But as much as I love gyoza, I had never given any serious thought to making them myself—and even this batch I made was actually a mistake. I had planned to make the much simpler-looking shumai dumplings from the Just Bento site, but when I was in the Asian market, I forgot what kind of dumpling skins I needed. Since I was in Japanese mode (having just eaten delicious sushi at E-Kagen), I picked up some frozen gyoza skins, only to get home and realize that I actually needed something more like wonton skins.

I recalled seeing a gyoza recipe on Just Hungry, the companion site to Just Bento, and since I’m not one to be put off by an intriguing culinary challenge, I thought, “Well, why not?” Thanks to last week’s veg box, I already had lots of green onions and cabbage in the fridge, and thanks to my recent adventures in bento, I was stocked up on soy sauce, sesame oil, and ginger too. That just left the ground pork, which was taken care of by a quick trip to the supermarket.

I know from past experience that making small, filled foodstuffs—spring rolls, ravioli—can quickly get tedious; the first few are fun, but by the time you’ve carefully stuffed and sealed a dozen ravioli, the novelty has generally worn off. I was worried that this would be the case with the gyoza as well, but I was so excited that they were holding together and looking really rather tidy with their nice little pleats that I didn’t get irritated making them—even after turning out about 35 of the things (as it turns out, I kind of folded them wrong, making something more akin to half-moon agnolotti than proper pot-bellied gyoza—but hey, you gotta start somewhere).

Most of the gyoza went straight into the freezer, but I put 10 aside for immediate cooking. I used the steam-frying method, which involves browning the bottom of the gyoza in an oiled frying pan, then adding a bit of water and steaming them for several minutes. This makes for a lovely crispy bottom, moist filling, and tender skin.

When the gyoza were done, I threw together a dipping sauce with soy sauce, rice vinegar, and a splash of sesame oil and mirin, and then Jeremy and I sat down to give them a try alongside our dinner of teriyaki salmon and Asian coleslaw. And what do you know: they tasted like gyoza! They weren’t as delicate as E-Kagen’s, and my dipping sauce didn’t have the same citrus tang, but they were unquestionably very, very yummy, and they could certainly hold their own against many of the gyoza I’ve had in restaurants.

So if you’re a fan of gyoza, and you like a tiny bit of a challenge in the kitchen—enough to keep things interesting, but not so much that it’s stressful—I’d recommend giving this recipe a try. And the pleasure you’ll have eating these little morsels will be matched by the satisfaction you’ll feel at having created each one yourself.

Pintxo People is divided into a casual tapas bar and deli on the ground floor and a fancier cocktail bar and restaurant on the upper floor. I’ve been to the downstairs tapas bar on several occasions and always enjoyed it very much. They do five different types of sangria, wonderful fruity coffees, and a wide range of Spanish bar snacks, including the always tasty Padrón peppers. They also do pastries and coffee in the morning, and they have WiFi, so it’s a really nice place to drop in for a pick-me-up at any time of day. And the service has always been friendly and helpful to boot.

I had my birthday lunch in the downstairs bar last year, so this year I decided to up the ante and go for a full-on birthday dinner in the restaurant. The restaurant is strikingly decked out in red and black, with cupola skylights in a high ceiling. I’d never actually seen the restaurant in person, so as Jeremy and I sat up there on my birthday, it almost felt like we weren’t sitting in Brighton at all. That’s particularly funny seeing as not only were we very much in Brighton, we were right across the street from Waitrose (where I do my daily shopping) and just a five-minute walk from home. The architect and designer did an outstanding job of isolating the restaurant so completely from the noisy tackiness that is Western Road.

Pintxo People is known for its cocktails, so once we were seated, we scoured the long list and picked out aperitifs for ourselves (a cava and sherry cocktail for me, a citrusy rum-based one for Jeremy). Unfortunately, service got off to a slow start, so while I would have liked to have sipped my cocktail while I nibbled olives and perused the food menu, we eventually had to flag down a passing waiter and order drinks which didn’t show up until shortly before our food did

But this was a minor glitch in an otherwise lovely evening. Jeremy and I ordered a total of seven plates between us, which, while quite a lot, was certainly not an overwhelming amount of food for two hungry people. The server split our choices into two batches for us: starters (Padrón peppers, serrano ham, octopus with chorizo) and mains (rib eye steak with piquillo peppers and blue cheese, pork belly with olive powder, stuffed tomatoes, green beans with sherry shallots).

Our starters were all excellent, particularly those Padrón peppers (several of which were really rather spicy) and the ham, which was moist, thick-cut and outstandingly aromatic. We also received a complimentary plate of toasted baguette and tomato pulp—a deconstructed pa amb tomàquet.

Once we had inhaled all of that, our second round of food came. Both the steak and the pork belly were flavorful and well prepared. The steak was cooked to dark pink perfection, with the sweet roasted piquillo peppers and salty Picos de Europa blue cheese packing a real punch. The pork belly was crunchy and salty, just as pork belly should be, and dusted with black olive powder which sounds pretentious but added a deep savory note to the dish.

