Recipes

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Express

The glitz is provided by their utter fantabulousness and the scattering of honeycomb over the top.

Nigella Lawson

This is an exquisite cheesecake, tangy and delicate, with the pronounced smokiness and subdued sweetness of the maple syrup. It has a fabulously light, smooth and voluptuous texture, and two things help ensure this: first, the cream cheese must sit out of the fridge for a good 2 hours before you make the cheesecake; second, you bake the cheesecake in a waterbath. This is very simple, and all is explained below.

Nigella Lawson

I confess: it was the title that lured me. Tell me you don’t feel the same. I came across this in a recipe by Elinor Klivans, whom I often turn to for chocolatey solace, in her The Essential Chocolate Chip Cookbook, which includes the wonderful phrase “let the chocolate chips fall where they will”. Although her recipes always work to the letter, my recipe is not hers. I am inspired by the digestive and chocolate base and coffee ice cream filling (though if you’re feeding children, I’d suggest vanilla) but I like a butterscotchy topping, which sets the minute it hits the ice cream. Sometimes bits of ice cream bubble up to the surface, making the top gloriously Florentined. And the joy of the girdlebuster (as it is known for short at home) is that, should there be any left, you can put it back into its dish and just stash in the freezer again for midnight feasts. Admittedly, this is not huge, but a small slice is all that’s needed. Do not let it “ripen” out of the freezer before slicing because it all gets too sticky and drippy and messy.

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Bites

This recipe is a slight reworking of a Cambodian beef salad I often make; here the lime juice in the steeping mixture (which turns into the dressing) is supplemented with orange juice (Asian evocations of duck a l

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Summer

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Summer

Nigella Lawson

Sometimes, it makes sense to use one’s obsessions to advantage. I know that most people don’t have trivial light-bulb moments when the notion pops into an already food-filled head to make a stuffing in which crumbled gingerbread cake replaces breadcrumbs, but that’s, unfathomably, how my mind works. You can use dark brown, dense gingerbread, or the lighter, sandier loaves. I buy spiced bread rather than make it and you will often find it sold, even still in loaf-shape, as ginger cake. It all works. Indeed any sweet, spiced bread, such as pannetone, would.

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Express

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Express

I do adore a trifle, enjoying the quiet ceremony of building the layers in advance quite as much as each luscious spoonful later. A good trifle doesn’t require a great deal of technique, but it does need time. So some long years ago, I came up with a quick version which I call a Plate Trifle, as its construction requires no more than a plate which you line with slices of sponge cake splashed up with booze, topped first with whipped cream, then fruit. It’s open to any number of iterations, and is a wonderful way of using up stale cake. However, I’ve stipulated shop-bought cake in the ingredients as this started life as a last-minute, no-time-to-cook trifle; obviously, feel free to bake your own cake if you prefer. The warming ginger wine and the acerbic but fragrant passionfruit are an exquisite combination, but this is the very antithesis of a precision-led recipe. In other words, let this assembly-job of a pud suit what you have in your drinks cupboard and kitchen! And bear in mind that, unlike with a traditional trifle, a plate trifle is very well suited to a modest number of eaters. And this recipe halves like a dream. Conversely, I must tell you that as simple it may be, it is also fabulously rich, so when you do need to feed a crowd, this always makes the most stress-free of treaty puds.

Nigella Lawson

This gammon is simply simmered in ginger ale and, although you need to strip off the rind to glaze it, the glaze is straightforward. And it is a very efficient way of cooking — depending on how many you have in your household to feed, you should be able to eke this out for several meals.  It won’t give that same crowning effect, but if you cannot get hold of ginger preserve, you could use ordinary orange marmalade and add a teaspoon of ground dried ginger or, indeed, grated fresh, as you heat it up. And please read the Additional Information section at the end of the recipe before proceeding.

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Summer

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Summer

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Summer

Nigella Lawson · How To Be A Domestic Goddess

This is so far from being the sort of jelly you

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

OK, so this is my Meisterwerk. You can see how glorious it looks and you need to know now how easy it is to make. You just buy some Hallowe

Nigella Lawson · How To Be A Domestic Goddess

Nigella Lawson

Quick, simple and — much as I hate the word — tasty. I know no self-respecting Italian would let tomato seeds sully a sauce, but I do so very happily, and it’s the gloop inside the halved cherry tomatoes that adds cohesion to the spicy, tangy creaminess. Do use fusilli in place of the gemelli pasta if wished.

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson · How To Be A Domestic Goddess

I came across this Brittany butter cake in the wonderful Anne Willan’s Real Food, and as she says, it’s really a cross between shortbread and pound cake. It’s hard to decide whether it’s cake or pastry. I love a stubby slice of this any time, but it does make a perfect pudding with ice cream and berries served alongside. Use the best butter that you can find, for this is the platonic ideal of the plain cake at its simple best, and the taste of each of these few ingredients is crucial.

Nigella Lawson

It was in Australia — in Melbourne to be precise — that, under the auspices of George Calombaris, I ate the most fabulous chips: they’d been fried in garlicky oil and came sprinkled with dried mountain oregano and feta. It’s a sensational combo. Now, if you felt like doing some deep-frying, you could certainly make a panful of Tuscan Fries giving them this particular Greek spin by replacing the thyme, rosemary and sage with fresh oregano and scattering feta over them to serve, but for ease — and equal deliciousness — this is how I proceed. I chop unpeeled potatoes into small cubes, toss them in a shallow roasting tin — the shallowness is essential — with olive oil, garlic and dried oregano, and when they emerge from the oven burnished and crisp, I crumble feta over them and — should the season allow — and strew with fresh oregano. No deep-frying involved: deep happiness achieved.