One of my first full time jobs was in Dunkin Donuts, back in 1994. I was nineteen years old and had just moved to London. Kurt Cobain had recently committed suicide and John Smith was coming to the end of his Labour party leadership as a result of a fatal heart attack. This wasn’t my…
Category: Sauces and Dips
Three Ways with Pizza
I was thirteen years old when I first learned to make pizza. I was visiting family in Leicester when, on a visit to a book store, I came across Antonio Carluccio’s An Invitation to Italian Cooking. I bought the book, published the year before, after a brief flick-through of its glossy pages, and set to…
Fried Tofu with Rice Noodles and Black Bean Sauce
Noodles and black bean sauce has always been one of my favourite Chinese dishes. I used to eat it on Shaftsbury Avenue when I was in my early twenties, in those Chinese restaurants that were permanently busy and where they would cram you in at tables next to complete strangers to eat your food (It…
Roasted Red Pepper and Aubergine Pasta Sauce
Pasta sauces are great for those nights when you just want to throw something together with the minimum fuss possible. I came up with this one when I suddenly found myself with a load of people to feed and not much time (or many ingredients) with which to do something creative. This dish was literally…
Courgette Fritters with Basil and Dill Dressing
Vegetable fritters are an ingeniously tasty way of getting vegetables in you. They’re basically a pancake batter that’s crammed with whichever vegetables you happen to have lying around. I’ve chosen courgettes and spring onions because of their fresh taste and the fact that courgettes grate really well (though you do have to squeeze the moisture…
Richard’s Homemade Hot Chilli Sauce
With an endless variety of chilli sauces on the market, it’s understandable to ask the question ‘why bother making my own?’ It’s a perfectly reasonable question. There are a lot of really good chilli sauces out there that don’t cost much more than a pound to buy, which is cheaper than buying the ingredients and…
Best Vegan Gravy
I first learned to do vegetarian gravy properly long before I gave up eating meat. It was a huge eye-opener for me. The knowledge that you could make really good gravy without using meat stock went against everything I’d been brought up to believe. At that point it was my job to make the gravy,…
Poached Pears with Blueberry Compote
Let me say this right from the start: These babies are better if you eat them the day after you make them. There, now I’ve said it, you can feel free to ignore me. Nobody will judge you here. At the very least you want to let it all go cold, so a couple of…
Chickpeas with Lemon, Parsley and ‘Feta’
I had some chickpeas left over from using the aquafaba. I tend to keep them in a storage bag in the freezer until I need them, then pick what I want from the bag. This time I was in the mood for something with a real lemon taste that could be served cold. I had…
Pumpkin and Rice Cakes with Lemon Sauce
It’s that time of year again where food writers go pumpkin crazy. It’s suddenly in every recipe out there, from soups to drinks and anything in between (I swear I even made a pumpkin and mango mousse yesterday – not kidding!). I’m sorry to say that I’m no exception. I know why we do it,…