Of the vegetable accompaniments, the tomatoes stuffed with summer vegetables and manchego were probably the weakest dish; while tasty enough in their own right, they had trouble standing up to the dishes they were served with. The green beans with shallots and sherry, on the other hand, were the perfect foil to our meat feast, both texturally and taste-wise. They had just the right amount of crunch, and the tangy sherry dressing cut through the richness of the cheese and meats.

We washed all of this down with an inky Priorat, a wine we discovered in Barcelona which is quite difficult to come by in Brighton. Our waiter hesitated briefly when we asked for the Priorat and later admitted that he’s not a fan of it himself (and rarely sells any of it at Pintxo People—perhaps because it’s the most expensive wine on the otherwise remarkably reasonable wine list), but it was right up our alley, with all the ripe fruit of a sunny New World wine tamed by the lean edge of an Old World one. And it was served in a rather snazzy decanter to boot.

We finished things off with two desserts. Jeremy had chocolate served in five different ways with an apricot sauce, which was accompanied by a fragrant moscatel. I opted for the “tiramisu,” which was really more of a millefeuille, with layers of crunchy biscuit separated by mascarpone and strawberries and topped with a dollop of coffee ice cream. I had a glass of Noé Pedro Ximenez sherry to go with it, which was so fabulously figgy and raisiny that it was almost a dessert in itself. The desserts were small, perfectly formed, and really just the right amount to wrap up our meal.

I was impressed with the Pintxo People restaurant. The dishes had just the right amount of culinary flair while still remaining down to earth, and everything was prepared impeccably and served elegantly. Our meal wasn’t cheap, but that was primarily down to the wine and the fact that we probably ordered several more dishes than the average diner; you could certainly get by with spending far less than we did and still have a satisfying meal. In any case, I enjoyed both the food and the atmosphere, and I would certainly go back and treat myself to dinner there again.

Pintxo People, 95 Western Road, Brighton BN1 2LB, England +44 1273 732 323

In essence, Sloppy Joes is ground meat in a simple barbecue-like tomato sauce which is typically served on a hamburger bun. It’s one of those classic American family meals, probably because it’s fast, cheap, filling, and can be made for a crowd. I suspect most Americans my age have fond memories of eating it as kids, but it’s a meal that seems to have fallen out of favor somewhat, probably after getting a bad reputation thanks to the likes of Manwich and Hamburger Helper.

Let’s be clear: there is absolutely nothing glamorous about the Sloppy Joe. But then, there’s absolutely nothing glamorous about a hamburger either, but you don’t hear anyone complaining about that. Sloppy Joes is summertime food, comfort food, family food to be eaten off of soggy paper plates with a helping of potato salad or coleslaw and washed down with a root beer or an actual brewski. Made from scratch, it’s quick, tasty, and not even necessarily all that unhealthy.

Like most popular dishes, Sloppy Joes can be made any number of ways. You may get chopped peppers, chilies, celery, garlic, or who knows what else in any given Sloppy Joes recipe. Some people add spices like paprika or cumin, others may use ground pork or chorizo rather than ground beef. Sometimes Sloppy Joes is topped with cheese or raw onions, like a taco (which really makes it more like a Sloppy José, I suppose).

My particular recipe comes from my granddad in Florida. There are no extraneous flourishes to it; it’s meat and onions in a sweet and tangy tomato sauce, and for a fun meal on a sunny day, it can’t be beat.

For 4-6 people, you’ll need:

• 2 pounds (1 kg) ground beef
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 2 tablespoons butter

Sauce:

• 1 cup ketchup
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons mustard
• 2 tablespoons vinegar (cider or wine)
• 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

Cook the onion in the butter until it’s soft, then stir in the meat, salt and pepper. Once the meat has browned, stir in the sauce and cook the whole thing slowly for about 15 minutes. Serve on hamburger buns or other rolls, with mayonnaise, either open-faced for eating with a knife and fork, or closed if you’re brave enough to try to pick the thing up (it’ll be very juicy!). Oh, and some hot sauce wouldn’t be out of place either; my family uses datil pepper sauce made according to my granddad’s recipe, but since you’re not likely to have any of that sitting around unless you happen to be either from St. Augustine, Florida or related to me, then Tabasco or something similar would do the trick as well.

If you insist on being really healthy, you could use very lean ground beef and/or drain off the fat from the pan before adding the sauce, and you can easily make a decent veggie version by using Quorn or some other fake meat product.

If you have leftovers, they’ll taste just as good the next day. And if you’re daring, try them on a pizza with sliced jalapeños—extremely unconventional, yes, but surprisingly tasty.

There are a million and one uses for the fresh pea. You can’t go wrong by boiling freshly shelled peas briefly and swishing them around in lots of butter, salt and pepper to accompany lamb or fish, and they’re also the perfect addition to rice dishes like risotto or paella. But fresh peas can really shine when they’re served cold as well. In this easy pea salad, the sweet pop of the peas contrasts perfectly with spicy radishes, salty feta and tangy lemon juice—and the colors of the salad are brilliant to boot.

