“As it was originally written” is a bit of a conundrum for me, too, because I’ve had this recipe for as long as I can remember. It’s scribbled on one side of a ripped, wrinkled, stained sheet of notebook paper. There are Latin exercises on the other side of the paper, and since I haven’t studied Latin since, oh, the 1990s, we’re talking a good decade’s worth of Moroccan bean stew in my house. I must have found the recipe on the nascent Information Superhighway—and a bit of recent Googling uncovered it again on Allrecipes, where it goes by the name of “Moroccan lentil soup” but is otherwise exactly the recipe I have written on my scrap of old paper.

Of course, the recipe on the scrap of paper isn’t the recipe I actually make anymore, though the bare bones of it are the same: red lentils, white beans, chickpeas, tomatoes, spices. Those ingredients alone will give you a decent soup, and anything you add beyond that will give you a really good soup. If onions are the only other vegetable you have on hand, then just use onions. If you’ve got carrots and celery, throw them in. Diced bell peppers or fresh chilies work too. Vegetable broth adds good flavor, but water will work in a pinch. And the garlic and ginger are nice but not essential.

What is essential is the seasoning—and this brings us back to garam masala and the other spices. Garam masala is an Indian spice mixture which includes things like cumin, cardamom, black pepper and cloves, though its composition varies from place to place and from cook to cook. Other regions of the world have comparable blends: in some parts of the Middle East you find baharat, in other parts you find advieh, and in North Africa you find ras al hanout (not to be confused with this guy). I always used garam masala in this recipe until I ran out of garam masala one day and substituted baharat instead—and it tasted almost exactly the same. I actually like baharat more now because the blend I use has a lot of paprika in it which gives the stew an appealing terra cotta hue.

It is perhaps odd that the original recipe calls for both the spice blend as well as many of the spices you would find in that spice blend, but honestly I never really questioned it until I started documenting the soup for this site. I imagine that instead of the extra cumin and cardamom you could just use more of your chosen spice blend—or, if you’re really serious about things, you could make your own spice blend just the way you like it. This tends to be a “whip it up fast and leave it alone” kind of dish for me, so I use whatever I have on hand and add more spices to taste as needed.

For one big pot of soup, you’ll need:

• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• 2 medium onions, chopped
• a chopped carrot, stick of celery, pepper or chile (all optional)
• 2 teaspoons fresh grated ginger (optional)
• 3 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 2 teaspoons garam masala/baharat/ras al hanout or a similar spice blend
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 6 green cardamom pods, lightly cracked
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 can chopped tomatoes (roughly 400g/14oz)
• 1 can chickpeas, drained (same size can as tomatoes)
• 1 can cannellini beans, drained (same size can as tomatoes)
• 1 cup/200g dried red lentils, rinsed
• 5 cups/1.25 liters vegetable broth or water
• salt and pepper to taste

Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a large, heavy pot and sauté the onions (and carrot/celery/pepper if you’re using them) for about 10 minutes, until they’re starting to get soft. Add the garlic (and optional ginger) and stir for a minute, then add the spice blend, cumin, cayenne and cardamom pods and stir until they’re fragrant (only a minute or two).

Mix in the tomato paste, then tip in the tomatoes, chickpeas, beans and lentils. Douse everything with the broth, bring the stew to a boil, then lower the heat, partially cover the pot and let the stew simmer until the lentils are tender, adding more liquid if necessary; you can add considerably more liquid to make it more soupy or leave it as it is to make it more stewy. It should only take about half an hour for the red lentils to cook, but the stew can continue to simmer beyond that if you like—or you can turn off the heat and let it sit for a bit, then reheat it when you’re ready to eat (it just gets better).

You can puree some of the soup if you like to get a creamier texture, but I find that the red lentils usually thicken it up nicely all on their own. Also, the stew itself is vegan, but if you yourself are not, I recommend serving it with a dollop of tangy yogurt on top, and maybe some warm pita breads on the side.

Finally, an odd side story: Not long after I had my wisdom teeth out, Jeremy and I were invited to a barbecue by German friends of ours. I still wasn’t in any condition to eat solid food, so I brought a tub of Moroccan bean stew—pureed to within an inch of its life—and sat at the picnic table slurping soup while everyone around me tucked into grilled sausages in crusty German rolls. I’m not saying I wouldn’t have liked a sausage, but even in those less-than-ideal conditions, this soup tasted good.

Within a few weeks of returning home from Shanghai, my kitchen cupboards were filled with Sichuan peppercorns, chili-garlic paste, fermented black beans and pickled vegetables, and my head was filled with memories of meltingly soft red-cooked pork, crunchy lamb and cumin kebabs, blistering Sichuan hotpots and ethereal soup dumplings. Shanghai changed my concept of Chinese food and it changed my cooking.

The first thing I wanted to make when we got home was red-cooked pork, and my quest for a recipe for this sticky, unctuous dish led me to Diana Kuan’s Appetite for China blog, which immediately became my go-to source for Chinese cooking inspiration. So when I was recently struck by a craving for that numbingly spicy Sichuan peppercorn heat to fend off the cold, damp misery of England in February, I swung by Appetite for China and found not only the perfect recipe but also a very exciting competition.

