Recipes

Nigella Lawson

On the whole, I’m not a person much given to cutesiness but, given these cookies, I wouldn’t blame you for not believing me. I just couldn’t help myself: every single Easter, I’ve dreamed of making them, and now I have the egg-shaped cookie cutters, there was nothing to stop me, and I adore them as much in reality as I did in anticipation. Yes, I love how they look, but that’s never enough – these have a melting tenderness that would win me over regardless of their enchanting appearance, and the apricot jam at the centre is the perfect match for the buttery, almond-rich dough. Yet while the biscuits, once baked, have a flutteringly light texture, the dough itself is admirably robust: you can roll and re-roll with impunity, and trust the cut-out cookies to keep their shape tenaciously. The egg-shaped cutter does all the heavy lifting in this regard. As for the hole you need to make in the top cookie, I use the wide end of my Tala icing nozzle, which has a diameter of 2.5cm / 1 inch. A metal bottle top could also do the trick.

Nigella Lawson

The Dutch do love their mussels, honoured there as zwarte goud — black gold — although it’s true that their neighbours the Belgians unfairly get more credit for them. Of course, you don’t need to make these with actual Dutch mussels: this recipe is so-called more for the beer I cook them in. The first time I ordered mussels cooked in beer — at a restaurant in Amsterdam, many years ago — I worried that the bitterness might be intrusive, but that first mouthful of deep, rich broth put me right. The key, I feel, and it’s how I cook them, is to use butter, and lots of it: it balances the bitterness of the beer, and seems to help thicken the broth sweetly as the mussels steam. The fennel I cook in said butter before adding the mussels to the pan is also what you might call a Dutch touch: it’s a combination much favoured there — and elsewhere, too, it’s true: its gentle aniseed flavour softens on cooking to provide a light herbal sweetness that highlights the bolstering brininess of the mussels. It’s a classic combination for a reason. Fennelphobes could, of course, use shallots instead, but the aniseed flavour is sufficiently muted for all but the most aniseed-antagonistic palates. But I, very much a fennelphile, punch up the aniseed element with an exuberant amount of fresh dill, along with an equally enthusiastic scattering of parsley and chives. The mussels themselves take no more than a few minutes to cook, and the fennel and garlic that are called on to provide their aromatic flavours first hardly need a great deal of time in the pan, making this a sumptuous speedy feast.

Nigella Lawson

I’ve only ever eaten Dutch babies in the States, where they are brought out to you at the table with great pomp: great pancakes puffed up and golden, still in the cast-iron skillets they were cooked in. Obviously, I had to make my own at home. Not being a restaurant, I don’t want to be juggling with heavy pans, giving each person their own, so I’ve made mine a giant one for sharing; this ain’t no baby, that’s for sure. The "Dutch" of the title doesn

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

This is my idea of perfect dinner party food: it

Nigella Lawson

The general explanation given why Thai drunken noodles are so called is that they have enough chilli in them to shake you out of even the worst hangover. This is my simplified version. I

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson · How To Be A Domestic Goddess

Nigella Lawson

Every time I write a recipe for chicken wings it gets a little hotter, and this one — as its name suggests — positively breathes fire. If you want to reduce the heat, simply use fewer chillies, but I can promise you, while this certainly has zing and fiery flavour, that you don

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Express

My weaknesses are mainly savoury — think salt and vinegar crisps or cheese and biscuits — but there are times when only a doughnut will do. This craving can get desperate late at night when the shops are shut, and even if they weren

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Bites

I first made this for a piece I was writing for Vogue on the mood-enhancing properties of carbohydrates, as promoted by such books as - and how

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

While I believe most emphatically that one should never cook to impress, but rather to delight, the fact remains that this is undeniably a high-impact dessert and, at the same gratifying time, an encouragingly low-effort one. The dramatic dark base comes courtesy of crushed Oreos and butter, which need no more than to be pressed into a shallow flan tin. What makes this a double chocolate tart is the white chocolate, which is gently melted, then folded into a soft mixture of double cream and cream cheese, and chilled in the lined tart tin before being topped with ripe, sweet strawberries and a few wisps of finely shredded mint.

Nigella Lawson

While there is no shortage of chocolate cookies on this site (from the Mine-all-Mine Sweet and Salty Chocolate Cookies to the Christmas Chocolate Cookies, taking in the gluten-free Triple Chocolate Buckwheat Cookies, the Chocolate Mint Cookies and, of course, the Totally Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies) these deep, dark, pumpkin-seed-studded beauties are a most deserving addition to your repertoire. It may sound strange to describe any cookies as chic, but there is something about their bittersweet combination of elegance and sumptuousness that earns them that accolade, despite their undeniably rough-hewn appearance. If you like your chocolate salted — as I very much do — add somewhere between ¼ and ½ teaspoon of sea salt flakes to the cookie dough, and sprinkle another ¼-½ teaspoon sea salt over the formed cookies, just before they go into the oven. It might be wise to start with the smaller amount — not everyone has as salty a tooth as I do.

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson · How To Be A Domestic Goddess

I don’t want to nominate favourites, but even so, I have to say this is a pie I am ecstatic about – perhaps because it’s so far removed from what I’ve spent my life cooking. The notion of putting Cheddar in the pastry of an apple pie is not a new one but I was pleased all the same to see how well it worked. I’ve used a Springform tin (learning a lesson from the pizza rustica), which makes this a good, hefty, sliceable pie. The double-apple element – Coxes to hold their shape, Bramleys to make for an appley-velvet background – does entail quite a bit of work, but it isn’t difficult work, just moderately time-consuming. Anyone who’s hanging about the house claiming to want to help should be handed a vegetable peeler and an apple corer without delay.

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Summer

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

I cannot begin to tell you how good these are. There’s not much that can get me squeezing a fancy-nozzled icing bag, but I can’t get enough of these — and nor can those I make them for. Yes, they are retro, but they are no culinary exercise in irony. And while they are a bit fiddly to make, they’re not hard, and they are immensely rewarding. In order to help the yolk keep centred as they cook, I leave them lying on their sides in a dish (rather than sitting upright in their boxes) overnight out of the fridge before cooking them. It’s not a fail-safe guarantee, but it does seem to make a difference.