Exact amounts aren’t critical here. I came up with this salad last year when I saw a few random peas, a few random radishes and little hunk of feta sitting around in my fridge and thought, “Hmm…” Aim for more peas than radishes and more radishes than cheese and you’ll be fine. As a guideline, I’ve read that about a pound (450g) of unshelled peas will give you roughly a cup of shelled peas. With that in mind, you’ll need:

• shelled peas
• chopped radishes
• some chopped herbs (mint, parsley, basil - optional, but highly recommended)
• crumbled feta or goat cheese
• lemon juice
• extra-virgin olive oil
• finely chopped garlic (optional)
• salt and pepper

Cook the shelled peas in boiling water for just a minute or so until they’re tender. Then drain them and rinse them with cold water to stop the cooking process, cool them down and preserve their color. Place them in a mixing bowl with the chopped radishes and sprinkle over a handful or two of chopped herbs and some crumbled feta.

To dress the salad, you can make a lemony vinaigrette by mashing a small bit of garlic into a paste with a pinch of sea salt and whisking in a tablespoon or so of lemon juice and 3 or 4 tablespoons of olive oil—or you can just squeeze some lemon juice over the peas, douse them with a few glugs of olive oil, and maybe toss in a bit of finely chopped garlic and some flakes of sea salt. Add a few grinds of fresh black pepper and stir gently to coat the peas in the glossy dressing. And you’re done!

A few words to the wise, however: Though shelling peas is a time-consuming endeavor, I wouldn’t recommend making this salad with anything other than freshly shelled peas. Frozen peas are good in their own right, but they don’t have the firm pop of fresh ones when they’re cooked.

And while this would make a lovely dish at a picnic, don’t dress the peas with the lemon juice too many hours before you intend to serve them, as the acidity of the lemon will “cook” the peas. I once stored this salad in the fridge for several hours before a BBQ, and when I opened the container to serve the salad to my friends, I realized—much to my chagrin—that my sweet, vibrant Kerry green peas had turned a rather unappetizing shade of olive drab. So for best results, add the lemon later rather than sooner!

When I took a trip to New York a few days after my birthday this year, I had it in mind that I wanted a nice belated birthday dinner somewhere, but I never managed to pick a place ahead of time. Instead, Jeremy and I set out for Greenwich Village one Friday evening, with no reservation and no plan, simply trusting to fate that we’d stumble across a pleasant restaurant for a good meal.

We hadn’t made it very from the subway stop when we spotted a cozy-looking establishment across the street. As we approached, we saw that it was none other than Babbo, one of Mario Batali’s numerous restaurants and apparently one of the toughest restaurants in the US at which to get a table—which is why I had written it off when I was considering potential birthday spots.

But seeing as fate had guided us to Babbo anyway, we figured we had nothing to lose by going in and asking whether there was any chance of a table that night. It was really only a whim, so when the maitre d’ glanced around and said, “I can seat you in about five minutes”—well, you could have knocked us over with a feather.

Five minutes later, we were ensconced at a cozy table for two in the bar area at the front of the restaurant. Apparently, a certain type of New Yorker would not be seen dead dining in someplace as pedestrian as “the bar area”, but if—like Jeremy and me—you go to a restaurant not to see and be seen but rather to eat, then the bar area is just fine, thank you very much. In fact, you can see our little table in this picture: it’s the table on the left in the distance (space being at a premium in New York, you get pretty cozy with the people sitting around you).

The menu promptly overwhelmed us, so we eventually decided to take the easy way out and just go for the eight-course traditional tasting menu paired with wines, which would spare us having to choose our dishes and our wine (a most intimidating prospect). Somehow I managed to get surreptitious, if not terribly high-quality, photos of every course, so what follows is an illustrated, course-by-course account of our unexpected meal at Babbo.

Chickpea bruschetta - This was actually our amuse bouche before we received the first course of our meal. I adore chickpeas, so I loved this; it tasted a lot like something I’d make, but better. The very tender, slightly spicy chickpeas were drenched with balsamic vinegar and spooned over thick toasted bread. Even though I knew we had a ton of food coming, I found it impossible not to eat every last morsel of this.

Culatello with fiddleheads and pecorino - The only time I’ve seen culatello outside Italy was at Salumi in Seattle, which is, incidentally, run by Mario Batali’s father. It’s a beautifully rich Italian ham which was a treat to have again. I’d never tried fiddleheads, so I was happy to have the chance at Babbo. They were extremely yummy—funny, twirly, crunchy, pickly things. It’s pretty much impossible to fault something as sublime as culatello—or indeed pecorino—so I thought it was a lovely dish, though it couldn’t surpass the culatello with figs and pecorino I had on our first night in Bologna, since that was one of the best things I’ve ever eaten in my whole life, ever.

Pappardelle with morels and thyme - This was absolutely, positively scrumptious: golden, eggy ribbons of perfectly cooked pasta tossed with tender morel mushrooms and drenched in butter and parmesan. The flavor of this reminded me of my childhood, when my grandma would make me pastina with lots of butter and parmesan when I wasn’t feeling well. It’s the best comfort food ever. There was a generous portion of this pasta, but I could have easily eaten more. Lots more.