To participate in the competition—or the “Chinese New Year Virtual Potluck”—you just have to cook one of seven recipes from Diana’s new Chinese Takeout Cookbook and blog about it by February 24, 2013. All participants (with a US address) get a copy of the book—and since I was planning to make one of Diana’s recipes anyway and buy the book anyway, I jumped at the opportunity and started gathering ingredients.

I went a bit crazy, as usual, and cooked not one but two recipes from the competition list: dan dan noodles and Chinese marbled tea eggs. I also put together a Sichuan cucumber salad (because I could eat that all day long) and a vegetarian mapo tofu to use up some dried mushrooms I had sitting around. Oh, and I made some stir-fried broccoli in oyster sauce, too. Yes, this was all just for two people. Yes, we were very full after dinner.

I had made the cucumber salad and mapo tofu several times before, so I knew those dishes would be great (one cool and spicy, one hot and spicy, both terribly addictive). The tea eggs and noodles were new to me, however, so it was with excitement and a bit of trepidation that I embarked on those recipes.

For my first attempt at tea eggs, I was really pleased with the result. I let the eggs simmer for two hours (filling the house with a wonderful aroma) and then they sat in their broth for a bit while I prepared the rest of dinner. When I peeled the first egg at the table, I was delighted to see lovely marbling all over (particularly since I had kind of haphazardly bashed the shells and wasn’t sure I’d get the right effect).

The taste was surprisingly mild—just a hint of star anise and soy—and it was a refreshing counterpart to the other rich and spicy dishes we were eating. One of the chilled leftover eggs made a tasty on-the-go snack the next day, and I chopped up another one to throw into some fried rice the day after that. You get a lot of bang for your buck with these eggs.

The dan dan noodles were the star of the show at dinner, however: springy Chinese noodles topped with lightly crisped ground meat in a vinegary sauce infused with the floral heat of Sichuan pepper. I though there was no way we would make it through the whole bowl of noodles considering how many other dishes I had made—but by the end of the meal we were scraping the bowl clean.

I did make a few adjustments to Diana’s recipe: I couldn’t get a hold of the Sichuan preserved vegetable, so I tossed in some chili pickled bamboo shoots instead; they didn’t have the same crunch as pickled mustard stem, but they added a nice briny hit of flavor to the noodles. I also used a baby leek instead of the scallions, so the garnish was slightly more oniony than it would have been otherwise.

But the most dramatic change was that I used ground lamb instead of beef or pork. I substituted the lamb because that’s what I had languishing in the freezer, but in retrospect I like the lamb aspect for three other reasons: 1) “lamb dan dan” is nicely alliterative, 2) the lamb dishes I had in China were some of the most exciting and surprising to me, so I enjoyed being able to use lamb in yet another interesting way, and 3) the lamb actually works really well in this dish because it stands up beautifully to the spicy chili, the deep umami of the soy sauce and the tang of the black vinegar and pickles. Lamb dan dan doesn’t really seem to be a “thing”, but I think I’m going to make it a “thing” because it tastes great.

So, our Chinese New Year dinner was a terrific success, and my exploration of Chinese cuisine continues thanks to Appetite for China. If you’re a newcomer to making Chinese food at home, like I am, or you’re looking to recreate some of the dishes you know from Chinese restaurants or takeaways, I recommend checking out Diana’s blog and her Chinese Takeout Cookbook. You might surprise yourself with the delights you’ll soon be producing in your kitchen.

This is what it’s like to dine at the pop-up supper club in Brighton run by chef Chris Bailey. Bailey earned a Michelin star at a pub in Winchester, but now he’s brought his gorgeous local and seasonal cooking to Brighton in the form of intimate, one-off dining experiences known as the Interim Table.

When Jeremy and I were tipped off about the existence of the Interim Table, we immediately snapped up two tickets for the next event. And so, on a blustery Saturday night, we found ourselves in the gleaming basement kitchen of a classic Brighton house, knocking back sloe gin cocktails with (mostly) complete strangers to whet our appetite for a ten-course tasting menu prepared just for us.

I was excited but also somewhat apprehensive about the supper club experience—excited by the idea of the food and the “secret society” atmosphere, but nervous at the thought of having to commune with strangers over dinner (I’m not a big “communer”).

There was no need to worry, though; from the moment we were welcomed at the door by the smiling chef himself, we knew we were in for a fun, relaxed evening. As our fellow diners (including the chef’s parents) tumbled into the room and took their seats around the massive oak table, there was lots of friendly chit-chat which only grew more exuberant as the evening went on (helped, no doubt, by the aforementioned cocktails and the well-chosen selection of wines on offer).

The menu for the evening started with three taster-sized morsels: a curl of puffy pork rind topped with smoky cod roe, a tender scallop with corn puree and a cube of sherry vinegar gel, and a silky chicken liver parfait on a square of sticky-sweet malt loaf. We were then treated to warm sourdough bread and a choice of freshly churned salted butter or butter blended with pork fat (yes, this is actually a thing—a delicious, heart-attack-inducing thing).

