RECIPES

A pox on butter prices! We’re baking anyway. Have you seen the price of butter? Of course you have. You live here. It's depressing, especially if you love to bake. But here’s some good news on that front: cakes made with oil (even the budget stuff) are just as tender, often lighter, and stay delectably soft for longer than a butter-based bake. This plush, lemony number is…

Baked feta with grapes and figs

When you can't be arsed, but you need a quick route to Destination Edible, here’s what you do. Grab some figs, grapes and chunks of feta, drizzle them all with olive oil and a few other bits in a baking dish, then whack the whole thing in the oven. Serve with some toasts and wait for the 'you really shouldn't have gone to so much trouble' accolades to come flowing your way.

German plum cake

Cars… beer… sausages… efficiency… we have much to thank the Germans for. And if there’s another thing they really excel at, it’s baking. We were in the country recently and quite honestly the breads, cakes, pastries, gingerbread, et al were an absolute highlight; dang, these people know their way around a bucket of flour and an oven. With Bavarian travels now just a 2024 memory, we thought we’d concoct a glorious yeasted plum cake…

Roast plum, blue cheese and beetroot salad

Recently we went to a dinner party and were served a green salad that was dressed with something sweet. We don’t mean a tad sweet, as in a-shot-of-honey-in-the-dressing sweet. No, we mean diabetes-inducing, set-your-teeth-on-edge, unbefreakinglievably sweet. It got us thinking. Maybe a salad could have a…

Tomato and egg noodles

It might surprise some to learn that tomatoes feature in regional Chinese cooking; especially with eggs as a quick, easy, comforting topping for steamed rice or for wide wheat noodles. Yum. This is one of those classic, home-style Chinese dishes…

Jjolmyeon

Jjolmyeon (쫄면) is both the name of this dish and the type of noodles used to make it. These wheat-based noodles have a fabulous chewy quality, due to the way they are made – during manufacture, the dough is heated to 130-150 ˚C and extruded under pressure. Served with plenty of crunchy raw veggies and the lusciously…

Chilled sago and melon pudding

We know sago is not everyone’s dessert ingredient of choice, but hear us out. It’s a drum we’ve banged before because we l-o-v-e Asian (and Asian-inspired) desserts and sago is a common presence. Take this Chilled Sago and Melon Pudding, for example. It's the best combo of chilled summery-ness and minimal effort ever, and it doesn’t scream ‘sugar rush’ either…

Smacked cucumber and beef salad

Those few weeks after Christmas? It’s when cooking motivation can go seriously AWOL, but cravings for fresh, punchy flavours don’t take a break. You’re done with the richness of ham, roast vegetables, and plum pudding, and if you see another turkey leg smothered in cranberry sauce you’ll scream. Enter this Chinese-inspired salad – a dish that looks and tastes…

Viet-inspired potato salad

Who says potato salad has to be Euro-centric? Not us. This Southeast Asian-inspired twist on the beloved summer staple will change up your mayo-dressed spud game, taking it to places you never dreamed of. It’s got fish sauce, lime, raw garlic, sugar, coriander, and spring onion… the whole nine yards. The creamy mayo takes inspo from the flavours of nuoc cham, that tangy…

Potato salad with green beans and toasted buckwheat

This potato salad with crunchy green beans, nutty toasted buckwheat, soft eggs, and bursts of fresh dill is hearty but fresh, earthy but bright – a salad that’s happy to play wingman to glazed ham, sizzling steaks, roast pork, or even a whole baked snapper. Toasted buckwheat brings the crunch, while a mustard dressing makes every bite addictive…

Blueberry, polenta and orange cake

We used blueberries for this Blueberry, polenta and orange cake but you don’t have to; there are so many other ways to skin this particular cat. Depending on what’s in season, you could use rhubarb, for instance, with a little more sugar scattered over given that rhubarb is tart. Later in the summer, you could use slices of peaches, apricots or nectarines; pitted cherries would be good too.

Mexican-style prawn cocktail

A prawn cocktail is always a fun dish to serve and eat, but this Mexi version brings along everything but the mariachi band. How many recipes do you know that give you the option of adding mezcal? (And really. “If you want to add some?” Of course we bloody do!) In Mexico, this is a classic beachside snack…

Chocolate cherry tart

Perfect for cherry season, this rich tart serves a LOT of people as it’s quite lavish, so it’s an excellent option to serve to a crowd. All it needs as an accompaniment is a good splodge of whipped cream, and it's good to go…

Panforte

In a world choking on food trends, we can almost hear you yawn at the mere mention of panforte. But panforte doesn’t care about going viral on The Tok – it’s so above all that noise. It’s as eternal as Siena’s cobbles and is never flashy, never out of date. Dense, chewy, spiced and totally delicious, we make batches for edible gifts at Christmas time because it’s way less hassle than…

Asparagus with black olive crumbs

We know that absolutely nothing beats a serve of blanched, new season’s asparagus, and we like ours piled on a platter with some crisp, golden, olive-y crumbs for a bit of crunchy-salty contrast.

Espresso shortbread sandwiches

Move over, mince pies! Well, maybe not… after all, absolutely nothing beats that melty, gooey, fruity goodness of a superlative Christmas mince pie. Sometimes though, you don’t have the time to make these; they’re really only super-good if you make everything from scratch, including the pastry…

RECIPES

Pimped hummus with lamb and pomegranate

When time’s short, we pimp like crazy. And nothing begs pimping more than a tub of hummus… and look, you could make your own for this recipe if you liked. But we’re cheating like hell here because we’re all out of time this week and we’re rooting for Team Easy. You just grab a half kilo of lamb (or beef) mince, give it a hard sear, amp it up with spices, a slosh of pomegranate molasses and…

Neapolitan semolina cheesecake with roasted strawberries

Semolina—yeah, we get it, it’s a bit of a love-hate thing. And we know why: flashbacks to dodgy school puddings that were overly sweet, gloopy, and borderline inedible. One of our grandmothers, for reasons that still mystify us, used lemon essence in her semolina despite having a fruit-laden lemon tree right outside her kitchen window. Go figure…

Poached chicken with spring greens and buttermilk dressing

Spring greens! Creamy buttermilk dressing! Poached chicken! All the Spring Things! If we lost you at ‘poached chicken’, hear us out. We’ve legit found a way to poach chicken breast fillets so they don’t turn into tasteless cardboard and it’s super, super easy. Happily for the busy cook, it even involves an amount of neglect. Here’s the scoop…

Charred lamb leg, creamy skordalia and herb salad

Let’s talk skordalia – part sauce, part dip, and all kinds of delicious. The name comes from the Greek word skordo (σκόρδο), meaning garlic, which tells you everything you need to know… if you don’t like garlic, trust us when we tell you this isn’t for you so just jog on. Creamy, rich and punchy…

Never too late Christmas cake

Are you a Christmas cake procrastinator? Do you start every festive season intending to make a gloriously boozy, fruit-packed cake, the kind that you make on Labour Day and put away to beautifully age? Only to realise it's nearly December already and you don’t have so much as a single raisin in the house or the correct sized tin…

Easy cheesy pea fritters

If you’re missing the ‘easy cheesy’ in your life, these fritters are here to sort you! Packed with sweet peas, fresh mint, and two kinds of cheese, they’re the ultimate light spring dish. And let’s take a moment to appreciate the humble frozen pea – the unsung hero of the freezer aisle. Picked at their peak and frozen in a flash, they bring that vibrant pop of green yumness to any dish…

Pickled salmon

Pickled salmon; we’re making this for Christmas! It’s a vibrant and tangy dish that brings together the best of two worlds: spanking fresh salmon and the bold punch of pickling. Historically, pickled fish was an excellent way to preserve fresh catches before refrigeration, making it a staple in colder climates (like Scandinavian countries) where fresh food…

Brick chicken with orange-celery salsa verde

Succulent butterflied chicken… but make it flat! That’s what happens when you cook chicken under weights and no, you don't literally have to use bricks, although you could. We busted out cans of food from our pantry, totalling 3-4 kg in all. Cooking chicken under weights is a technique that gives you gorgeously juicy, crispy-skinned bird…

