Recipes

Anna Del Conte · Vegetables All'Italiana

The radicchio rosso or red radicchio used in Veneto for this dish is the long radicchio of Treviso, which can be bought during the autumn in many specialist greengrocers. It has a deeper, and yet more delicate, bitter flavour than the round Rosa di Chioggia, the variety of radicchio rosso widely available all the year round. For a vegetarian dish, omit the anchovy fillets and increase the capers to 2 tbsp.

Anja Dunk · Advent: Festive German Bakes to Celebrate the Coming of Christmas

Christbrot is very similar to a Weihnachtsstollen, but lighter in texture, and is best eaten freshly baked without needing time to mature. This is one of the reasons why a Christbrot is more popular to bake at home than a Stollen each year. It isn’t hard to make Christbrot but the method involves a triple rise, so you’ll need to set a morning or afternoon aside if you choose to make it.

Asma Khan · Monsoon

You may be surprised at the lack of spices and chillies in this dish. This is a traditional Anglo-Indian potato chop, which many of us grew up eating in Calcutta. The only seasoning used was salt and pepper. I have had versions of this dish where some chilli powder was added to the stuffing – so you could add ½ teaspoon of chilli powder while cooking the meat. In our house, aloo chop was always served with buttered toast. I would dip it into tomato ketchup, while my sister would add chilli sauce as a condiment. Leftovers were mashed and used as a sandwich filling and put into our tiffin box the next day. The oval shape of this chop seems to be an important part of its culinary heritage. Most other chops we ate in Bengal were either cylindrical croquettes or flat like a patty. Once you are confident with the recipe, feel free to experiment and add more things.

Angela Clutton · The Vinegar Cupboard

Think of the best baked apples you've ever had. All that lovely, slightly spicy, dried fruit packed inside an apple that is roasted so that its flesh is almost bursting out of its seams. Then add another flavour dimension that takes that baked apple up a notch or dozen. The extra dimension is balsamic vinegar. Its mellow acidity brings out the best in the sweet fruit. These are gorgeous with ice cream, cream or yoghurt.

Andrew Dalby and Sally Grainger · The Classical Cookbook

This remarkable cake comes from Cato’s farming book. The name is Greek (and it had nothing to do with the modern meaning of placenta, invented by a seventeenth-century scientist). In Greek the word could often mean a flat cake with a pastry base; goat’s milk cheese and honey were among typical ingredients. A Greek comedy included a brisk exchange between a wordy gourmet and a down-to-earth eater: The streams of the tawny bee, mixed with the clotted river of bleating she-goats, placed upon a flat receptacle of the virgin daughter of Zeus, delighting in ten thousand delicate veils - or shall simply say cake for cake. Roman placenta, like libum, was not only a delicacy for humans but also a sacrificial cake offered on temple altars. The Roman poet Horace tells of a temple slave who ran away because he was sick of honeyed placenta and wanted some good plain bread. Cato’s Latin placenta is a single, very specific and very complicated recipe. It is likely that Cato was confused by the reci

Alison Roman · Dining In

When people ask me what my favorite thing to cook is, often I’ll give them the most boring but honest answer possible: roasted chicken. In a personal quest for “the one,” I’ve tried a bird every way possible—simple salt-and-pepper birds, spatchcocked and slow roasted, brined, and trussed—but I always come back to this version: smeared inside and out with a salty, garlicky anchovy butter; roasted at a high temperature for brown skin, then low for juicy breasts; stuffed only with more garlic and maybe some herbs; legs akimbo (I have a strict “no truss, no fuss” policy). I’m going to be honest with you: this recipe is almost too much. The sticky juices from the roasted chicken, the caramelized bits from anchovy butter, and the croutons that cook in the skillet and crisp in the fat, well… I mean, it’s really all just too much. Almost. For what other dish would you be tempted to lick a hot skillet?

Kate Young · Dinner At Mine?

I wish I could tell you I make all my own bread. I always mean to get a sourdough starter going, but I’ve accepted that my favourite bakery makes better loaves than I can in my oven. But this focaccia? This is worth making at home, the only bread I regularly make. The key is the anchovy topping; bread is at its best when generously salted and dipped in olive oil, and this one is from the moment you take it out of the oven. Ella Risbridger and I have spoken often about focaccia over the years, testing again and again, sending photos back and forth, until we nailed our recipes. What really helps is a slow overnight prove (I know – you can avoid this if you want, but it really is better), and a salt brine during the final rise, a tip courtesy of the brilliant Samin Nosrat. The base recipe is from James Morton’s Brilliant Bread; the uneven structure and chewy texture it yields is a dream. Over time, I have played around with adding more and more water – an extra 5ml a batch – until I land

Anas Atassi · Sumac

This recipe is an ode to sumac — originally from Palestine, where they serve a whole chicken flavored with sumac on bread, topped with a whole lot of sumac-spiced onions. Using the same ingredients, I make a Syrian version by shredding the chicken, then frying it with onion and sumac and rolling it up in flatbread.

Analiese Gregory · How Wild Things Are

I’ve been experimenting with taking processed sugar out of some of my recipes and replacing it with more natural alternatives, such as honey and malt syrups. This is one of the recipes that adapted exceptionally well to honey, and I love the flavour the madeleines get from intense ones such as manuka and leatherwood. For me, these cakes are best served straight from the oven. They don’t benefit from being kept for too long!