With our palates primed, we tucked into a celeriac soup cradling a tiny quail Scotch egg with an oozing golden yolk and a crispy salt cod coating. The hints of smoked paprika and cumin in the egg were a toasty counterpoint to the creamy soup, and one of my friendly dining companions chuckled as a scraped every last morsel from my bowl. “Didn’t like it, eh?” Nope—I loved it.

Up next was a succulent pork terrine surrounded by dill pickles and roasted beets. The pork terrine was the best I’ve had (tender, moist and flavorful), but it was the pickles that really had me swooning. I could eat a jar of dill pickles by myself in one sitting, but the pickles I love most—properly salty, garlicky kosher dills—are practically impossible to come by in Brighton. These pickles were closest I’ve had, and I enjoyed them so much that it took all of my willpower not to ask a fellow diner if I could have the pickles he had left on the side of his plate.

After these dishes, things got smoky in the kitchen as we moved to the main courses: chargrilled trout and seared wild duck breast. The trout, served with black olive gnocchi, was soft and scrumptious, but again, the real revelation came in the form of something accompanying it: locally foraged alexander shoots.

I’d never eaten or even heard of alexanders before, so this dish was particularly exciting. The alexanders tasted kind of like parsley and kind of celery and not really like either one, and as they soaked up the buttery preserved lemon emulsion that was drizzled over the dish, they became more and more irresistible. I scraped this plate clean, too.

The highlight of the meal, I think, was the wild duck breast accompanied by a quince and tonka bean puree, with ebony trompette mushrooms and a pleasantly chewy wheat berry pilaf. I’d never tasted tonka bean before, either—and now that I have tasted it, I am well and truly addicted.

As mentioned earlier, the duck breast was cooked to rosy perfection. It was also garnished with a crumble of crispy duck skin and brioche, and these savory, meaty flavors were complemented beautifully by the sweet puree. The taste and aroma of the tonka bean was vivid and elusive at the same time. It was like vanilla, and almonds, and winter spices—basically, it was like Christmas on a plate (another very cleanly scraped plate). And when those extra duck breasts got passed around, even though I was already stuffed I couldn’t resist having a bite more.

There was one more savory course to come: a plate of gooey Vacherin Mont-d’Or with walnut bread toasts and a red wine and apple puree. The sweet, creamy cheese was luscious (I took a second helping of that, too), and it was a good bridge to the dessert that followed it: toffee sponge cake with macadamia granola, a tart cider foam and unctuous clotted cream. This was washed down nicely by the third revelation of the night, namely, a Malbec dessert wine (the apple brandy that was being passed around went rather nicely as well).

At this point, the wine was flowing freely as freely as the conversation (or vice versa), laughter reverberated through the room, and I was so full that I just managed to devour one last sparkly chocolate truffle, a chunk of shortbread and a chestnut and cinnamon macaroon before slumping over in exhausted contentment.

The Interim Table evening was a pure delight. It was wonderful to share outstanding food with like-minded diners in such a laid-back context. In terms of atmosphere, it was less like a restaurant and more like a great dinner party where you just happen to not know anyone. Culinarily, it was some of the best food I’ve had in Brighton. And as far as the supper club experience goes—I’m a convert.

As a million sites around the web will now tell you, the key to making a kale salad that’s tender and not tough is to massage the kale. When kale leaves get a good old rub with coarse salt and something acidic like lemon juice or vinegar, they start to break down and lose a lot of their bitterness, meaning that there’s no need to cook them before indulging in their deeply verdant goodness.

Kale tastes great dressed simply with lemon juice, olive oil and a sprinkling of salty cheese, but it’s a gutsy green that can also stand up to a lot of other flavors. Some of my favorite flavors of the moment are the sweet/salty/spicy/nutty combos found around the Mediterranean, where dried fruits cavort with chilies, capers and olives, and almonds or pine nuts. I’m a big fan of a Catalan spinach dish with raisins, pine nuts and garlic, and I figured ingredients like these would play happily in my kale salad as well. I also added capers for zingy hits of brine, dried red chili for warmth and parmesan for a salty tang.

Roasted butternut squash is a great addition if you’re eating this salad on its own, but if the salad is a side dish you could leave the squash out.

For one giant bowl of salad, you’ll need:

• a small handful of sultanas / golden raisins (regular raisins are fine)
• a small handful of capers (packed in brine, not salt)
• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• a good grind of black pepper

• about 200 grams / 8 ounces of curly kale or, even better, Tuscan kale (aka cavolo nero or black kale)
• 1 hefty pinch of coarse sea salt
• the juice of 1 small lemon (or to taste)
• 1 small chopped clove of garlic
• 1 pinch of dried red chili flakes

• a small handful of flaked almonds or toasted pine nuts
• a handful of coarsely grated parmesan cheese
• about 350 grams / 12 ounces of cubed butternut squash (optional)

If you’re using the butternut squash, toss the cubed squash with some olive oil, salt and pepper and roast it in the oven at 180C/375F until it’s tender, which should only take about 30 minutes. The squash can be cooking while you’re making the rest of the salad.

