were pushed, blending Punjabi folk music, classical Indian melodies and Bollywood anthems with hip hop, R'n'B, soul, dance and garage. I remember South Asian friends bunking off college on Wednesday afternoons, heels in their bags, to get to afternoon raves. Created by and for the diaspora, they served a generation of young adults, united by a need to party coupled with a need to be at home in time to make roti. I encountered offshoots of the scene much later, through the queer-desi night Club Kali and sporadic bhangra DJs that played Popstarz at the Apollo. Those 2am moments on the dance floor were rare times I could be every layer of my identity at once, illuminating with lasers what was often concealed by the code-switching of my life by daylight. Identity is like lasagne: each layer unique, but transformed when brought together as a whole.

Ren Behan · The Sweet Polish Kitchen

Karpatka is also known as a Carpathian mountain cake, named after the Karpaty mountain range. The dough (in this case a choux pastry) creates the effect of mountains, and the icing sugar on top represents the snow. There are variations dating back to the 1950s and ’60s, which is the sort of time my parents began making their first return to Poland, after the Second World War (their first trip back was in 1952, and I have a memorable photograph of my mum, dad and two cousins standing outside the Teatr Narodowy, or National Theatre, in Warsaw). I like to think that, just after that photo, they went off to sit in a cafe in Warsaw to eat a slice of karpatka. The filling is a krem budyniowy (pastry cream). Make the pastry cream first and leave to chill overnight in the refrigerator covering the surface with clingfilm so that a skin does not form. For the choux, I use equal parts of water and milk. I sometimes like to add a layer of rose petal jam, but you can use any marmalade or preserve y