Duck tortelli with “sugo finto” - I was thrilled by the prospect of this dish: confit duck—inside tortellini! Disappointingly, the duck flavor didn’t come through as strongly as I would have expected, but the rich tomato sauce that topped the tortelli (the “sugo finto”, or “fake sauce”) was a revelation, because it tasted almost exactly like something else my grandma makes, which is one of my favorite, most nostalgia-laden dishes in the world: tocco. Tocco is going to get its own Principia Gastronomica entry, so for now I’ll just say that it’s a type of Italian pot roast that results in a rich, beefy tomato sauce which tastes remarkably like Batali’s “sugo finto” (which apparently doesn’t have any meat, hence the “fake”). It was a shockingly evocative taste.

Grilled lamb loin with summer caponata and mint pesto - I don’t see lamb very often on menus in the States, so it was nice to have the opportunity to try some American lamb (I’m assuming it was American, anyway, and not flown in from New Zealand—or indeed England). This was quite delicious, with the impeccably cooked lamb (really rare, just how Jeremy and I like it) nestling on a bed of summery vegetables. The mint pesto in particular was gorgeous, and it’s something that I’ve tried to recreate myself since then.

Coach Farm’s Finest with fennel honey - The menu gave no hint of what “Coach Farm’s Finest” might be. As it turned out, this was the cheese course to wrap up the savory portion of the menu and make the transition to the desserts (rather more quickly than I would have expected, to be honest). Coach Farm’s Finest is a fresh, tangy goat cheese which was perfectly complemented by an amber pool of honey fragranced with pungent fennel seeds. I’m a recent convert to fennel seeds. A little goes a very long way, but used judiciously, they add a wonderful Italian warmth to dishes. The fennel here was a tasty herbal counterpoint to the cheese and honey, so I enjoyed this dish a lot.

“Delizia di Susina” - This, our first dessert, really was scrumptious. It was a moist, spiced plum cake with the texture of bread pudding, topped with a tangy spoonful of something like creme fraiche ice cream. I love bread pudding, so this kind of dessert is right up my alley. Since it was also our first dessert of the evening, it was refreshing to have something sticky and sweet after the hearty savories we’d consumed.

Chocolate “Tartufino” - The “tartufino” was a softly frozen ball of hazelnut mousse topped with a drizzle of hard chocolate. Not being the world’s biggest fan of chocolate ice cream, or even hazelnuts (crazy, I know), I found this okay but not amazing. Also, my sweet tooth had already been satisfied with the plum cake, so the rich, sweet nuttiness of this was more than I really needed.

Lemon olive oil cake with thyme and olive oil gelato - We actually wound up getting two different desserts for this, our final course: the lemon cake (which I never got a picture of), and what I think was Babbo’s chocolate-hazelnut cake with orange sauce and hazelnut gelato. Our waiter said this was because they had run out of the lemon cake, but having read other reviews of the Babbo tasting menu, receiving two different cakes at this point seems to be par for the course (ha ha). We definitely liked the lemon cake better, in part because it was lighter, which was what we needed at this point in the meal, but also because 1) having already had a chocolate-hazelnut dessert, we didn’t really need another one, and 2) I really didn’t think the orange sauce complemented the chocolate and hazelnut very well. But by that time I was so full that it was hard to be objective about tastes anymore.

That’s the peril of almost any tasting menu, I suppose: if the amounts aren’t well-judged, you wind up not really enjoying your food by the time you get to the end of it. I think Babbo’s tasting menu was fairly well-judged in terms of amounts, but the balance of it wasn’t quite what I would have expected, or indeed wanted. I found the three desserts to be way too much (and then you get petit fours afterwards, which I could hardly even look at). I would have ditched at least one of the desserts in favor of another cheese course, or maybe even a fish or another meat course served prior to the lamb. It’s a matter of personal taste, of course. I would just prefer to have a bite of something sweet after a full savory meal, rather than to have almost half of my meal consist of sweet things.

The atmosphere at Babbo is definitely a matter of personal taste as well. Babbo famously has a thumping soundtrack taken directly from Batali’s own iPod. I didn’t mind the rather loud rock music because I happen to like U2 and Talking Heads and it seemed to fit in the already noisy bar area. But the volume did skirt the boundaries of being intrusive.

There’s also the matter of the pace of things—not just at Babbo, but in New York as a whole, I suspect. Even really high-end restaurants in the city like to get two, or even three, seatings a night. Since the pace of a tasting menu is largely determined by the kitchen, we couldn’t and didn’t rush through our meal. But I was very aware of the fact that the tables around us were turned over at least once while we sat there, and the brisk efficiency of the serving staff left no doubt that things are expected to move fast at Babbo. That’s fine, but when I’m paying that much for a dining experience (with or without a reservation), I don’t even want to feel a hint of being rushed.

Overall, I like Frank Bruni’s assessment from a New York Times article a few years ago: Babbo is an “absolutely terrific restaurant” though not a “wholly transcendent” one. But quibbles aside, the food was outstanding, and I feel supremely lucky to have been able to walk in off the street and snag a table at such a prestigious and pleasing restaurant. I’d certainly go back again—if I thought I could ever get a reservation…

Babbo, 110 Waverly Place, New York, NY 10011, +1 212 777 0303

There are vast regional food differences in Germany. According to my German friend Schorsch, a native southerner who has lived in the north for years (and who pines for the good bread and hearty, flavorful fare of the south), northern German cuisine shares more similarities with Scandinavia than with southern Germany—just compare the fish and boiled potatoes of the north to the hearty porks and pastas of the south.