Roughly chop the raisins and capers and place them in a small bowl with the olive oil and black pepper. Set this aside to soak while you deal with the kale.

Wash and dry the kale (a salad spinner is helpful here), remove the tough stems and finely chop the leaves. Place the leaves in a big bowl with a good pinch of salt and the juice of about half a lemon, and then get your hands in there and massage the kale until the leaves start to soften and turn a darker green. Kale is a tough cookie, so you can be pretty vigorous.

Taste the kale after you’ve massaged it for a few minutes—it should still be a bit chewy, but it shouldn’t be like trying to chew through a piece of leather. When the kale has been massaged into submission, mix the garlic and chili flakes into the leaves and set the bowl aside. The kale can sit like this for pretty much as long as you need it to; mine probably sat for about half an hour while the squash was cooking.

When you’re ready to eat, pour the raisin/caper/oil mixture over the kale and toss to coat the leaves. Gently stir in the almonds, cheese and squash if you’re using it. Taste for seasoning—you may want to add more lemon juice at this point, or maybe salt or extra cheese. If not, then you’re good to go!

Incidentally, this keeps very well in the fridge—in fact, I’d say it improves with age—so feel free to make it in advance or have the leftovers for lunch the next day.

You’re probably thinking of Italy about now. Maybe Greece, maybe France or Spain. But what about…Lebanon? Israel? Syria?

Like most people, I suspect, my concept of the “Mediterranean diet” has long been limited to a very specific part of the vast Mediterranean—namely, the arc from Spain in the west, up to Provence and the French Riviera, across Italy, and down the coast of Greece to Crete. But the Mediterranean encompasses so much more, everything from Morocco and Egypt in the south, to the Balkans, Turkey and the Levant in the east.

This latter region in the far eastern Mediterranean is the object my current culinary obsession, an obsession that can be traced back largely to one person: Yotam Ottolenghi. If you’re in the UK, you’ve probably heard of Mr. Ottolenghi; he’s had regular columns in the Guardian, he has cafés and best-selling cookbooks, and he’s even been on TV.

It was through the Guardian that I first found him and became intrigued. I gradually amassed a ragged, spattered collection of recipes ripped from the weekend magazine—recipes for multi-vegetable paella, saffron cauliflower, chermoula eggplant—recipes that looked as good as they sounded, and tasted as good as they looked. The intrigue turned to infatuation when Plenty came out, with its gorgeous cover photograph of pomegranate-strewn eggplants. And the full-blown obsession kicked in when I finally bought a copy of Plenty for myself and started cooking—and loving—every single recipe in it.

I can’t overstate how much Yotam Ottolenghi’s food has changed my palate, my cooking and my spice cabinet. I’ve become a real flavor junkie, throwing fresh herbs at things with abandon, roasting seeds and filling up little jars with spice mixes, keeping a steady supply of pomegranate molasses in my fridge. His salmon steaks with spicy tomato sauce have transformed how I think about caraway, his couscous with butternut squash prompted me to buy, use and actually enjoy eating tarragon, and the fact that we’ve got rows of fennel bulbs planted in our little garden out back is due in no small part to him, too.

Ottolenghi has also changed my culinary map of the world, revealing a spectrum of tastes and textures and colors that I hadn’t really experienced before, the tastes of Jerusalem, Beirut, Damascus. But where do you start if you want to dip your toes into the eastern Mediterranean?

I can’t claim to be any sort of expert as I’m just in the process of discovering these cuisines myself—but I think I’d start with sumac. It’s not a hugely aromatic spice in and of itself (at least, the stuff we get here in the supermarket isn’t), but the citrus zing and russet hue of the dried sumac berry lend a characteristic look and flavor to many dishes from this part of the world. It’s lovely as a garnish for a dish of hummus or yogurt or dusted over a crunchy Lebanese salad, and combined with coarse salt it makes a fabulous crust for roasted lamb or chicken. Use it wherever you want lemony tartness combined with a bit of texture.

Sumac really shines in combination with other herbs and spices, such as in the spice blend known as za’atar. Za’atar adds a crunchy kick to everything it touches. Different countries make different versions, but you can’t go wrong with a basic mix of toasted sesame seeds, thyme, oregano, sumac and a pinch of salt. Scatter it over dips and salads, serve it as a dip in its own right with pita bread and olive oil, mix it with feta cheese, moisten it with oil and brush it onto pizza dough before baking for a fancy flatbread, or just sprinkle it on crackers smeared with cream cheese for a quick snack.

For a nutty Egyptian spin on the spice blend, mix up a batch of dukkah. Dukkah, like za’atar, comes in many different guises, but you’re likely to find nuts, a variety of seeds and a bit more spiciness than you get with za’atar. Whatever blend you use, it will add amazing fragrance to all sorts of dishes. I first encountered dukkah in Sydney, where it was sprinkled over poached eggs and spinach for a savory breakfast, but it pairs beautifully with beans and chickpeas, salty cheese, rice and grains, roasted vegetables… To be honest, there isn’t much that couldn’t be improved with a dash of dukkah (or za’atar, for that matter).