Avocado and orange ‘fattoush’

This recipe is our laid-back riff on fattoush, a zingy, crunchy Middle Eastern salad that’s packed with juicy veggies, crispy pita, and a tangy dressing. Fattoush usually features tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes, and capsicum, with the dressing kicked up with lemony sumac. We’re taking culinary liberties with…

Lemongrass pork noodles

Fabulous fresh flavours in a flash – and yes, we’re getting all alliterative with this yum, Thai-inspired dish. When you want your noodles quick and you want your noodles with a kick (yep, we’re rhyme-y today too), this recipe will sort you. All you do is make a simple aromatic paste for stir-frying the mince, whip up an easy sweet-sour-salty dressing…

Nonya chicken curry

Yes, a curry paste from scratch, but hear us out. This curry is delicious, but not if you shortcut things. It’s our take on a Nonya curry; the Nonyas (also called the Peranakans) are communities descended from Chinese immigrants who settled in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia, intermarried with locals, and blended their heritage with Malay influences. Their food is a true fusion cuisine…

Egg white cake with mascarpone

Have you got a bunch of egg whites sloshing around after dutifully making hollandaise sauce or creme anglaise? Or is it just us that ends up with an accumulation of whites from time to time? Given the price of eggs, we don’t like to waste any part of a single one, but we don’t always want to bake meringue or pavlova, either…

Potsticker salad with creamy sesame sauce

While nothing says ‘I care’ or ‘look at me go’ like homemade dumplings, sometimes frozen ones are a total lifesaver when we’re running out of time. And when we make a dinner out of frozen dumplings, normally we just boil them, steam a pile of Asian greens…

Lamb meatball and potato pulao with onion salad and mint sauce

Right. It’s roll-your-sleeves-up time. This dish has a few (very easy) components, so set yourself some time to create an Indian-inspired feast that will fully knock socks off. Fans of rice, spice, lamb and spuds will be in heaven...

Coconut-lime sheet cake

Can’t get enough of coconut? Same here. We love it in this cake which has slightly retro vibes, and where coconut is represented in creamy, desiccated and extract form. With an amazingly fluffy texture and a ridiculously rich, lime-spiked, creamy frosting, it’s special enough to bring out for an occasion, but without the fuss of a layer cake...

Leeks, lentils and mussels

Are leeks underrated? We think so. They don’t have the sexy wow-factor of, say, asparagus or sugar snaps or watermelon radish. But they can be incredible, especially when you braise them and make them the hero of a dish – as we have here. Braising really brings out their gentler, sweeter side, and their texture becomes meltingly tender too. The key to these leeks is in the preparation...

Smoked salmon cobb salad

The Cobb salad is the ultimate American summer classic – a hearty, throw-it-together kind of dish that’s become an icon. Legend has it that this salad was first whipped up back in the 1930’s at the famed Brown Derby restaurant in Hollywood by owner Bob Cobb. And can we just take a moment to appreciate the poetic rhythm of this dude's name? Fabulous. The story goes...

Miso-marinated pork with pickled cucumbers

We love good pork, as opposed to bland, boring pork. Which intensively-raised piggy meat can be. It’s worth stumping up for decent quality pork, preferably pasture-raised, as it will have way better flavour and texture – the colour of the flesh should be...

Rhubarb-strawberry tray bake

Need an afternoon tea treat? Something to take to a family gathering? A cake/slice/dessert hybrid to serve with ice-cream for pudding? Taa-daa. Buttery, crumbly and fruity, this strawberry-rhubarb tray bake is exactly the simple pleasure you’re craving...

Tomato salad with currant dressing and haloumi

Need a holiday on a plate? Here you go! This salad is nothing short of an utterly delicious serve of sunshine that will go great with your next barbecue or chillaxed, Med-themed dinner party. And look, maybe it’s too early for tomatoes? We couldn’t wait for when they are at their sun-ripened best, but if you’re more restrained than we are...

Crispy salami salad

We love salami, big time, and if we ever need any justification to gorge on it (we don’t), we only have to look to the Italians. Anecdotally, they really seem to eat a ton of the stuff in Italy, along with other cured meats like mortadella, coppa, pancetta, bresaola, nduja, guanciale, lardo, and so on. The entire cured meat category, including salami, is referred to as salume...

Vanilla-apricot jam buns (Buchteln)

We’re getting our Austria on with these buns; one of us is contemplating a visit and the wish-list itinerary is quickly filling up with Schloss Schönbrunn, sausage, strudel, Strauss, the Christmas Markets at Spittelberg, sachertorte, the Secession Building, and everything to do with Sisi. And schnitzel. All the ’S’ things, basically...

Spaghetti pie with burst tomatoes

Welcome to our pasta party in a cake tin! (Or frying pan, if you prefer… we did). This is SO easy to whip up and makes a change from the usual pasta dinner. Plus, it’s a bit of a blank slate: you can throw some sun-dried tomatoes, chopped olives, chopped salami, capers, anchovies or fresh basil through the mixture before baking...

Thai barbecued pork neck

Dammit, we’re not waiting any longer! We’re dusting off the barbie, firing it up, and cooking pork neck if it rains, sleets, snows, or kills us. And what better meat than pork for kicking off the barbecue season in tasty style? And what better cut than neck? It’s juicy, thanks to all the lovely marbling of fat, which slowly renders...

Javanese-inspired tofu with peanut sauce

Why, hello Javanese-inspired recipe! What are you doing hanging around here? Indonesian cuisine is nowhere near as vaunted as Thai or Vietnamese, so what makes you think we’d be at all interested in your fried tofu yumminess and your saucey, peanutty goodness...

Carrot tarator and pea hummus

We’re on a bit of a mezze kick this week, if you hadn’t noted. Full disclosure; we were hopeful of nicer weather to be able to take a light dinner outside but we should have known better. We’ve only lived here for most of our lives. Sigh. But when things do perk up in the warmth and sunshine department...

Caramel ginger salmon

Vietnam, bless it, has some unique ingredients and techniques that we go nuts for. Having been lucky enough to visit the country numerous times over the last 20 years, we can say, hand on heart, it has one of our all time favourite cuisines on the planet. The food is next level; it’s fresh, zingy and so incredibly varied, we never get sick of eating it...

The best brownies in the world

Everyone with a brownie recipe in the known world and beyond claims theirs is The Best Ever. We’ve been making this version for decades now and stake our reputations on it actually being the best. The exact origins are a bit sketchy, long lost in the sands of time and dogged-eared cookbooks...

RECIPES

Big beefy borscht

A real meal-in-a-bowl, you can easy scale this recipe up, increasing everything by a half or even doubling it. As the soup freezes well, you can then have plenty to pull out for an easy meal when time runs short to cook dinner. We like roasting our beets separately, adding them to the soup near the end of cooking...

Apple sour cream pie

If you’ve been playing along with the LSC so far, you’ll be bracing yourself for the expected “this isn’t a hard recipe” and true to form, we’re saying “this recipe isn’t hard.” Cooking is all about timing and keeping a tidy bench most of the time, and this recipe has a third factor - breaking things down into manageable sub-tasks...

Flourless chocolate cake

Rich. Dense. Decadent. No, that’s not a description of Ye; it’s this incredible cake. Flourless chocolate cake is a refined classic, and we think everyone needs a version in their baking repertoire. We love ours (we would!). It's great to bake for a crowd as it will serve 10-12, no worries, and it tastes as amazing as the chocolate and cocoa you use...

Potato-stuffed flatbreads

These flatbreads are fun to put together and they’re versatile too. You could serve them as a side for a soup, or with a Middle-Eastern themed roast lamb dinner, or even as leftovers for breakfast, reheated in the oven until the bread-y part turns crisp. We like serving them as part of a mezze (also spelled ‘meze’) spread…

Ricotta, lemon and spinach pasta

Guilty as charged, Your Honour: there are a lot of ‘or to tastes’ going on here. While you might see these as a recipe-writing cop out, we see them as giving you the freedom to lavish lemon, parmesan, nutmeg, basil and whatnot on your pasta as you jolly well see fit. You might like things tarter, puckery-er, cheesier...

