Pita Bread

Yes, yes, I know. You can buy these cheaply, pre-packed with a shelf life as long as an elephant’s memory, but really? Seriously? Are you going to go through all the trouble of making babaganoush, eggplant salad, hummus and stuffed vine leaves just to spoil the meal with a preservative laden bag of floppy starch

Babaganoush

Babaganoush is a much maligned dish. What you buy in the supermarkets is inedible and what you get in most restaurants is merely dreadful, which is why you should make your own. It’s one of these things that’s not difficult to make, but needs a bit of finesse to make really great. The topping can

Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

Is life too short to be stuffing mushrooms? Not if they are big Portobello mushrooms! I’m starting to rediscover the recipes of my youth. These meat stuffed mushrooms make a perfect main course for the family, or a successful starter for a dinner party. I plated them on a bed of very thinly sliced white

A Cheese Soufflé for the Lazy Cook

It’s quite out of fashion, the soufflé. And it’s got a bad reputation to boot; difficult to make, difficult to cook and not worth eating. Wrong on all counts! Bear with me just a little longer and you will show you how easy it is to make and how rewarding it is to eat. Well,

Confit Leek, Mozzarella & Tomato Vinaigrette

Confit leek and mozzarella is one of my favourite combinations. I have used it in the restaurants in many different interpretations and it has always been a success. The idea of confit’ing anything often puts home cooks off, but with most vegetables it’s a breeze! And the added advantage is that you can make it

Eating Sea Monsters

They aren’t going to win any beauty contests and may well find their way into one of those American reality TV shows where hicks eat durians and throw up, but once you can convince yourself to try them, you will never look back! Here in Asia of course, where we eat boiled pig skin, fish

Stracciatella – Italian Egg Drop Soup

Here’s a soup that makes me smile. It’s a Sunday morning, I walk into the kitchen of my Italian friend’s mother and the whole place is filled with the smell of simmering stock. It’s not just chicken stock, that much is obvious. The Parmesan rinds that were saved up for this soup are floating in

Smoked Salmon Ricotta Quenelles with Fennel Cream Sauce

Quenelles are really just fishballs in French, so there’s nothing that should scare you here. You aim for a super light texture (very contrary to their Asian cousins), but if you don’t quite achieve it, there’s still nothing lost and you will probably enjoy them just as much. If you’re making them for guests, my

Pâté de Campagne – Rustic Pork Pâté

Pâté is the kind of thing you see in French butchers’ windows or served by slice in a Brasserie in Paris, so you naturally assume that making it is complicated, fraught with risk and really belongs in the domain of the experienced chef. Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s easy to make and

Escargots de Bourgogne

It’s a bit of a weird tradition, but my mother used to serve either snails or frog’s legs in garlic butter for our New Year’s Eve starter. In hindsight, it’s probably a good idea to fill everyone up with lashings of butter before they start the serious drinking. It’s a tradition I am going to