Dried spices are great, but if Ottolenghi has taught me anything about kicking up the flavor quotient in food, it’s this: get jiggy with the fresh herbs. And I don’t just mean parsley (as wonderful as it is), I mean things like mint, cilantro/coriander, lemon thyme, fennel and dill.

Dill has probably been the biggest surprise for me; the herb I formerly associated solely with bland poached salmon and borscht turns out to have been living a wild life in the warm Mediterranean sun. Its sweet pungency perks up leafy and grainy salads alike, and it combines beautifully with other herbs like mint and parsley to add an elusive anise note to dishes. I enjoyed one of the more unexpected uses for dill the other night in the form of Ottolenghi’s barley and pomegranate salad. As I was making it, I couldn’t imagine how barley, celery, allspice, dill and pomegranate seeds could work together—but once I started eating it, I couldn’t stop. The leftover salad was as crunchy, chewy and scrumptious the next day as it had been the night before, so it’s definitely one for a picnic.

Speaking of pomegranate, here’s a hot tip: If you want to instantly make any dish you cook look like a meal fit for a sultan, sprinkle pomegranate seeds over it. With their ruby-red sparkle and juicy crunch, pomegranate seeds are the ultimate in culinary bling. I think Yotam Ottolenghi can take a lot of the credit for popularizing pomegranate in the UK, and I would like to thank him profusely for it—particularly since it means I can buy ready-to-eat packs of fresh pomegranate seeds instead of having to tackle the formidable fruit myself (hey, we all have our culinary breaking points). In the summer, I sprinkle pomegranate seeds over bowls of mango, crunchy granola and yogurt for breakfast; in the winter, the seeds glitter amongst cubes of golden roasted butternut squash. And year round, you can’t help but feel happy when you see pomegranate on the plate. I have a lot of sympathy for poor Persephone—it’s awfully hard to resist the pomegranate’s gem-like allure.

If you want to take pomegranate to the next level, seek out—or make—some pomegranate molasses. This sweet-tart syrup is another ingredient you can easily slip into your everyday cooking for a fresh twist on familiar foods. It makes a great base for marinades (lamb, chicken and pork all love pomegranate), salad dressings or even cocktails. It’s also wonderful in stewed vegetable dishes like sweet and sour eggplant, tomatoes and chickpeas, which makes a fantastic summer supper when paired with quinoa or bulgur and a leafy, lemony salad (maybe sprinkled with sumac—or za’atar—or indeed pomegranate seeds).

Beyond that, I would highly encourage you to seek out some Ottolenghi recipes if you haven’t already. They’ve opened a door onto a whole new world of food for me—a world of bright flavors, bold colors, intoxicating aromas and flat-out foodie excitement—and they might just do the same for you.

But where do you turn when you want something more than a sirloin but less than a full-on standing rib roast? Something that’s marbled with delicious fat but doesn’t have to be cooked for hours? Something that can be served as easily for a fast mid-week dinner as it could for a lavish dinner party?

You turn to the côte de bœuf.

A côte de bœuf (also known as a cowboy steak) is basically a thick, bone-in rib steak. I’ve become obsessed with the côte de bœuf; no other piece of beef seems to cut it anymore. I dream about it, my mouth waters just thinking about it. The obsession began last year at the Anchor & Hope in London, where Jeremy and I shared a slow-cooked rib that was crusty and salty on the outside, silky and rare on the inside, and so fabulously moreish that we polished off every last scrap of the massive thing even though I knew I’d have meat sweats for the rest of the night.

Since then, we’ve bought many bone-in rib steaks to cook at home, and whether we’ve seared them quickly on a hot grill or cooked them long and slow in the oven (or both), they’ve never failed to deliver the beefy goods. If you get the right rib, the meat will have all the tenderness of prime rib, all the gutsiness of a T-bone, all the elegance of a Chateaubriand, and all the awesomeness of all the most awesome steaks you’ve ever had.

Getting the right rib isn’t hard, but it helps to know a bit of bovine anatomy and butcher’s terminology. The anatomy bit is easy: a cow has 13 ribs, and ribs 6-12 are usually what you would use for a rib roast. The ribs closer to the shoulder (the “large end” in the US or “forerib” in the UK) are bigger, fattier and somewhat less tender than the ribs closer to the rump (the “small end” in the US or “wing rib” in the UK). The forerib also happens to be extremely flavorful and about half the price of the wing rib, so we usually get a forerib (if you’re in the States, just look for a bone-in ribeye and you’ll be fine). One thick-cut rib (about 1 kg or 2 lbs) will feed two generously, often with enough leftovers to make an outstanding sandwich the next day.

To get the best out of a beautiful piece of meat like this, you don’t need to do a whole lot to it. Just take it out of the fridge about an hour before you plan to cook it so that it comes to room temperature, and give it a very generous seasoning with coarse salt and cracked black pepper. If you want to get fancy, you could rub the rib down with garlic and rosemary smashed to a silky paste with olive oil, but there’s no need to go beyond that. Full-on marinades like the rosemary marinade for steak are just gilding the lily; you buy a beef rib for the taste of beef, not the taste of marinade.

