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...

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…

“When most people think of laksa, a bowl of brothy slurpy noodles comes first to mind, so a dry laksa might sound like a curious thing. I first had dry laksa at a friend’s place. Her father would politely interrupt every maths revision session with a plate of food, because ‘you can’t study on an empty stomach’. I vividly remember Uncle’s dry laksa; he had tried it at a trendy new café and recreated it for us…

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…

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…

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…

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?)…

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…