Honey-oat biscuits for cheese

They’re the most refined, delicious oat cookies imaginable; they first appeared in the 1990s and you used to be able to get them here. Duchy Original products were made using organic ingredients grown on Charles’ Duchy of Cornwall land and for an oat biscuit, Duchy Originals were posh. And expensive...

Coconut syrup dumplings

Pudding. If we ate it everyday we’d be the size of a bus but there’s a place for a sticky, sweet, stodgy treat. Which is around now, we reckon, when it’s not technically winter any more but it’s not bloody tropical either. And these dumplings are about the sweetest, stickiest and stodgiest we know...

French onion pasta gratin

We made beef stock. From scratch. It was so good that we don’t know why we don’t whip it up more often. Maybe it’s the 8 hour simmering time that puts us off? (Not really, as this can be done in the background; it’s not like you have to hover and watch it the whole time.)...

American biscuits

Having never made American biscuits before, we initially imagined they’d be a bit like a scone, but they’re not really. Biscuits are loaded with butter, whereas scones contain relatively little. Some biscuit recipes use a percentage of vegetable shortening (Kremelta by any other name), but we prefer the flavour...

Loaded cheesy potatoes

We’re still banging on about Father’s Day with these. We were thinking about the ultimate dinner feast to whip up for a deserving dad, and as cliche as it sounds we kept coming back to steak. But a really great steak, crusty and seared, dripping in basting butter and served simply with sea salt and fresh grinds of the pepper mill...

Oat pancakes, roasted pears and caramel butter sauce

OK, so back to your dad. We’re not done with him yet. We’ve dealt with the savoury dads, so let’s address the sweet ones. If he’s a sweet tooth, here’s THE breakfast treat for your Pa; oaty pancakes dripping in gooey caramel sauce with roasted pears.

Cheesy breakfast sweet corn loaf

Is your dad a sweet guy or a savoury type? If you’re planning to make a fuss of him on Father's Day, that’s a detail you really need to nail down. No point making him sweet pancakes for breakfast if he’d prefer a cheesy, corn-y quick bread, loaded with roasted tomatoes, avo, a few leaves and whatever else he likes...

Thai-ish pumpkin soup

Is it too late to sneak in a soup recipe before spring? We think not. And not just any old soup either; a smooth, silky pumpkin one that skews Thai. With plenty of natural sweetness, pumpkin is an excellent foil for the sweet-sour-spicy-salty flavour formula that gives Thai food so much tasty depth...

Parmesan and black pepper grissini

Yes, yeast, AGAIN. You know we’ve been lobbying hard for making yeast great again and for you to stop being such scaredy cats about using it; we have NO IDEA if the message is hitting home but we can only live in hope. If you’re a fan of the cheese straw, these grissini are even better, we think…

Lamb shanks in paper with Greek flavours

There’s a new way to cook lamb shanks in town; trussed up in paper. The idea is, the baking paper packaging traps all the juices and steam inside, keeping the shanks super-succulent and tasty as they cook. We don’t think you could possibly over-cook these as there is no way they can possibly dry out...

Everything bagel tattie scones

Take a Scottish classic, sprinkle over a popular American seasoning, then serve with eggs and smoked salmon and let the deliciousness flow! Tattie (for ‘potato’) scones are more like flatbread or griddle bread than an actual scone and they don’t rise too much. But they’re wonderfully potato-y and easy, and are the perfect foil for everything else going on here....

Miso apple crumble

Miso brings a lovely rich, salty vibe to this apple crumble; it’s subtle though, so if you’re thinking ‘uh-oh, this sounds weird’, don’t fret. It actually works fabulously and we think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how good this spin on a Kiwi classic tastes. Use white miso, as it’s the mildest of the whole bunch...

Orange-harissa salmon

This isn’t our first slow-baked salmon rodeo, as you’ll know if you saw our recipe for Roasted Salmon with Dried Tomato and Walnuts a month or so back. Delicious. Because we loved the results so much, we’ve riffed off the same theme again, this time using harissa and some orange as complimentary flavours…

Morning glory breakfast bread

We’re always looking for ways to level up our breakfast routine because it’s easy to get bored with toast and jam, no matter how artisanal and generally amazing they both are. In our quest for a More Exciting Breakfast, we came across a recipe for Morning Glory Muffins, invented in…

Peanut-tomato baked dhal with paneer

We’ve yet to meet a dhal we disliked and, as the Subcontinent is filled with variations on the theme of spicy, soupy lentils, we’re far from done with this pulse-based dish. Dahl is dependably easy, filling and delicious, and a dish you can generally whip up using affordable pantry staples. It’s quick too…

Easy lemon tart

Lemon tart… but make it easy, we say! No tricky pastry to roll out and potentially shrink in the oven because you’ve over-handled it… no filling that requires culinary wizardry to get just right. As a bonus, the base here is gluten free, if that’s important to you, although any health-related claims stop well and truly there. No one is pretending…

Burghul köfte with garlic yoghurt

Welcome to Fellah Köfte. With roots in Turkish and MIddle Eastern cuisine, it’s a humble kind of a dish using everyday staples that would traditionally have been super-cheap and constantly on hand. Depending on what burghul and semolina cost in your vicino, it’s still pretty cheap to make and if you can get Turkish pepper paste all the better…

Braised gochujang chicken and vegetables

You’d think, wouldn’t you, that this kind of a bung-together-and-forget simmered recipe would be made for the slow cooker, wouldn’t you. So did we. But THREE tests and many chicken legs later (many bloody legs), we can hand-on-heart report that it is, in fact, way better and far less hassle to just simmer it on the stove…

Kale salad

We never jumped on the kale-as-superfood bandwagon but TBH we don’t jump on too many bandwagons, food or otherwise. We’re just not bandwagon jumpers. (Kale chips? Remember them? Pffft). Kale was always just another cruciferous vegetable to us, and one that got annoyingly stuck in our teeth whenever we ate it…

Lemon currant beignets

OK, kids, let’s make choux pastry. It’s a weird beast for sure; you heat water and butter in a smallish saucepan JUST until it simmers and the butter has melted. Next, you dump in sifted flour, then stir like crazy over the heat until the mixture forms a cooked, smooth, floury ball that leaves the side of the pan…

Rum syrup cake

When life gives you rum, you make a cake, no? Well, we do. We don’t touch rum ordinarily as it conjures unfortunate memories of scooping Dark ’n’ Stormies from a plastic bucketful (true story) in our Uni days. Which was not an occasion that crowned anyone with glory, and it’s a miracle we can still face anything flavoured ginger…

Budget-beating stuffed baked onions

These are so satisfying to make. You simmer onions whole until they turn tender, carefully scoop out the innards, chop them up, mix them into a cheesy, bread-based stuffing, then pile this into the outer onion shells and bake until they’re deep golden and crusty on top. Yum. This is the kind of dish that comes from the Italian cucina povera tradition…

Orange, apricot and rosemary marmalade

We’re self-confessed jam-aholics. Give us a calm morning with plenty of hot coffee and sourdough toast slathered with butter (or ricotta) and scads of decent jam, and we’re happy-as. And note the use of the word ‘decent’ there. Being fussy about jam is not food-snobbery and if you’ve eaten…

RECIPES

Left-over lamb pie

Hands up who has memories of their Mum making shepherd’s pie? Us too. Ours minced the cold roast lamb using a hefty metal mincer with a crank handle. It screwed onto the edge of the bench or dining table and made short work of reducing the lamb to teeny tiny bits; yes, kids, there was life before food processors…

Ribollita

Why use the Italian name for this dish? Because when translated, ribollita means ‘reboiled’ and we don’t know about you but a dish with that name would not exactly entice us to the dinner table. “What’s for dinner, Mum?” “Reboiled!!” “Ooh…