As for the cooking itself, you want high heat followed by low heat for a crusty outside and evenly cooked inside. In our house, this means firing up the BBQ—summer or winter, rain or shine—and searing the rib over a high flame for 5 minutes on each side, then moving it to a preheated oven (95C/200F) for around 35 minutes or until a meat thermometer reads 130-135F/55C for medium-rare. You could cook the rib entirely on the grill by starting it on the direct heat and then moving it to indirect heat until it’s done, or you could skip the BBQ entirely and sear the steak in a heavy skillet before moving it to the oven. Either way, let the steak rest for a good ten minutes after it’s finished cooking, then cut it into not-too-thin slices and present it on a big platter, swimming in all its lovely juices.

Those ample juices mean you probably won’t be needing sauces or condiments, but there’s nothing wrong with putting a dollop of horseradish, mustard or chimichurri/salsa verde on the side of your plate to swish your steak around in. A simple herb butter can add extra punch at the table as well: mash 1 clove of garlic with a big pinch of sea salt, add some chopped herbs (thyme, rosemary and parsley are great) and combine this with just enough softened butter to hold it together. If you do this in advance, you can shape the butter into a log and refrigerate until needed. If you don’t do it advance, it will taste just as delicious as it melts over your perfectly seasoned, perfectly cooked, perfectly delicious rib of beef.

Meat heaven.

This dish started life as a Delia Smith recipe, and it hasn’t strayed too terribly far from its origins. It’s just that as I cooked it for the first time—following Delia’s recipe to the letter—I found myself wondering “Why?” a whole lot. Why not cook the chorizo first and then take advantage of the flavorful fat to cook the chicken? Why use sun-dried tomato paste and sun-dried tomatoes? Why not reduce the wine, and actually, why use wine at all instead of sherry, which would add a richer, “meatier” flavor? And finally: why use regular paprika instead of smoked?

I couldn’t come up with any plausible answers to these questions, so as I’ve made and re-made this one-pot meal over the past year, I’ve adapted it to fit my tastes and my cooking style. I think the version I’ve come up with is not only (ahem) tastier and more straightforward to cook, it’s also just different enough from Delia’s to warrant its own entry here. So without further ado: Chicken Basque a la Delia a la Jessica.

For two individuals endowed with very hearty appetites, you’ll need:

• olive oil
• a good handful of sliced Spanish chorizo
• 2 chicken legs or 4 chicken thighs (with skin and bone, please)
• 1 sliced red pepper
• 1 sliced onion
• 1 large clove of garlic, chopped
• a handful of sliced sun-dried tomatoes
• a handful of black olives
• 1/2 tablespoon tomato paste/puree
• 3/4 cup mixed brown and white basmati rice*
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 85 ml dry sherry (a bit less than half a cup - I like amontillado or oloroso sherry)
• 1 teaspoon fresh chopped thyme
• 1 cup/240 ml chicken or vegetable stock
• 1 orange cut into wedges

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F.

Heat a splash of olive oil over medium heat in a heavy, lidded casserole pot that you can put in the oven. Saute the chorizo until it starts to brown and release its fatty juices. Take out the chorizo and set it aside, then season your chicken with salt and pepper and brown it in the chorizo fat for a few minutes on each side. Take the chicken out and set it aside too.

Nudge the heat up to medium-high and toss the sliced pepper and onion into the casserole. Fry the veggies for about 5 to 10 minutes until they’re really fragrant and starting to get brown. Add the garlic, then the sun-dried tomatoes, olives and tomato paste and stir this around for a minute or two.

Tip in the rice and smoked paprika. Stir the rice to coat it with the spices and oil, then douse it with the sherry and reduce the liquid for a few minutes. Finally, add the thyme, the reserved chorizo and the stock and bring the liquid to a simmer. Season with salt and pepper if necessary, then turn off the heat.

Nestle the chicken and orange wedges into the rice and veggies and give the exposed chicken skin another sprinkling of salt and pepper. Put the cover on the casserole, put the casserole in the oven, and sit down with a nice glass of white wine.

After about 35 minutes, check to see if your rice is tender. If it isn’t, let it cook for a while longer, covered. If it is, you can take the lid off the casserole and cook everything uncovered for a few minutes to brown up the chicken.

Serve the chicken alongside the rice and the soft cooked orange wedges. This is a true one-pot meal, but if you don’t mind dirtying up a few more dishes, the chicken and rice goes really well with a big green salad dressed with an orange/sherry vinaigrette.

* Delia inexplicably says to measure the rice in a glass measuring jug. If you want to do that, measure out 4 fluid ounces or about 110 ml; if you’ve got American measuring cups, you’ll need 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup. I like a mix of brown and white basmati, but you can use all brown or all white as you like—just remember that you may need to adjust the cooking time and amount of liquid depending on what you use.

I’ve made this bread several times, and there’s no doubt that you get a great texture without the hassle of kneading. But most of the bread I make winds up as breakfast toast, and I don’t always want a sour bread with my jam first thing in the morning. And what’s more, I’m not always foresighted enough to start making bread the day before I want to eat it.