Yes, it’s true: even Germany has an “indigenous” pasta—several different kinds, in fact. Known as Spätzle (which is roughly pronounced “shpayt-slee”, not “spat-sull” as Anglophone TV chefs would have you believe), it’s a type of egg pasta that is actually more like long, skinny dumplings than tagliatelle, say, or the wide, flat Eastern European egg noodles that are so easy to come by in the States but are oddly impossible to find in Brighton.

Spätzle is from the German state of Swabia. Its variations include Schupfnudeln or Bubespitzle, which are like the gnocchi of Germany, made with potatoes and often served with sauerkraut and bacon (very popular at Christmas markets and wine festivals), and Knöpfle, a variation from Baden which is made in the form of tiny knobbly dumplings rather than long noodles.

Spätzle batter consists of flour, eggs, salt and water or milk. Traditionally, Spätzle are geschabt, or scraped from a board, noodle by painstaking noodle. A Spätzle press, which is much like a potato ricer, or a Spätzlehobel, which is kind of like a big cheese grater, makes the job much easier. In a pinch, you could press the batter through a colander to get the same effect. I have both a Spätzle grater and a press, but I only use the press these days because it produces the best results with the least chance of me tipping a pot of boiling water onto myself. So to make the recipe below, I recommend getting a Spätzle press (you can find them online) or using a potato ricer.*

For no particular reason (other than it was the first Spätzle recipe I ever tried and it works perfectly), the recipe I use to make Spätzle comes from a German vegetarian cookbook I bought years ago in Freiburg. The original recipe calls for a mixture of plain flour and spelt flour, which is quite lovely, but I generally just use the plain flour alone. A neat trick I picked up from my friend Schorsch last Christmas is to add a pinch of nutmeg to the batter for a subtle touch of extra flavor.

Recipe for four people (it won’t look like much batter, but believe me, it expands when it hits the water!):

• 250 g plain (all-purpose) flour
• 3 eggs
• 80 ml milk
• Pinch of salt
• Pinch of nutmeg

Mix all of the ingredients to form a thick, sticky batter. Let the batter sit for about 15 minutes while you bring a big pot of salted water to the boil. When the water is simmering nicely, take your Spätzle press and spoon your batter into it. This might be a rather awkward procedure since the batter will be quite viscous, but don’t fret: with a sturdy rubber spatula and a bit of patience, you’ll be able to get the batter in without making a tremendous mess. Don’t fill the press/ricer more than about three-quarters of the way or else batter will squeeze out the top when you close it.

When your press is ready to go, position it over the boiling water and…press! The Spätzle will glide into the water and sink to the bottom of the pot. When they rise to the top (it will only take a minute or so), scoop them out with a slotted spoon and drain them in a colander; then you can cook the next batch in the same way. You can mix the finished Spätzle with some butter and keep them warm in a covered dish in a low oven until you’re ready to serve them.

Spätzle are a fantastic side dish for stews or anything with lots of gravy, German or otherwise. I love them with Belgian carbonnade, Hungarian goulash and French boeuf bourguignon. They’re also gorgeous with pork in mustard or mushroom sauce. A ragout of wild mushrooms with white wine and cream would make an ideal vegetarian topping for Spätzle, or you could use Spätzle in place of noodles or rice in a soup. And then, of course, there is the classic Käsespätzle, which is like macaroni and cheese German-style: layer the cooked Spätzle with grated cheese (Emmental, for example) and golden-brown sauteed onions, heat it in the oven until the cheese has melted, and serve it with a green salad and a big mug of good beer.

Mahlzeit!

*If you do use a Spätzle press or potato ricer to make Spätzle, make sure you soak the thing in hot water immediately after you use it, because when Spätzle batter dries, it kind of turns to concrete. I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time painstakingly clearing out all the clogged-up holes in my Spätzle press with a toothpick, and believe me, it’s not fun.

For a full pictorial overview of making Spätzle, check out Jeremy’s Making Spätzle set on Flickr!

There’s no mystery to a good salad dressing. A vinaigrette, for example—the type of dressing I generally make—is simply a combination of a fat and an acid, generally an oil and a vinegar. The only trick is in the proportions, but those can be adjusted to taste (the classic proportion is one part vinegar to three parts oil, though I usually make a more acidic dressing than that). By varying your oil and your vinegar and adjusting the proportions to fit your salad ingredients and your tastebuds, you can quickly whip up a homemade salad dressing to suit any type of meal.

The dressing I probably make the most is a basic balsamic vinaigrette which works well on any type of green or tomato salad and goes perfectly with Italian food or steaks (incidentally, I also use it to dress my salad Niçoise, which is probably heretical, but hey…). Chop one small clove of garlic and whisk in 2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, 5 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil, freshly ground black pepper and a pinch of sugar if you like. Voilá: instant vinaigrette. This and all following recipes makes enough dressing for one large salad, though the dressing will also keep for a few days if you don’t wind up using it all at once.

With just a slight adjustment, you can create an entirely different beast: instead of extra-virgin olive oil, use 2 tablespoons of walnut oil and 3 tablespoons of regular olive oil, and you have a lovely balsamic-walnut vinaigrette. I make this dressing all through the winter to put on spinach and watercress salad with roasted beets, walnuts and blue cheese. Apple balsamic vinegar works beautifully in this dressing as well.

