Recipes

Nigella Lawson

This is a comforting, deeply flavoured meal of a soup. I love an Italian minestrone, and I wanted to make a soup that drew on that, but within a different flavour range. So here the sweetness of onion and butternut is countered by the aromatic sourness of preserved lemons — if you don’t have them, you could add some finely grated zest of a regular lemon after cooking the onion, and add a spritz of juice along with the stock — and, in place of pasta, I add bulgur wheat. Like many soups it thickens on standing, in which case you can you can either add more liquid, or just eat it as a stew. Either way, it is fragrant and filling, and is in reassuringly regular rotation in my house.

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Express

Nigella Lawson · How To Be A Domestic Goddess

Nigella Lawson · How To Be A Domestic Goddess

Nigella Lawson

A roast, boned, butterflied leg of lamb is just about the easiest, speediest way to cook a joint of meat. Plus, you dispense with all the difficult carving (I am an embarrassingly inept carver myself) as all you need to do is slice the boned meat once it’s cooked, which even I can manage without stress. The heat of the oven, with the sugar in the vinegar, does mean that you will get scorched, even blackened, spots on the tin. This doesn’t bother me unduly, but you might want to line the tin with foil first.

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson · How To Be A Domestic Goddess

It’s not hard to make biscuits that hold their shape well while cooking; it’s not hard to make biscuits that taste good and have a melting, buttery texture: what’s hard is to find a biscuit that does all of these things together. This one does it all, and with ease. Like all doughs, it freezes well, so it makes sense — in a smug, domestic kind of a way — to wrap half of this in clingfilm and stash it in the deep freeze until next needed. It’s hard to specify exactly how much icing you’ll need, but you might end up using more than specified below if you’re using a lot of different colours. As my children grew up, I always cut out the newly acquired age of each child on his or her birthday. My children couldn’t have contemplated a birthday party without them, and nor could I. Since then, I have found them deliciously invaluable to say and celebrate anything I

Nigella Lawson

I get many requests for this decidedly brown dip of silky savouriness, the first recipe in my chapter A Loving Defence of Brown Food in Cook, Eat, Repeat, so creamy that you would never guess it’s actually dairy-free and, indeed, vegan. True, anyone in the habit of changing nappies regularly might not find it the most appetising of sights, but one taste of it — full of rich, deep smokiness — and even those not immediately attracted come back for more. I’ve called it a dip, but actually it lends itself as well to a spread on toast or a sauce for pasta; in this latter case, you’ll need to mix in some of the starchy pasta water when you toss the pasta with it, and I like to add some chilli flakes and a little extra squeeze of lemon, too. But as a dip, it is luscious, and if I have a lot of people round, I serve the Beetroot and Chickpea Dip and the Coriander and Jalapeño Salsa alongside; the pink, green and muted ochre like tonally-tinkered-with traffic lights on the table. But it’s a sensational solo act, so there is no need to add anything alongside save for some tortilla chips (if you can get blue corn ones, I urge you to) or whatever else you want to dip into it. If you don

Nigella Lawson · How To Be A Domestic Goddess

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Express

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Summer

This bulgur wheat salad is loosely based on tabbouleh, only using coriander in place of the parsley, lime in place of the lemon and omitting the tomatoes and adding the chilli and some raw, diced courgettes. Coriander is so much more headily aromatic than parsley that I

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

The sprout recipe below is really only a slight detour from the traditional route. By all means, stick to the orthodox if you prefer by adding only buttery chestnuts to the Brussels sprouts, but what follows is now my own traditional way of cooking them. There is a lot of parsley, I know, but think of it as another vegetable ingredient rather than a garnish. Obviously, if you can’t get your hands on pancetta, it’s fine to use bacon. Just scissor it up, and fry it in a little more oil than you need for the pancetta, before proceeding.

Nigella Lawson · How To Be A Domestic Goddess

Nigella Lawson · How To Be A Domestic Goddess

Nigella Lawson

There’s not a form of mashed potato that doesn’t speak deeply to me, but this Colcannon with Brown Butter is just on another level. The colcannon itself doesn’t really veer from the traditional Irish dish of mash and kale or cabbage, but instead of having a melted pool of golden butter on top, along with the also traditional scallions (that’s to say, spring onions) I brown the butter first, so that it is deep, caramelly and nutty. But then, brown butter is one of life’s great joys. It’s easy enough to make: all you need to do is heat butter in a (preferably light-coloured, such as stainless steel) pan until it turns the colour of a hazelnut, which for the amount here should take around seven minutes. And yes, there is a lot of butter, and feel free to reduce it if it appals you, but do remember that colcannon is not just a dish that celebrates potatoes but also exults in, not apologises for, the butter. I wish I could use good Irish potatoes, such as Kerr

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Express

I use frozen broccoli; actually, frozen organic broccoli, if that makes you feel better. In fact, this is better when made with frozen, and certainly more convenient for an impromptu standby. And please read the Additional Information section at the end of the recipe before proceeding.

Nigella Lawson