In light of this, I assumed my breadmaking options were limited to either traditional recipes which call for a strenuous knead to develop a good chewy texture, or fast no-knead recipes (like the one I discussed on this site several years ago) which result in a bread which is tasty but also heavy and crumbly.

As it turns out, there is another way: a not-quite-no-knead bread which gives you all the luscious chew of the slow-rise bread, but without the slow rise (and the yeasty sourness that comes with it). This interesting method comes from Dan Lepard by way of Felicity Cloake, and it entails neither kneading for a long time nor not kneading at all (say that fast 5 times), but rather kneading for just a few seconds at three 10-minute intervals before letting the dough rise for an hour. Surprisingly, this gives you a great crumb without all the elbow grease.

As for the kneading itself, I’ve been a fan of the Richard Bertinet technique ever since receiving a copy of his beautiful book Crust for my birthday last year. Instead of pushing and pulling the dough this way and that, Bertinet kind of slaps it around on the counter; it’s easier to watch him doing it than to describe it, so check out this video on the Gourmet website (he starts kneading about a minute in). This is a great way of working with dough which is too soft to knead—in other words, just the kind of dough you want for really tender, crusty bread.

Now, there’s no denying it: even with the slap method, handling wet, sticky dough is a messy undertaking for the novice baker and one of which, honestly, I’m none too fond (I have a compulsive distaste for foodstuffs clinging to my fingers—just ask my parents about my childhood taco-eating issues).

But the bread I’ve made using super-soft dough has turned out so consistently excellent that I’m willing to put up with a few globs of dough sticking to me in the process. And I’ll let you in on a secret: when I made my most recent loaf, I didn’t even take the dough out of the bowl for its short kneading sequences, I just folded it over on itself several times in the bowl using my dough scraper, and I can’t say I noticed a difference in the final product.

What really does seem to make a difference is the method of baking. This is where I come full circle and return to the original no-knead recipe and its covered pot. Professional bakers often use steam-injected ovens which, for science-y reasons, lead to a well-risen loaf and a great crust. It’s almost impossible to recreate such steamy conditions in your average home oven, but by baking your dough in a sealed pot (cast iron, enamel, ceramic), you trap the steam which would otherwise evaporate—and you end up with a perfectly round, perfectly browned bread. Perfect!

For one lovely loaf, you’ll need:

• 2 cups wholemeal flour and 1 cup plain white flour (450g/1lb total)*
• 2 teaspoons fast-acting/instant yeast
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 tablespoon honey
• about 400ml/1.5 cups warm water

Combine the flour, yeast and salt in a large bowl. Dissolve the honey in the warm water and pour the liquid into the dry ingredients. Stir everything together well, then cover the bowl and let the dough sit for 10 minutes (this will give the flour some time to absorb the water).

Uncover the dough and either tip it onto a lightly floured surface to slap/knead it for about 10 seconds, or knead it in the bowl for the same amount of time. Then let the dough sit in the covered bowl for another 10 minutes, knead again for 10 seconds, cover again for 10 minutes, and knead a final time for 10 seconds before letting the dough rest for 15 minutes, covered. Finally, shape your dough into a ball as best you can on a lightly floured surface, then plop it into a clean, oiled bowl, cover it and let it sit in a warm place for about an hour.**

When the dough has risen, put your covered pot*** in the oven and preheat the oven to 220C/425F. In the meantime, punch down your dough, shape it into a ball as much as you can and return it to the bowl, covered. Let it sit there while the oven heats for about half an hour, then take the pot out of the oven, dump your dough into it (it doesn’t matter if it’s a bit messy), cover the pot and get it back into the oven.

Bake the bread in the covered pot for 30 minutes, then remove the cover and bake for another 20 minutes or so, until the loaf is well browned and sounds hollow when you tap on it (you can also stick an instant-read thermometer into the bread to make sure it’s reached about 95C/200F in the middle). Take the bread out of the pot and let it cool completely on a wire rack. Don’t cut into it until it’s properly cooled or else you’ll get a gummy crumb—and nobody wants a gummy crumb.

Then take a good bread knife, crunch through that delectable crust to the springy, chewy bread inside, and enjoy your amazing homemade bread for days to come.

Notes:

*You can adjust the proportion of wholemeal and white flour as you like, but I’ve found this ratio to be reliable for a brown bread that isn’t like a brick. You can also add grains or seeds during the kneading stage for extra crunch in the finished product (I’ve used millet in some of the loaves you see here, which adds a great texture).

**If you really prefer 10 minutes of solid kneading to half an hour of intermittent dough slapping, then by all means give the dough a single good knead before letting it rise—the Bread Police won’t come after you. The same applies to adding more flour if your dough is really really too wet to handle; it’s best if you don’t keep throwing more flour into the mix, but sometimes these things just have to be done.

***I use a 20 cm cast iron enameled Le Creuset casserole which works great even though it’s about half the size of the pot suggested in the original no-knead bread recipe. Whatever pot you use, make sure all parts of it (handles included) can withstand high temperatures.