One dressing that would give the balsamic vinaigrette a run for its money in my house is a classic oil and vinegar dressing I found on Epicurious which calls for sherry vinegar. This is the perfect dressing for tender baby greens, but it can be easily beefed up with extra mustard for use on a spinach or watercress salad, maybe with mushrooms. This is my generic “French food” dressing, but the use of sherry vinegar means that it goes equally well with Spanish food. It’s also a nice dressing for green vegetables like asparagus.

Epicurious was the source of another mustard vinaigrette that I’ve had good success with. It’s a grainy mustard vinaigrette that’s ideal for bitter greens like endive or chicory. A tangy salad like this can be a nice counterpoint to a rich carbonnade—or with the addition of some artichokes and mushrooms, it can almost be a meal in itself. This type of vinaigrette also works well on a potato salad with boiled eggs and crunchy green beans, or a mixed bean salad, or a dinner salad topped with a seared salmon filet

It doesn’t take much tweaking to make a really simple vinaigrette that tastes quite exotic. One of my favorite things to eat growing up (and even now, I might add) was avocado with a curry vinaigrette made by my grandparents in Florida. I make this curry vinaigrette with about 2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar, 4 tablespoons of olive oil (it doesn’t have to be extra virgin), a chopped clove of garlic, a pinch of paprika, a hefty pinch of mild curry powder, a dash of salt, a dash of sugar and some ground black pepper. Cut an avocado in half, remove the pit, pour the dressing into the cavity and eat the avocado straight out of its skin—sometimes messy, but always delicious. This dressing is also good on a salad made with avocado, red onion, cucumber and radish, or just on a simple green salad.

By expanding your range of oils and vinegars just a bit more, you can make extremely flavorful vinaigrettes that go wonderfully with Chinese or Japanese food. I make an Asian vinaigrette using about 2 tablespoons of rice wine vinegar, 1/2 tablespoon soy sauce, 1/2 tablespoon sesame oil, 1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil, a small chopped clove of garlic and an equal amount of fresh grated ginger, a pinch of sugar and some black pepper. This makes a great dressing for a leafy green salad with baby spinach and coriander (cilantro), or it can be used on an Asian-style slaw with chopped Chinese cabbage and grated carrot.

Of course, a vinaigrette-style dressing doesn’t have to be made with vinegar. Citrus juice, particularly lemon or lime, does the trick as well. You can make an easy Mexican citrus vinaigrette by taking the basic balsamic vinaigrette recipe and using lime or lemon juice instead of vinegar and adding a pinch of cumin. Leave out the cumin and throw in a generous portion of chopped fresh herbs (things like mint, parsley and basil work particularly nicely), and you have a great, fresh-tasting dressing that’s wonderful on a mixed salad with avocados, cucumbers, radishes and maybe some feta cheese. Or skip the herbs and add a splash of Worcestershire sauce and some grated parmesan for a simplified Caesar vinaigrette that’s perfect on robust leaves like romaine lettuce.

In fact, a lemony dressing is delicious on just about any salad or green vegetables, hot or cold: fresh pea salad with radishes and feta, warm green beans, broad beans, runner beans, asparagus… And the more I think about it, the more I realize that vinaigrettes in all their forms are a fundamental aspect of my cooking. They’re so versatile, and they’re an easy way of adding a real kick of flavor. So if you’ve been buying oil-and-vinegar dressings, I would encourage you to try your hand at making a vinaigrette or two yourself. They’re easy-peasy, and once you’ve discovered the acid-to-oil ratio you like, the flavor possibilities are endless.

When myself and Jessica had the very good fortune to find ourselves in Australia last year, we just knew that we’d have to make a trip to Melbourne. We wound up staying in the St. Kilda area, a funky place with lots of young hip people hanging out at the beach. It reminded me a lot of Brighton.

The main drag in St. Kilda is renowned for its cake shops. But I don’t have much of a sweet tooth so I was interested in more savory fare. I found my wishes answered at a restaurant called Claypots.

Claypots is a seafood restaurant with an almost overwhelming choice of fish and shellfish. They’ve got just about everything you could possibly want. The good news is that you don’t have to decide on just one thing. You can pick and choose any number of things from the menu. Just flag down your server and tell them when you fancy some more nibbles, the order gets relayed to the kitchen—situated right in the middle of the restaurant behind the food counter—and your fish dish is cooked right there in front of you.

You can fill up the edges with plenty of other tapas too. It was a busy night when we showed up here and we had been waiting a while to get a table. We must have looked hungry because our waitress treated us to some tzaziki while we waited to place our order.

I really liked the atmosphere in this place. It was noisy but in a good way. The place is filled with the sound of people having fun, the sizzle of seafood and the kitchen staff calling out to one another. The smell of hot butter and garlic is an added bonus.

Instead of a printed menu, the options at Claypots are listed out on a blackboard. This list will vary from night to night and, of course, from season to season. As the evening progresses, the list gets shorter as prized items are consumed and removed from the list.

