Recipes

Nigella Lawson

This embracingly hearty meal of a soup always makes me feel grateful for the harsh winter weather. I used to make it for a cosy family New Year’s Day lunch, and still do happily, but it would be a shame to confine to just one annual outing. If you know you’re going to be out in the chill air and want something warming to greet you when you come back home, hands, nose and feet stinging from the cold, this is just what you need to have waiting for you. The soup can be made in advance (see Additional info below) up to the end of Step 4, though it will thicken considerably on standing, so you’ll need to add a little water when you reheat it. Once it’s bubbling and hot, you can get started on the frankfurters. And it’s easily veganisable: just leave the frankfurters out or replace them with plant-based versions, and use vegetable rather than chicken stock. Please read the Additional Information section at the end of the recipe before proceeding.

Nigella Lawson

Although this recipe does not itself issue from Italy, the inspiration is entirely Italian. One of my favourite things to eat is a risotto Milanese, sometimes called "risotto giallo" — or yellow risotto — and it occurred to me that pasta cooked similarly, or at least cooked to taste similar, would be perfect, and very easy. So here it is: spaghetti in an eggy, saffron-tinted, lightly cheesed and creamy sauce: it is a bowlful of golden heaven. And please read the Additional Information section at the end of the recipe before proceeding.

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

I feel better about the deceit when I tell myself that it is highly likely the true culprit is good old-fashioned food colouring.

Nigella Lawson

Perhaps, like me, you find yourself at Christmas surrounded by those who abominate dried fruit in all its seasonal manifestations. If so, this may well be the cake you need in your life. Its snowy marshmallow icing — which tastes rather like the interior of a Tunnock’s Teacake — looks fabulously festive, even when you don’t get your old Christmas cake decorations out to adorn it, as I have here! The cake it covers (and fills) is deeply, darkly, lusciously chocolatey, intense enough to counter the sweet icing and tartly offset by a layer of raspberries in the middle. True, these are not seasonal, but I don’t expect you to use fresh: give them time enough to thaw, and frozen raspberries do the job perfectly. Unlike a Christmas cake proper, the Winter Wonderland Cake really does need to be iced and eaten on the same day, though you can make the cake a day ahead, so long as you wrap it airtight once it’s cold. Of course, if you, like me, adore Christmas Cake, then do supplement with either my Easy-Action Christmas Cake, Gorgeously Golden Fruit Cake, which is gluten-free, as is the luscious Date and Marmalade Christmas Cake which is also dairy-free — and, of course, the dark and sultry Chocolate Fruit Cake! And please read the Additional Information section at the end of the recipe before proceeding.

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson · How To Be A Domestic Goddess

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Express

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

I am a relative newcomer to the joys of cooking with wild garlic, as until recently you could never find it in the shops and — as an indoorsy Londoner — I am not much given to long walks in the countryside, where it grows in profusion, mostly from March to June, its leaves looking rather like the foliage of Lily of The Valley. It’s vital you don’t confuse them, though, as the latter are poisonous. But, thankfully, wild garlic’s pungent scent is a crucial guide to its identity, though do check a manual or the internet for guidance if needed. I wrote quite a bit in Cook, Eat, Repeat about wild garlic and the many ways I cook with it, and am very happy to be able to bring one of my favourites to the website now. It is incredibly easy, and fabulously versatile. For while spaghetti with wild garlic pesto is glorious, I also love this heady concoction as a dressing for a potato salad (add more oil and lemon juice as wished); tossed into some just-cooked, drained green beans, stirred into warm chick peas or cannellini beans; added to a toastie; dolloped onto tomatoes; stirred into soup (and I do recommend making the Pea and Pesto Soup with it). And that’s a very truncated list of possibilities! When my jar of this pesto is finished, I fill it up with olive oil and a spritz of lemon to use as a salad dressing, or to drizzle over fish. I don’t add pine nuts to this, but if you would like to, by all means do. And for those who can’t get hold of wild garlic / ramps, you can make a more traditional pesto by replacing the wild garlic with basil, along with a clove of garlic. One final thing: if you are foraging for wild garlic/ ramps, please do so sustainably, and be careful not to pull up the bulb. And please read the Additional Information section at the end of the recipe before proceeding.

Nigella Lawson

This recipe is a particularly special one for me: it gladdens my heart and infuses me with shoulder-lowering serenity. While it’s certainly easy to make — something you would never guess by the complexity of its taste — the lamb shank and broth do need to be made a day ahead (or up to 3 days) which means you do have to plan for it. And that planning may have to involve some shopping; for gochujang, that fermented Korean chilli paste that provides rich, rounded depth as well as heat, is the magic ingredient here. It is easy enough to find online, should you not be able to find it near you, and I promise you it will become an indispensable ingredient in your kitchen before long. (Let me quickly point you in the direction of my Korean Calamari and Korean Keema). Until I make my own biang biang noodles, I use durum wheat pappardelle for this. Try to avoid egg pappardelle, which are not quite robust enough I feel. But if that’s all you can find, then I’d advise you (sorry) to cook them and the cabbage separately as they overcook very easily. This is bowlfood at its best: hearty, warming and yet shot through with a piercing clarity which is extraordinarily restorative. And while I’m not saying you absolutely must get a jar of Chilli Crisp oil to eat with it, I wouldn’t want to proceed without.

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Bites

Nigella Lawson

This pudding is always a success: it always works, and everyone always loves it. And I have the great Anna del Conte to thank for it. It is also the recipe that converted me to Tiramisu in the first place, which I’d always snobbishly referred to as the Black Forest Gateau of the 1990s. I don’t think I’d be able to count the times I’ve made this over the 20 years since How To Eat was first published. And I will never stop making it, either. Please read the Additional Information section at the end of the recipe before proceeding.

Nigella Lawson

This is an elegantly pale version of the fruity and flamboyant Spanish punch. I suppose coming from the land of Pimms, I can’t help but add cucumber to it, but please feel free to fiddle with the fruits as you wish. The basil is an unorthodox addition whatever your provenance, but for me it just smells of summer.

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

While I freely concede that adding sweet white miso to hummus produces something of a culinary culture clash, the result itself yields a deeply seductive spread. I must also confess that I have to stop myself adding sweet white miso to pretty much anything I

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Summer

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Express

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Summer

Nigella Lawson · How To Be A Domestic Goddess

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Summer

So much in cooking, as in the rest of life I suppose, is about contrast, about balance. Here the acerbic fragrance of the passionfruit undercuts the otherwise over-egged richness of the white chocolate: this gives you flavour, intensity, sweetness and light. On standing, the clear, sour-sweet juices of the fruit collect under the mousse: place raspberries in the glass first (again contrast, this time of colour, too) and let them become plumply infused and almost headily soused beneath. And please read the Additional Information section at the end of the recipe before proceeding.