Cheesy filo spirals with honey

Did you know that when chefs in NZ discovered filo pastry, sometime in the 1980s, they kind of lost their minds? It was the newest shiny thing in town and they used it in all kinds of ways, many of them completely strange. For example, there was a dish involving…

Salmon with lentils and hot bacon dressing

Some ingredients just have a natural affinity which shouldn’t be monkeyed with. Lentils. Bacon. Vinegar. Spinach. No amount of yuzu/tahini/maple syrup/pickle juice/smoked paprika/bee pollen/hot honey/Reece’s cups or whatever other flavours are currently smashing it on Reels, can possible be an improvement. Full stop, end of story, no arguing…

Chicken ricotta meatballs

If you’re looking at this recipe and wondering why we just didn’t use chicken mince, it’s because we don’t like it. Like, we r-e-a-l-l-y don’t like it. That stuff you get from the supermarket? It’s mushy, pallid and has a really sloppy texture and who knows what sad part of the bird it actually comes from. So yeah, we chop our own…

Silverbeet with lentils, tahini and sumac

It’s time to give silverbeet some love. It’s such a healthy veg but the flavour can be quite full-on without something else to mellow it and if you just boil it (eww), it’s really not that interesting. Or nice. Well we don’t think it is and are always keen for new takes on it. As major fans of Middle Eastern cooking…

Chicken and sweet potato noodles with shiitake mushrooms

It’s the weather for making stocks, no? TBH we make stocks year ‘round because they’re easy, and you can portion and freeze them so you’ve always got some on hand. Nothing beats the flavour of a home made stock and because they’re made by simmering…

Tourtière - It’s a pie

If you’re on the prowl for a weekend cooking project, how about making a pie? From scratch? Including pastry? And not just any old pie but a Canadian Christmas one. Meet tourtière, a trad dish from Quebec, whose name comes from the type of deep dish used to bake it…

Clean-the-fridge-out stuffed bread

This easy bread is a delish way to use up packet-ends and other odds and sods in your fridge. You know, the ones that are teetering on the cusp of their BBD but that you can’t bear to chuck out. And yes, we deliberately used the word ‘easy’ here; if you’ve read our…

White chicken chilli

Many parts of the States cook versions of chilli, which is spelled with one ‘l’ but our autocorrect can’t cope and we’ve let it have its way. Sometimes, ya can’t fight the machine. Chilli con carne is the classic chilli dish you might know the best. Although many chilli dishes are deep red from tomato, chipotle, kidney beans and whatnot…

Veggie bhajis with mint and coconut chutney

Grab that big sharp knife; you’re making veggie julienne! In other lives we trained to be chefs and vegetable cuts, along with from-scratch stocks, sauces like béchamel, and proper pastry were the bedrock of our education. Ah… veggie cuts. Brunoise… mirepoix… baton… batonette…

Hot smoked salmon platter with potatoes and olive brine dressing

When you want to bring those plattered-up, generous, help-yourself vibes to the table, think smoked salmon and potatoes. It may not be a revolutionary combo but honestly. You can not go wrong with a dish like this when you need to…

Chocolate banana bread

Did we mention how it’s World Chocolate Day this month? There’s quite a bit happening in July actually, including Bastille Day, World Snake Day, World Emoji Day, etc. July 1st is International Joke Day, the 2nd is World UFO Day and the 3rd is International Drop A Rock Day. We don’t even know what that is…

Chocolate pots

It’s World Chocolate Day on the 7th July and we are taking it very seriously this year. What with bad harvests, ageing trees, disease and the economic un-viability of cacao farming leading to declining production and rocketing prices, we are going to scoff our fill of chocolate while we can..

Sesame seed beef with vinegared potato shreds

We can’t decide which of this pair of complementary recipes we love the most... we adore tender slices of juicy beef fillet, but those stir-fried, vinegary potato shreds? They get us every single time. And if you’re not familiar with this rustic Chinese approach to potato cooking…

Turkish semolina halva (irmik halvasi)

Semolina! And listen; hear us out. We know that kids of a certain era were traumatised by bland, milky semolina ‘pudding’ but it’s lucky that other cultures do way more inspiring things with it than reduce it to pallidness. Like the Turks, for example, who make this. A delicious, classic dessert, irmik halvasi…

Semolina syrup cake

Bonus recipe, people! As you can see, we really got into semolina this week. There are tons of version of this Middle Eastern/Turkish/Greek-style cake, some use coarse semolina, some a finer one or even a mixture of the two; others include some wheat flour in the mix…

Beetroot barley ‘risotto’

Here’s a dish that’s not a new idea; sometimes, you don’t need to reinvent wheels. Tried and true flavours simply work, and they work for a reason. PB and J. Pineapple and ham. Chocolate and mint. Lemon and fish. Maple syrup and bacon. They go together. That’s it. No need to overthink it. Beetroot and barley are another timeless combo…

Double salmon chowder

Allegedly there are people who don’t consider soup a meal, but we are not those people. We love soup. And here’s a particularly hearty, meal-in-a-bowl soup, chockers with veggies, salmon and big, boofy flavour. We’ve used smoked and fresh salmon for the fish part, but you could use fresh, white fish fillets (tarakihi, snapper, ling, for example) if you’d prefer…

Roast orange veggies with date-pecan sprinkle

Yes, we’re on a medjool date bender. And why not; is there anyone who doesn’t adore these things? They’re so gooey and sweet, it’s hard to believe that something quite so lush is actually good for you, mountains of fructose aside. Oh and the carbs and the calories notwithstanding. Between the dates, the hints of maple syrup…

Shaved broccoli salad

We love a winter salad! And, as fundamentally lazy types, we like one that’s shaved and raw because it’s nice to have a break from the stove. The key here is in the fine shaving; did you know that the way your food is cut affects the way it eats and tastes? Well that’s our theory anyway, and it’s very true here…

Kumara crisps with cumin salt and French onion dip

We invented this dish. Well, we thought we did until Chef de Google told us someone else had thought of this combo before us. So we added the kiwi classic French Onion Dip to make it ‘ours’ again and it works a treat, according to our trusty panel of taste-testers. The bonus with this snack is you only need one decent sized kūmara to fill a platter!

Spicy air fryer lamb skewers

Salty, spicy, meaty and juicy – here’s the ultimate beer food. These are inspired by some of the delicious-est street food we’ve ever eaten; namely the lamb skewers you get in parts of northern and western China, where they’re cooked with plenty of cumin and chilli over smoky coals, then eaten with even more spice scattered over...

Cheesecake cake - not a mistake

Is it a cake? Is it a cheesecake? It’s both! Because, why not? Lemony, rich and creamy on top, and all buttery-cakeyness in the nether regions, this is where you get to have your cake and eat your cheesecake too. Delicious. And it’s pretty straightforward to make as well…

Korean army noodles

If you’ve been itching to break out the frankfurters, Spam, processed cheese slices and generally All The Good Things, then – yay. Here’s your golden opportunity. Called budae jjigae in Korea, this unlikely dish first surfaced after the Korean War when many foods were scarce and people made do with what they could find…

Chickpea, turmeric and coconut soup

Looking for a budget-busting mid-week dinner? Then grab a packet of dried chickpeas, raid the neighbour’s lemon tree, buy a can of coconut cream and some curry leaves, then rummage in your pantry for the rest of what’s required here. If you want to add some meatiness to this already hearty soup, you could add chicken…

Brown sugar cinnamon bread

Yes, we know. Yeast. Y’all are terrified of it. No matter; we will keep rolling out the yeast-y recipes, to the tired tune of “working with yeast is not that hard.” Modern instant dried yeasts are foolproof, unless you throw boiling water over them in which case you’re totally cooked…

Condensed milk and coconut laddoos

These sweets are fashioned after a popular Indian sweet called laddoo, also spelled laddu; associated with festivals and celebrations that are made from a variety of things. Including wheat flour, rice flour, besan (chickpea flour) , semolina and even puffed rice. They’re typically sweetened with jaggery, enriched with plenty of ghee…