I highly recommend trying Morton Bay bugs if they’re on the menu: a delicious crab-like crustacean with firm tasty flesh inside a primordial looking shell. It was also at Claypots that I tried yabbies for the first time. These Australian fresh-water crayfish were served up without any fuss. You can’t beat simple fresh food in a bustling but cosy restaurant.

You won’t be able to reserve a table ahead of time at Claypots. Just show up early. If they can’t seat you straight away, they’ll get your mobile number and call you when a table is free. In the meantime, you can pop into the wine shop next door and choose a nice Australian wine to go with your meal—it’s a BYO restaurant.

If you’re in Melbourne, don’t pass up the chance to eat at Claypots. If you can’t make it all the way out to St. Kilda, there’s a second restaurant at 153 Gertrude Street in Fitzroy. Either way, if you like fresh seafood, you can’t go wrong here.

Claypots, 213 Barkly Street, Melbourne, 3182 VIC, Australia, +61 (03) 9534 1282

The simplest way of finding new meals is to look for recipes in cookbooks or online, of course. Another fun method is trying to replicate tasty dishes I’ve had in restaurants. And a third way is to play the variations on a theme game. This involves taking a recipe that I already like and tweaking it by “transposing” its components and, essentially, moving the whole thing to a different country (the variations on a tomato salad with herbs and cheese described in this post are a good example of this).

This lentil soup recipe is actually the product of all three methods. While browsing through food blogs one day, I chanced upon this recipe for lentil, chestnut and pancetta soup. If ever two words could make my heart sing, it would be “lentils” and “pancetta”, so I quickly set about making the soup, and it was very good indeed.

Then one evening, as I sat pondering what to do with a bit of leftover chorizo I had in the fridge, I remembered a smoky lentil casserole I’d had at Bodega D’Tapa, a little (very little) gem of a tapas bar in Brighton. The idea of lentils and cured meat got me to thinking about the lentil and pancetta soup, which I decided I’d move from Italy to Spain by substituting chorizo for the pancetta, replacing the sage and thyme with pimentón (smoked Spanish paprika), and adding some onions and garlic for extra richness.

To my delight, the Spanish version of the soup turned out great. The combination of earthy lentils, smoky paprika, spicy chorizo and sweet chestnuts is a real winner, and it’s quick and easy to make to boot.

The following recipe will really serve four, though I make the same amount for two because the leftovers are yummy for lunch. Though the ingredients have been tweaked, this recipe hews very closely to the original one, so most of the credit for it should go to Meg of Though small, it is tasty (who, incidentally, used to be a resident of Brighton! Small world…)

• 150 g lentils
• 2 bay leaves
• 75 g Spanish chorizo, sliced
• 1/2 onion (preferably red), chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 200 g roasted and peeled chestnuts, chopped a bit
• 150 mL red wine
• 250 g canned tomatoes
• 1/2 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• red chili flakes and salt to taste

Cook the lentils and bay leaves in a pot of boiling water for about 25 minutes, until the lentils are tender but still firm. Drain the lentils, saving the cooking water.

In the meantime, heat a splash of olive oil in a pot over medium-low heat and sauté the chorizo for a minute. Remove the chorizo and set it aside, then sauté the onion in the oil for about 10 minutes, until it’s soft. Add the garlic and sauté a minute or two, then add the chestnuts and cook them for a few minutes too.

Pour in the wine and simmer until most of the liquid has cooked off, then add the tomatoes, tomato paste, paprika, chili flakes if you’re using them, and salt to taste.

Simmer all of this until the mixture has thickened, roughly 15 minutes. Then stir in the lentils and as much lentil cooking water as you want (I make this like a thick lentil stew, but you can add more liquid if you want something more soup-like). Cook this together for another 10 minutes or so, adding the chorizo towards the end to heat it through. Season again if you need to, then serve it up!

I like to use small, firm lentils such as Puy lentils for this, but I’m sure regular brown lentils would work just as well (or for extra authenticity, use Spanish Pardina lentils if you can find them). The chestnuts add a nice texture and sweetness, but I’ve made the soup without them and it’s still very good (and by the way, I don’t roast my own chestnuts—I just buy them already roasted and peeled).

For a vegetarian version of the soup, just leave out the chorizo. The pimentón will still give you a deep smokiness, and you could substitute some roasted red peppers to boost the flavor even more. Then you need nothing more than a spicy Spanish red and maybe a crisp salad to have a dinner that’s just delicioso.

Update: For an extremely fast variation on this soup, you can use tinned black beans instead of lentils.

Follow the steps for cooking the chorizo, onion and garlic mentioned above (you can sauté carrots and/or celery along with the onion if you have them), stir in the smoked paprika, add some tomato paste/puree or some tinned tomatoes if you like, then chuck in two tins of black beans (with their juices) and enough water or vegetable stock for the soup to reach the consistency you want. Simmer it for as long as you like, put the chorizo back in, season it to taste, and enjoy!

But the country has a host of other delicious dishes to offer as well: creamy soups with fish or chicken (waterzooi); salads and fritters made with North Sea shrimp; endives/chicory baked under a bubbling blanket of ham and cheese; sweet lobster and other seafood; sausages and game; tender white asparagus, waxy yellow potatoes and bright green Brussels sprouts (don’t scoff: Brussels sprouts sauteed in butter with caramelized onions and mustard are delightful).