Enter the mighty marrow, the missing link between the vegetables of summer and the vegetables of fall. With the looks of an overgrown zucchini but some of the texture of a wintery squash, marrows neatly bridge the gap between the seasons.

Though marrows can be prepared in pretty much all the ways you might prepare zucchini or other summer squash, their size and shape make them ideal for stuffing and baking. Consequently, stuffed marrow recipes are a dime a dozen. Most of them, however, seem to revolve around sausage, breadcrumbs, cheese and/or tomato sauce. Goodness knows I’m not one to spurn any of those ingredients, but if summer is still clinging on by the tips of its fingers, you may want a lighter, more exotic treatment for your marrow; save the sausage and cheese for cold October nights.

My vegetarian take on the stuffed marrow has an eastern Mediterranean feel to it. In place of ground meat, it features fragrant basmati rice studded with raisins, olives and mushrooms, along with flaked almonds for crunch. Add a dollop of thick yogurt (maybe with some lemon juice and olive oil swirled through it), and you’ll have everything you need to see you through a cool late-summer evening.

For 2 to 4 people (depending on what else you serve with it), you’ll need:

• one medium marrow, 800-900 grams (1 1/2 to 2 pounds)
• extra virgin olive oil
• salt and pepper
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1-2 cloves garlic, chopped
• a few handfuls of sliced mushrooms
• about 1 cup cooked basmati rice
• a handful of raisins
• a handful of green olives
• a handful of toasted flaked almonds (or pine nuts)
• Greek yogurt to serve

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F.

Cut the marrow in half lengthwise and scoop out and discard the cottony, seedy middle bit. Scrape out most of the marrow flesh and set it aside, leaving about half a centimeter’s worth in the skin for stability.

Pre-bake the empty marrow shells for about 10 minutes, cut side down, on a baking tray greased with olive oil. When the ten minutes are up, take the marrow shells out of the oven, turn them over, sprinkle some salt and pepper into them and set them aside. Don’t turn off the oven though!

In a wide frying pan, heat a generous glug of olive oil over medium heat. Toss in the ground coriander and cumin and fry the spices for a minute until they’re fragrant, then add the onion with a pinch of salt and saute it for about five minutes. Stir in the garlic, turn the heat up and throw in the marrow flesh and sliced mushrooms with another sprinkling of salt and some pepper. Cook all of this, stirring frequently, for another five minutes or so, until most of the mushroom and marrow juices have cooked off.

Turn off the heat and mix the rice, raisins, olives and almonds into the vegetables in the frying pan. Check the seasoning, then spoon the filling into the marrow shells. Drizzle over a little more olive oil, then bake the filled marrow for 10 to 15 minutes, until the marrow shell is tender and the rice filling is just starting to get crispy on top.

Serve the stuffed marrow along with creamy Greek yogurt and a zingy salad or two.

Nduja is famed not just for its unusual consistency, but for its searing heat. In its native Calabria, it’s often just spread on bread and eaten as is, a fiery snack to be washed down with a tough red wine. But as the Calabrian woman who sold it to me said, nduja is also a great addition to sauces and stews, adding a spicy, porky base note which perfectly complements tomato-based dishes in particular.

Broccoli and red chili is a classic Italian combination, so for this pasta dish I paired some hot nduja with bitter purple sprouting broccoli, both of which contrast nicely with the sweet pop of cherry tomatoes. Strong greens like kale would work well here, too, or for a gentler flavor you could use regular broccoli instead. The sauce (such as it is) comes together in the time it takes to cook the pasta, making it ideal for whenever when you need a fast weekday meal or a piquant late-night pick-me-up.

For two people, you’ll need:

• 250g/8oz short pasta like penne, fusilli, campanelle
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 medium red onion, chopped
• a few handfuls of broccoli (or other greens), very roughly chopped
• 1 large clove garlic, sliced thin
• a few handfuls of cherry tomatoes, cut in half
• a tablespoon or more of nduja
• pecorino or parmesan cheese

Cook the pasta in the usual way, as they say (i.e., boiling water, salt).

As the pasta is cooking, heat the olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat and saute the onion for a few minutes until it starts to soften. Toss the chopped broccoli into the pan and cook it for about 5 minutes until it begins to get tender (purple sprouting broccoli will take longer than regular broccoli—you can add a splash of wine or water to help it along).

Add the garlic and tomatoes and let the tomatoes cook down for a few minutes, then drop a tablespoon or more of nduja into the pan. As you stir the nduja into the other ingredients, it will disintegrate in the heat, leaving behind an unctuous spiciness. Season the sauce to taste with salt and pepper, then stir in the cooked pasta and loosen the sauce with some of the pasta water if necessary.

Serve the pasta with a dusting of salty pecorino or parmesan cheese and a gutsy red wine.

N.B. Incidentally, I’ve since used nduja on a pizza with roasted red peppers and it was fabulous. Dot teaspoonfuls of nduja over the top of the pizza before you cook it and they’ll turn into crispy little bundles of spicy goodness in the oven. Buonissimo!