RECIPES

Salmon skewers with edamame, toasted nori and furikake

Here’s the kind of yum salmon dinner everyone will love; it’s got lovely sweet-sticky glaze, lashings of Japanese rice, some avo, a salad with rich miso dressing and, the star of the piece, salmon. Little umami touches of toasted nori and the Japanese furikake seasoning add pops of savoury goodness, but…

Air fryer baked stuffed eggplants

This concept is fabulous; eggplants cut like hasselback potatoes, the slits filled with a cheesy-savoury stuffing, then baked until the eggplant flesh is tender and the tops, golden. But after various attempts at baking them in a regular oven, using different types and cuts of eggplant…

Curry leaf and peanut roast potatoes

Looking for a fresh, new spin on the humble roast spud? Try these! You can use whatever floury or all-purpose potatoes you like, they don’t have to be baby ones. Cut them into whatever size you prefer and adjust the cooking time accordingly. And look, we get it…

Classic seed cake

It’s not terribly instagrammable. It doesn’t have sexy layers, frosting swirls, or drips of syrupy gorgeousness. It’s a bit plain. It's a seed cake and in decades past it was a favourite on the afternoon tea trolley; we find it darned delicious, in that rich, plain, buttery cake kind-of-a-way…

Cumin lamb with homemade noodles

We wish we had the skill and dexterity to make the famous pulled wheat flour noodles of China's west and north – it’s mesmerising watching these being made. Cooks start by stretching their dough and folding it in a way that apparently lines up the gluten strands…

Easy epic chopped salad

L.A. spawned the OG chopped salad – the mighty Cobb. Still round today, the Cobb Salad is an artful arrangement of neatly chopped mixed lettuces, tomatoes, bacon, chicken, boiled egg, and blue cheese, set out neatly in rows, and doused in vinaigrette…

Slow cooker beef rendang

‘Proper’ rendang is a dry curry from the Minangkabau people of West Sumatra in Indonesia and it’s a touch labour-intensive to make. Once you’ve toasted coconut, ground a spice paste, then braised the beef with all of this goodness in a rich coconut gravy, you simmer until the liquid pretty much evaporates and the beef chunks fry…

Slow cooker spice-honey lamb shoulder with jewelled rice

There’s something lovely about slow-cooker cooking. It makes meat juicy and really concentrates flavours. It’s pretty much impossible to overcook meat using a slow-cooker and unless you leave the lid off yours and go walkabout for a few days, nothing ever burns in one either…

Fragrant chicken-rice bake

Another day, another spin on the never fail rice-chook combo. You just can’t go wrong with these two staples. We’ve yet to meet anyone who dislikes either rice nor chicken, or objects to them together. There are so many culinary routes that lead to chicken and rice happiness…

Smoked salmon and blood orange salad

We were looking for a way to not just feature delicious hot smoked salmon, but blood oranges too, so a salad seemed logical. Throwing in a few beetroot, roasted to fully accentuate their sweet earthy notes, made sense, as did using some some avo because well, why not…

Berliners (jam doughnuts)

If our soup this week is virtuous and ‘everything good for you’, Berliners are virtually everything not good for you. White flour. Refined sugar. Jam. The cholesterol-y parts of an egg. Deep-fry oil. But we say ‘what EV-er’ to the nutrition police…

Everything-good-for-you lamb köfte soup

If you want a virtuous, nutritious soup, or you just want to make 300g of mince stretch a long way… you’ll love this Turkish-inspired number. It’s also great when you’re looking for an alternative to the ubiquitous veggie, barley and chicken (or ham) meal-in-a-bowl that turns up…

Pork and pineapple adobo

We’ve ticked most Asian countries off our travel wish list but have never made it to the Philippines. We know a BIT about the food there but in general we’re kinda sketchy… we understand that Spanish, Chinese, Malay, and American are culinary influences…

Roasted salmon with dried tomato and walnuts

When you’re committed to serving a whole side of salmon (which looks spectacular), the process can be nerve wracking. Overcooked salmon? No-one likes that. And if you’re going the traditional hot-baked route there’s very little margin for error…

Cottage cheese and buckwheat pancakes

Rise and shine, breakfast freaks. We love our carbs and caffeine in the morning, and when it’s time to flip the script on the usual toast and jam, fluffy pancakes are pretty hard to beat. We like to kid ourselves these ones are a bit healthier than regular pancakes…

Miso-mustard devilled eggs

Devilled eggs… but make them Tokyo. Think miso, mustard and a smatter of furikake sass – your new party flex.

Smoked salmon, cabbage fritter and sour cream

It had to happen sooner or later; cabbage has officially entered the zeitgeist. Remember when cauliflower was suddenly a thing? Then Brussel’s sprouts? No? Well they were and now it’s cabbage’s turn to have a little moment. Cabbage is suddenly all the rage..

Smoked salmon baguette sandwich

Got a party coming up? Then we’ve got the sanger for you. This smoked salmon baguette is everything… chic, salty, snappy, and gone in seconds.

Stuffed dates

These crowd-pleasers are proof that just a few simple ingredients, thoughtfully combined, can really steal the show. Here, dates are filled with creamy blue cheese (you can use a soft goat’s cheese if you prefer), topped with salami and a drizzle of honey, then finished with pistachios…

Glazed eggplant with rice, jammy eggs and spring onion salad

Soon, we pinky swear, we’ll do a deep dive into Korean ingredients because we realise not everyone is fluent. And Korean food has become SO popular that you might want to whip up a few dishes at home. If you don’t know your gochujang from your gochugaru you can…

Savoury French ‘cake’

Salty, cheesy, olive-y, and begging for a drink in hand – this savoury loaf has serious aperitivo energy. It’s French-ish (cake salé, if we’re being fancy), endlessly riffable, and one of those recipes that reliably makes you look like a total genius with very little effort. Think of it as a cross between a quick bread and a giant, warm antipasto selection….

Beef tacos with pickled cabbage and creamy avo

Got a crowd to feed? Here’s your gig. We figure it’s not worth cooking up this style of a long-braised beefy storm for the average nuclear family but if 2.7 diners is all you’re mustering, just halve everything and be prepared for leftovers. No biggie. The cooked meat will freeze…

Berry skillet cake

What if you could make a cake without the hassle of finding the exact right cake tin?? 'Spring form’ this… ‘bundt tin’ that… ‘square pan’ the other… pfftt. Sometimes it’s all too hard. At least it is in SOMEONE’S house, where the corner kitchen cupboard is the dark…

Chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting

What’s cuter than a cupcake? A cupcake with a great gob of frosting piped on the top, that’s what. Anything with piping looks bougie, don’t you think? We love letting loose with a piping bag; it’s our happy place. And it’s arguably the most extra thing you can do because…

Double pumpkin pasta

We bought you double-crumbed chicken, now we’re bringing you double-trouble pumpkin pasta! There’s nothing tricksy about this recipe; a smooth pumpkin sauce coats the pasta, with golden roasty bits of pumpkin for scattering over the top before you serve…

Thai beef and tomato salad

Ah, Thailand. We l-o-v-e it. The bustle. The full-throttled craziness of its cities, especially Bangkok. The charm of the people and the allure of the culture; we’re big into those. And SHOPPING!! We love the retail action; those markets are unreal (how good is Chatuchak?)…

Fragrant lentils with caramelised onion and eggs

Oh. Don’t like lentils? You’re missing out. They’re seriously delicious and are an easy, healthy and cheap way to get filled up. Until you start pairing them with eggs of course, and then everything goes to heck in the budgeting department…

Date molasses and spice cake

Like having a Little Black Dress in your wardrobe, every baking repertoire needs an easy, gingery, spicy cake recipe in the mix. (Well, we think it does anyway, and what we say generally goes. We’re not running a benevolent dictatorship here)…

RECIPES

Roast capsicum, feta, olives and oregano

We’re doing our best to slip in as many vibrant veggie-based dishes as we can before the dark days of winter set in. Not that we have anything against braises, pies, soups, root veggies and all that comfort food you generally hoover through in winter. (Did someone say ‘roasted kūmara’?)…