Kate Reid · Lune

At Lune, like everything else we do, almond croissants are not exactly made the traditional way. Classically, an almond croissant will be flat, and I hate to say it, often rather sad looking. The old-school way to make almond croissants is to bake them between two trays, such that they are squashed during their second bake. This seemed like madness to me — why would you want to lose the definition of all those beautiful layers, and in the process, the crunch and flake of that buttery pastry. So, I developed a recipe and technique for the almond croissant that maintained the integrity of the structure of the croissant, while still incorporating the moist, delicious, cake-like frangipane through the centre. The signature of a Lune almond croissant? The beautiful spine of flaked almonds that stand proud and perfect atop the croissant.

Alissa Timoshkina · Salt & Time: Recipes from a Russian Kitchen

Ever since I moved to the UK, I've come to realize that cabbage has a bad reputation here. The quintessential symbol of bad and smelly Eastern European cuisine, this nutrient-rich brassica is generally named as the main reason why some people dislike or are not keen to try Russian food. Well, I am here to dispel this stereotype. I absolutely love cabbage in all its guises (yes, even the scent of boiled cabbage makes me go 'yum!'), from borsch and shchi soups to sauerkraut and, of course, stuffed cabbage leaves. Known across Eastern Europe and Russia as 'little pigeons', golubtsy are widely consumed in most households. But despite their popularity, they are quite a time-consuming dish to create. So I've decided to make this crustless cabbage pie instead, a sort of a 'golubtsy for the lazy'. As I've since discovered, there are similar dishes in Balkan and Hungarian cuisines - what can I say, there is a lazy cook in all of us. What I particularly like about this version is that you can co

Alison Roman · Nothing Fancy:

Historically speaking, I have a bad attitude about meatballs. (I don’t love minced meat, and also I once was dumped the morning after a meatball-forward meal, and, yes, I blame the meatballs.) But I will say that I am coming around. After all, meatballs are undeniably excellent for serving large amounts of people, and here we have crispy, garlicky pork in a delicious, garlicky, tomato-y sauce. What’s not to love? I will give you a heads-up here: while one is not better than the other, these are less red-sauce Italian and more Isle of Capri Italian (do they even have meatballs there? I’m not sure). They simmer in a light, brothy tomato sauce flecked with toasted spices and lots and lots of garlic, then are finished with fresh herbs, salty cheese, and an ocean of olive oil, if you’re doing it right. Bound by yoghurt with no breadcrumbs or egg in sight, the meatballs are light, springy, and accidentally gluten-free, which is great – especially if you’re gluten-free, I imagine. But for m

Alice Zaslavsky · In Praise Of Veg

If you’ve ever had a tarte tatin starring apples or pears, you might find yourself wondering what onions, leeks and shallots are doing in a dessert. And it’s certainly true that this dish, which originated at the Hotel Tatin in France over 120 years ago, was likely never intended as a savoury. But if you think of it as an open-faced pasty or upside-down vegetable tart, it starts to make a lot more sense. I love the way the puff pastry shatters into buttery flakes on your lips, while the onions, caramelised to an indecent level, are silky and slippery.

Alice Hart · The New Vegetarian

I find this very special bowl, a fragrant curry of sorts, is the vegetarian equivalent of a chicken noodle soup, both for comfort and health benefits. Add more coconut cream or milk if you would like more of a soup-y feel; the recipe here provides more of a sauce at the base of the bowl. Curry leaves can be tricky to find fresh, but are transformative; try Asian food shops, large supermarkets and the internet.

Alex Jackson · Sardine: Simple Seasonal Provencal Cooking

Much simpler than a daube, this red wine beef stew is based on the Tuscan peposo, which is usually pared down to the bare bones - beef, red wine, garlic, pepper and salt. Sometimes I tuck a bay leaf in too alongside the chestnuts that soften and soak up the broth. Wet polenta or mashed potato provide a bit of buttery ballast. Use a proper Gruyere, aged for eighteen months or more, or else something similar like Marechal, L'Etivaz or Beaufort. Beef shin is an ideal cut for a stew like this. It requires no browning, just lots of time; simmering gently into submission. For US cup measures, use the toggle at the top of the ingredients list.

Nicola Lamb · SIFT: The Elements of Great Baking

There aren’t many things I love more in this world than biscuits. I come from a long line of biscuit lovers. The Lamb Family — we are biscuit people. This particular biscuit is the lovechild of the infamous IKEA Havreflarn and the British Hobnob. Like so many of us on this little island, I get a real hankering for a biscuit in the afternoon, so I’ve fondly named these my 3pm oat biscuits. Flaky, crunchy, chocolatey. Put the kettle on!

Trine Hahnemann · Scandinavian Baking

Trine Hahnemann · Scandinavian Baking

Trine Hahnemann · Scandinavian Baking

Trine Hahnemann · Scandinavian Baking

Trine Hahnemann · Scandinavian Baking

Monday Morning Cooking Club · Now For Something Sweet

Claire Saffitz

Claire Saffitz