My favorite Belgian recipe features one of Belgium’s other great gifts to the culinary world: beer. Carbonnade à la flamande is Flemish beef stew in which beef and onions are simmered in Belgian ale until the meat is tender, the onions are sweet and the ale has cooked down into a rich, dark gravy. I imagine carbonnade was as popular in the 14th century as it is today.

The key - as with so many great dishes - lies in taking a few good ingredients and treating them well to create something much greater than the sum of its parts. And those parts are as follows:

• 500 g cubed stewing/braising beef
• 2 slices bacon, chopped
• 3-4 medium onions, sliced
• 1/2 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1/2 tablespoon flour
• 1 bottle Belgian ale
• 500 mL strong beef broth/stock
• 1-2 bay leaves
• pinch of thyme (fresh or dried)
• pinch of allspice (optional)
• salt and pepper
• chopped parsley
• mustard

The basic recipe is very straightforward. You can make the carbonnade either entirely on the stovetop, or you can start it on the stove and finish it in the oven. If you’re going to use the oven, preheat it to 175C/350F.

Season the beef generously with salt and pepper and brown it on all sides in a dash of oil over medium heat in a heavy-bottomed pot or casserole. When the meat is browned, take it out of the pot and set it aside, then deglaze the pot by adding a splash of beef broth and scraping up any browned bits with a wooden spoon. Add the broth and bits to the beef, then drop the bacon into the pot and fry it over medium heat until it’s brown. Remove the bacon with a slotted spoon and set it aside with the beef.

Put the onions in the pot and fry them gently in the bacon fat until they start to turn soft and golden, which will take about 15 minutes. After the onions have been cooking for a few minutes, sprinkle over the brown sugar, which will help them caramelize slightly.

Once the onions are cooked, sprinkle the flour over them and stir it in (a lot of recipes call for tossing the beef cubes in flour before browning them, but I’ve found that you wind up just browning the flour instead of the meat when you do this). Then add the beef, bacon and any accumulated juices to the onions in the pot.

Now comes the fun bit: turn up the heat slightly, and pour in the bottle of ale. It will go all fizzy for a few seconds, but then it will calm down. Add enough beef broth to cover the meat and onions, along with the bay leaf, thyme, allspice if you’re using it, and some salt and pepper.

Bring this to a boil, then cover and place in the oven. Let it cook for about 2 hours, stirring occasionally, until the meat is tender (if you’re cooking the carbonnade on the stovetop, simply simmer it over low heat for 2 hours; you’ll have to stir it slightly more often to prevent it from burning to the bottom of the pot).

To finish the carbonnade, stir in a handful of chopped parsley and a tablespoon or two of mustard if you’d like. Carbonnade is traditionally served with boiled potatoes or sometimes buttered noodles, but I think Spätzle is really the perfect accompaniment (so carbonnade is from Belgium and Spätzle is from southern Germany—it’s still a match made in heaven). A salad of chicory or endive dressed with a mustard vinaigrette makes for a sprightly accompaniment to balance out the dark, rich carbonnade.

There are just a few things to take note of if you’re making carbonnade. First of all, the beer: If you can get hold of Belgian ale, I highly recommend using it, even if it is more expensive than your average bottle of beer. I used a Chimay Blue the first time I made carbonnade, and it worked so well that I’ve stuck to it ever since. Chimay Blue is a fairly dark ale which gives the carbonnade a pleasing depth. I’ve tried a Leffe Radieuse as well, which is dark and malty, but I thought it gave the carbonnade a slightly bitter edge. If you can’t get hold of Belgian ale, try some other well-rounded copper ale. I would avoid using a stout, however; beef and Guinness stew is great, but that’s not what this recipe is meant to be.

Also, resist the temptation to add too much butter or oil to the pot while you’re browning the meat and sautéing the onions; otherwise the final product could taste greasy.

The allspice, mustard and herbs are really “optional extras”. For true medieval flair, carbonnade should have a spiced, sweet-and-sour tang to it. To achieve this, some cooks spread mustard on a piece of gingerbread and place the bread on top of the carbonnade; as the carbonnade cooks, the mustard-smeared bread breaks down, thickening and flavoring the stew.

Since I don’t typically have gingerbread lying around my house, I make do with the allspice and a hefty dollop of wholegrain mustard (cloves might be interesting to experiment with as well). It’s also not uncommon for vinegar to be added once the carbonnade is done, but I find that the mustard alone gives the stew enough sharpness. The sugar provides the sweetness, though I’ve also seen recipes that call for a spoonful of red currant jelly for the same effect. And as for the thyme and the parsley: if you don’t have any, don’t fret.

And finally, you may have noticed that the pictures accompanying this recipe clearly show mushrooms in my carbonnade. It’s true, I have on occasion used mushrooms if I happened to have them in the fridge. It works out fine, but if you tip the delicate mushroom/meat balance, you just wind up with beef and mushroom stew. This is okay as far as it goes—but again, it’s not carbonnade à la flamande.

I’ve since decided that “purity of spirit” is what’s called for in a carbonnade. Beef, beer and onions are really all you need to create a hearty winter meal fit for a medieval monarch—or a 21st-century foodie.