Chicken schnitty tenders with caper mayo

We ask All The Questions around here. Such as, ‘what’s better than crumbed chicken?’ Parmesan-crumbed chicken, duh! And, ‘what's’ better than parmesan-crumbed chicken?’ DOUBLE parmesan-crumbed chicken, of course. That’s right…

Salmon fish cakes

Loads of cuisines have their take on a fish cake; in Thailand they're called tod mun pla and are infused with red curry paste; in Malaysia they’re called otak otak and involve grinding fish to a paste with coconut milk and spices, wrapping in banana leaves, then grilling. Delish…

Chocolate pistachio meringues

“Experts Resoundingly Say a No-Sugar Diet is No Good” ** declared an article headline we read over breakfast the other day, as we shoveled jam-mounded refined carbs and syrupy coffee down our throats with abandon…

Fish and tomato curry

When you crave a curry, nothing else will do. But, you know. Making a ‘proper’ curry, whether Indian or South East Asian, involves loads of ingredients and making a paste from scratch. (Except a Japanese curry, where you just throw a few of those curry roux thingos…

Spinach and lemon orzo with lamb snags

There’s a certain kind of tyranny baked into a recipe. “Cut that this big. Weigh those precisely. Use this sized pot. Cook for exactly this amount of time. No, DON’T stir yet. OK, stir NOW. And put a lid on that, would you?” …

Baked lemongrass chicken with coconut rice

In a world filled with ready-made pastes, jars of pre-mulched garlic and citrus juices in squeezy bottles (do not use these! They’re pasteurised, contain preservatives, and taste like rubbish), sometimes it’s nice to grab a whole pile of aromatic fresh stuff and chop…

Lamb freekeh bowls

Bloody autocorrect. Ours has a field day with ingredient names we’d think it should jolly well know better. We’ve ‘butthurt’ our corn when it should have been buttered. We added ‘shitpotle’ not chipotle to our chilli, although this one was arguably more of a straight typo…

Tuscan raisin and rosemary Easter buns

Before travel was easy and relatively affordable, a great cook book featuring recipes from some far flung cuisine was a real window into the world. Yes; we’re that old. We actually pre-date the internet. Short of jumping on a plane, the best way to expand our culinary horizons…

Greek-ish potato salad

Potato salad. Just yum. We love us a classic version, complete with mayo, chopped boiled egg, a hint of powdered mustard and chopped chives/parsley – we don’t even mind if a smidge of very finely chopped celery finds its way in…

Stuffed meatloaf (Polpettone)

If you’re going to make a meatloaf, you may as well make one with knobs on, no? That’s our philosophy anyway and the Sicilians, bless ‘em, agree; this dish is based on a homey Sicilian dish called polpettone. Which is simply Italian for ‘meatloaf’…

Blueberry scones

Oh, shoot… did we miss Valentine’s Day? Cue the mournful violins and activate the Sad Face emojis. 🎻😥 Just kidding; we don’t really give a rats about V. Day but hey. If you do, don’t let us rain on your chocolate/champers/Hallmark card parade!…

Chicken-tofu salad with chicken stock rice

If tofu’s not your thing, maybe chicken is and you won’t notice there’s bean curd in the mix in this effortless Chinese-inspired dish. We genuinely love tofu, but totally get that some of you think it’s bland. TBH that’s kind of the point of tofu…

Zucchini pesto spaghetti

Oops. We’ve been doing pesto ALL WRONG. Well, pretty much wrong. We just heave all the ingredients into a food processor, blitz the hell out of them, then presto! Pesto!…

Yoghurt creams with tomato compote

Calm your farm if you’re up in arms over the thought of syrupy, sweet tomatoes. They’re a fruit, doh! If rhubarb can be a vegetable that masquerades as a fruit, then tomatoes can reclaim their fruitiness and appear in dessert situations. So there…

Harissa-honey roast carrots

Why are baby carrots often called Dutch? That’s probably a question for our Eternal Questions team here at the LSC but off the top of our heads, we’d say it’s because the Dutch, bless ‘em, developed the modern orange carrot as we know it…

Gochujang pork, eggplant and whipped tofu

Darn. It’s back to reality with a dirty great thud after a glorious summer break, when we enjoy slumming it in the cooking department, letting our fresh produce purchases and whatever knocks around the fridge inform lazy dinner decisions. Very. Lazy. Dinner…

Venetian chicken

Inspired by a 2023 visit to the Veneto, this easy, summery chicken dish is a riff on the famous sarde in saor, a Venetian sweet-sour arrangement. Consisting of fresh, deep-fried sardines marinated in a vinegary mixture containing piles of tender, cooked onion, raisins and pine nuts…

Apricot and almond pie with burnt honey

Apricots. We wait all darned year for the things yet, despite their cheery appearance and promise of juicy, sun-shiny flavour, they’re often incredibly disappointing. And it’s not their fault. Unless you live in a stone-fruit orchard, or have access to one…

Charred corn and prawn salad

Fun fact; Lazy Sunday’s Founding Fathers grew up on dairy farms. Which invariably meant dads finishing work spattered in cow poo and unpasteurised milk, a load of colourful swearing directed at the working dogs, the air hanging heavy with the ripe…

Russian chilled soup

Russian is not a cuisine we pretend to know well but as our Summer Of Not Cooking progresses unabated, we’re trawling the globe for inspo. Enter… okróshka! It’s the tangy, crunchy, herby, potato-y and egg-laden cold soup you never knew you’d love…

Salmon crudo with orange and lemongrass

Uugghh. Cooking. If you’re thinking nope, nope and ABSOLUTELY nope, we feel you. There’s cricket to watch, there are lawns to neglect and there are beaches calling your name. Stuff the kitchen. In this golden week between Christmas and New Year…

No recipe plum caprese

Just in time for New Year, here’s another simple side. Because honestly, who needs complication at this time of the year. And let’s face it, most festive cooking comes down to roasting some manner of bird, or baking a ham…

Cherry-polenta cake

We generally have a fair bit to say and are seldom short of a word or 300 but sometimes, the brains at LSC go into Fully Fried Mode and we just don’t know what to say. Right now it’s hot, it’s the end of the year and we’re running out of words. Enter ChatGPT…

Fennel, egg and anchovy salad

Can we have a ‘heck yeah!’ from the crowd for the mighty mandoline? We love this labour-saving slicing device SO MUCH; it might well be our fave kitchen gizmo ever. It makes short work of precision cutting, giving prep that professional, consistently neat edge…

Chocolate salami

We know you’re astute so you’ll have noticed a bit of a theme around here lately; namely that at LSC, we’re in complete Christmas denial. We’re unprepared for the tinsel, drunken work parties and Mariah C on a constant loop everywhere we. freaking. go…

Quick-braised asparagus and lettuce (yes, really)

We heard you wanted some dead-easy sides for Christmas feasting. You didn’t? You’re getting some anyway. Such as this recipe from the ‘so-Frenchy-so-chic’ school of vegetable thought, which translates to not splashy, not majorly ‘on trend’…

Pickled oranges

Yeah. It’s actually Christmas time. So no need to panic or anything. How is it here already? What happened to 2024? Who pushed the accelerator button on the year? WDK. But one thing we do know is it’s not too late to make these sweet, citrus pickles to go with your…

RECIPES

Lemon and white chocolate blondies

Dunno ‘bout you but when we’ve got nothing better to do, we love pondering our navels, then asking the universe all manner of weighty questions. Like, what’s a Clootie Dumpling? Why did the Imam faint? How did the duck get cold and the dick cop its spots?…

Soy sauce chicken

Want to teach your kid to cook a main course dish they can’t really eff up? Soy Sauce Chicken. Out of inspo and don’t know what to cook? Soy Sauce Chicken. Need a dish that everyone will shut the heck up about and not whine “… but I don't like it”? Soy Sauce Chicken…

Mussels with chorizo, tomato and sherry vinegar

Mussels. So simple to cook, so delicious to eat and so darned good for you. An excellent source of lean protein, iron, selenium, iodine and omega-3 fatty acids, we should all be eating them more. There’s so much healthy stuff lurking in those shells…

Sausage ragu with pappardelle

Holy banging bangers, Batman; can sausages actually get better than their lovely, snag-y self, or what? We reckon they can and here’s Exhibit A… our sausage ragu. Perfect for tossing through pasta, it’s easy to make and is brilliant during these…

Zebra cake

When you don’t just want cake, you want damned epic cake, here’s your gig. A marble cake by any other name, this one is all about intense chocolate flavour, shot through with bright pops of orange. And if you stuff up the marbling and end up with more of an…

Turkish lentil kofte

You don’t have to travel in Turkey very far before encountering this dish; it’s popularly served as a mezze. And – here’s a quick language lesson – ‘mercimek’, Turkish for the red lentils, is pronounced ‘mer-ji-mek.’…

Arroz caldozo

Translating to ‘brothy rice’, this soupy brew is yummo, like all Spanish cooking generally is. Simple, with direct flavours and not a tonne of ingredients, it’s easy to whip up. The Moors brought rice to Spain in the 8th century and today it’s cultivated in Andalucía…

Not your mum’s leeks

If your Mum, like many Mums, committed culinary crimes against leeks, you might be scarred for life. We’re talking boiled, suffocated in white sauce and… oh, shudder. We just can’t with the leek memories. Happily there are entire cuisines who cook this skinny green veg with…

Zucchini and feta fritters

Are they Greek? Are they Turkish? We’re not going to step into that particularly messy fray, but let’s just say we’ve eaten our fair share of these babies on Turkish soil as part of mezze spreads. Called mücver, we’ve yet to meet anyone who dislikes these fritters…

Strawberry cake

We don’t much go for those multi-layered, super-rich, cake extravaganzas. They have their place but we prefer more wholesome, humble cakes; the sort that may not look like much, but have that delicious, straightforward, home-baked flavour that knocks you off your perch…

Stuff it! Pasta

The assignment? To turn a whole heap of English spinach into something everyone would love, and that wasn’t too, you know, spinachy. An overload of spinach tastes ever so slightly metallic. Spinach soup doesn’t ring my bells…

Peanut brownies

Why are these called The Peanut Brownies We Never Had? Because we still have some bad attitudes toward the 1970’s baking of New Zealand. And yes, before the, er, Peanut Gallery goes, um, nuts, we do know that there were some, uh, gems from that era…

Borlotti bean and pasta soup

This type of rustic soup, often topped with shreds of the region’s famous radicchio, is popular in the Veneto region of Italy in winter. An example of cucina povera, literally the ‘cooking of the poor’, it speaks to a frugal approach and using what you’ve damned well got on hand…

Orange-chocolate syrup cake

Love jaffa vibes? Then get on this cake. It’s seriously delicious, with sour cream adding to the overall choc-orange-butter-eggs richness. And, as if 275g of sugar in the batter wasn’t enough, there’s a whole heap more lurking in the syrup plus in the glazed orange situation…

Pork and parmesan meatballs in cider with roast apples

We never met a meatball we didn’t like, We l-o-v-e meatballs. The global meatball repertoire is huge; think polpette (Italy), kofte (Turkey), keftedes (Greece), albondigas (Spain), bakso (Indonesia), bun cha (Vietnam), frikadeller (Germany, Scandinavia and Poland), bitterballen (Netherlands) and the like…

Rosemary and semolina shortbread

Ovens can be dodgy bastards. See that thermometer dial on yours? If your oven’s calibration slips, which it inevitably will, the dial is not necessarily the most reliable indicator of the exact temperature your oven is at. Bummer. But there’s a simple workaround…

Harira

Lamb. Soup. North African flavours. I. Am. So. Here. For. These. A soupy-stew with a lot going for it, we’re in love with the lamby, lentil-y, aromatic, nourishing goodness that is harira. Wiki suggests it can be eaten as a ‘light snack’ but this flour-thickened version…

A cabbage salad

We can’t lay claim to this fabulous dish; it’s based on a Palestinian recipe from Joudie Kalla’s stunning book, Balaidi Palestine (Quarto UK, 2018). We’ve tweaked and played with it a bit, amping up the garlic and using a stick blender to emulsify the heck out of the dressing…

Fruit and tea loaf

If you had to bake for a Zombie apocalypse, this would be the thing to make. It keeps f-o-r-e-v-e-r.. This classic, hefty, long-keeping loaf is based on a traditional Welsh bread called bara brith (which means ‘speckled bread’); some versions use yeast for the rising…

Middle finger buns

Yay! Middle Finger Buns! Complete with pink icing and a smattering of desiccated coconut. How cute are these? We hear that many of you are scared witless of yeast; if that’s the case can we implore you not to be such a bunch of sooks and, like Lennon with peace, give yeast a chance?…

Braised chicken marbella-style

1982 called and wants its chicken back… Chicken Marbella, to be exact. If you kids ever wondered how your forebears dinner-partied hard, look no further than this tasty relic from the beloved classic, The Silver Palate Cookbook…

Red-wine braised beef with mash and salsa verde

Braising is one of the cornerstone techniques of cooking and once you understand how it works, you can go forth and apply the same, basic method to any suited ingredient, or cut of meat, with confidence. Braising is a wet method of cooking, and meat-wise…

Mum’s Weet-Bix/custard pie thingo

We have no idea of the genesis of this pie-type arrangement, with its buttery crushed Weet-Bix base, blubbery custard filling, jam, whipped cream and coconut topping, but we thought it was the height of yumness when we were kids…

Creamy rice pudding

This might be divisive, but we make rice pudding simmered on the stove and not baked in the oven. We know the skin on baked rice pudding is a thing and some households fully go to war claiming the biggest bit of that thin, caramelised layer, but we don’t go for it…

Banana-toffee bread and butter pudding

This is the pudding to end all puddings; a version of bread and butter pudding that even avowed haters will love. Baked with banana and slathered in a buttery, rich, toffee-flavoured sauce, it’s easy to make and totally delish to eat…

Marmalade roly poly

We dig the name ‘roly poly’ because it sounds as much a weight-gain alert as it does the description of a lovely rolled-up baked pudding. This old fashioned fave really is bloody delicious, straight-forward to conjure and is something everyone totally loves…

Chocolate self saucing pudding

It’s a mystery to us how this favourite pudding even works; you make a batter, scatter the top with sugar and cocoa, pour boiling water over, bake, then the oozy stuff somehow ends up on the bottom, creating a gooey, thick sauce for the springy, cakey top…

Lemon sago

Here’s an old fashioned dessert that’s totally worth resurrecting. It’s the kind of thing popular in a previous epoch, when food options were more limited, everyone had a lemon tree, and people didn’t respond to the concept of sago with a screwed-up unhappy face…

RECIPES

Steamed caramel coconut pudding

There’s a piece floating around the interwebs where someone cooks, then rates the puddings from Edmond's cookbook and the puddings don’t come off so well. There is snark and derision. Plenty of it. While we’re not suggesting that some of the original Edmonds puddings…

Silverbeet and sardine pizza

Canned seafoods are quite the thing lately, aren’t they? Although the French (who pioneered sardine canning in the early 1800s), Spanish and Portuguese have known for quite some time that fish in a can is fab. While you can drop serious coin on boujee canned fish brands…

Sausage with braised lentils and vinegared beetroot

Use whatever sausages you darn well like here, although some are definitely better than others. The ones to avoid are the sort with super-smooth interiors, that cook to disappointing hardness and don’t really taste like much except maybe over-seasoned pureed meat. They’re full of fillers…

Smoky chicken wings, cowboy candy and slaw

American food. Yeah? Nah? Or yeah-nah? Because when it comes to food, Americans do eat a lot of shit. If anecdotal evidence is to be believed, many of them don’t properly cook. (We’re not talking about the Alice Waters, Rick Baylesses, Nancy Silvertons or David Changs of the world…

Baked beans with crunchy bacon crust

We genuinely love cooking with lentils, chickpeas, beans et al. They’re not only delish, they’re great contenders for filling, budget-friendly, delish dinners that are perfect for coping with the exhausting, ever-increasing cost of living spikes. We figured it was worth resurrecting the concept of home-made baked beans; yeha they’re cheap to buy…

Autumn minestrone with celery leaf-walnut pesto

It’s hard to make brown, stewed or plain-looking food look yum, and making food look yum is always the mandate in this crowded online space, no? There is just so much purdy food out there and we don’t pretend to compete. But what this humble soup lacks in Lights! Camera!…

Roast pumpkin dhal

Dahl. Basically mooshy, spicy, slightly soupy lentils, best served over fluffy basmati rice with tons of accompaniments. It’s soothing. Economical. Incredibly easy to make Just grab a bag of chana dahl (split chickpeas by any other name), rinse it off, boil it up, spice it up, then guzzle it up…

Long-cooked broccoli with spaghetti

Barely-cooked broccoli is the absolute worst in our world – such a punish to eat, with tough, chewy stems and that trail of vegetal matter settling so attractively between your teeth. Our remedy? To finely chop the broc (leaves, stems and all), combine it with lemon juice, a tonne of garlic and anchovies…

Tuna-potato polpette

Brains, Intestines. Liver. Kidneys. Tongue, tripe and tails – the whole nine yards. If you’ve been to Europe, South America, Asia, Africa, the Middle East or the Subcontinent (basically anywhere not overly Anglo), visited local food markets and squizzed the fresh produce, you’ll know that in actual food cultures, everything’s on the table…

A chocolate cake

As digestive systems everywhere brace for the annual chocolate onslaught, I thought I’d throw a cake your way so you’re match fit for Easter. Not literally, natch. I mean ‘throw’ more in a ‘here’s my chocolate cake recipe, come and geddit’ kind of way. And not that it’s ‘my’ cake, either…

Eggplant curry with tamarind and coconut

We love the layered flavours you get in an Indian curry, especially when they skew sweet-sour. Which they do here, thanks to jaggery, tomatoes and – yum! – tamarind paste. There are a few steps to making this but none are hard. It’s a perfect Sunday cooking project and you can make extras and freeze them for during the week too…

Coronation chicken salad

Unleash the corgis and guzzle the Pimms… it’s coronation time! Well it was. Concocted by Constance Spry and Rosemary Hume from the London Le Cordon Bleu for Elizbeth 2’s anointing, coronation chicken was a mess of cold chicken, curried mayonnaise sauce, dried apricots and almonds…

Burghul pilaf with lamb-feta meatballs

I’m flexing my mince muscles in anticipation of May, which I’m dubbing My Month of Mean. Or of Mince. Or of Misery. Or something. With the cost of everything going bananas and cash reserves shrinking (thanks, Reserve Bank!), I’m pulling my horns in. No more soothing retail, bye bye Binge account and see ya later exxie wine habit…

Chocolate tahini buns

Just in time for some Sunday baking, these ridiculously rich buns are exactly what the doctor ordered for a leisurely long weekend breakfast. Scrub that - they’re probably not. Because they’re chockers with chocolate, sugar, various fats and evil white flour. YUM! Please, please PLEASE don’t be terrified of yeast…

Chilli tuna kedgeree

There are a gazillion interpretations of kedgeree and this one skews toward the dry end of town; essentially it's a subcontinental fried rice, if you will. The original contained just rice, eggs, smoked fish, onion, butter and parsley, with the curry powder ( the best bit!) coming laterr…

Cheese scones

Cheese or date? It can be a divisive issue. Throw plain with jam and cream, sultana, or the Aussie abomination that is pumpkin into the mix and you’ve got a real mess of opinions on your hands. We’re talking, of course, about scones, up there with shortbread, smoked salmon and a few cheeses as Scotland’s only real contribution to culinaria…

Pea, kale and quinoa ‘tabbouleh’

Ah, quinoa. Remember the tiresome mania for quinoa? When the Western world ‘discovered’ it (despite about 7000 years of quinoa domestication) and hipsters practically snorted it for breakfast? Who can forget how the price for the poor bloody Bolivians, who rely on it as a nutrient-rich staple, went utterly bonkers? We hate food trends…

Spice-roast lamb with grape tzatziki

We love lamb, especially a roast leg, either cooked long, slow and on the bone, or boned, rolled, tied and blasted at 200C. This is a very simple take on a fast roasted boneless leg but for the sake of all that’s cute, woolly and goes ‘baaa’ when you pat it, do not overcook your lamb…

Melon, tomato and oregano salad

Now here’s a combo I’ll bet you never saw coming. But jeebus, is it delicious or what? And we don’t have much more to say than that... and nor is there really a recipe. It’s more a concept. You know, the vibe of the thing. “In summing up, Your Honour, it’s melon, it’s tomato, it’s feta, it’s rightness, it works, it’s the vibe..

Plum (or whatever you like) upside down cake

This is an oldie but a goodie recipe – it’s not fancy, but we don't really do fancy anything. Certainly not cake. It’s easy and tastes great and isn’t that enough? Use pear wedges, banana slices or even canned pineapple rings (retro!) if you’ve missed the plums already…

Lemon ricotta pasta with parmesan crumbs

Here’s a cheese-heavy pasta dish that’s the kind of simple thing to make when you can’t be arsed to properly cook… which, if you’re anything like us, is maybe quite often. All you do is cook some dried pasta (a tube-y one works great), then heave it into a large pan with some of the pasta cooking water, lemon, herbs, ricotta, a bit…

Chicken with pecorino, oregano and vinegar

Can we talk about chicken skin? (That’s a rhetorical question; we’re bloody talking about chicken skin). Peruse supermarket fridges where assorted poultry parts lurk, witness the pallid, pink, skin-free horror and you’ll be asking the same question as we regularly do... where the heck does it all go?…

Muhammara

This Syrian-Turkish dip-spread is so full of intense flavour, it’s ridiculous. It’s not hard to make but, lest you think charring and peeling capsicums is tedious, it’s their exact sweet, smoky flavours that make this so amazing. So don't be tempted to skip this step. If you have a gas cook-top, just hurl your capsicums straight on the flame whole, then turn them regularly so they char all over…

Emulsified vinaigrette

Platter up! Grab the nicest of what’s in season, cook it simply, hurl it on a big plate, then do the ‘come help yourselves’ holler’ like a fishwife. We love a salad Nicoise and, while salmon might not be a traditional inclusion, it’s perfect with everything else. The recipe here is all about the emulsified vinaigrette…

Tomato risotto

Lately, we’ve been making tomato sauce like there is no tomorrow; maybe there is no tomorrow? Existential crisis/neurosis aside, our freezers are full of the stuff. When it’s winter, and fresh tomatoes taste like shite, we’ll be ever so glad of a never-ending supply of sauce for pasta…

Salmorejo

When the weather turns torrid, it’s time to make like the Andalusians and blend up some silky-suave salmorejo. Yep, the southern Spanish know a thing or two about sweltering and chilled, rich, tomato-loaded soup is one of their ways of giving it the big Eff You. It’s SO delicious. If you ask us (and nobody has), salmorejo is the nectar of the bloody gods…

Peaches in rosé-thyme syrup with creme fraîche

Nab the last of the peaches now (sob); we mean, how much of a bugger is it when they march out of season? Not. Particularly. Peachy. As a parting shot to stone fruit lusciousness, whaddabout making this super-simple peach number, where the fruit is cooked in rosé and thyme syrup, then served with creme fraiche…

Greek lenten biscuits

And now for something sweet, rich, indulgent and creamy. Just kidding; it’s Lent, doofus. And you know what that’s about – going without. I don’t really ‘do’ Spartan so correct me if I’m wrong, but observant Catholics fast from meat during the Lenten period (the 40 days leading to Easter), while for Greek Orthodox believers…