21 h. ago Chef swears by unusual ingredient for 'rich and perfect' pasta sauce every time

EXCLUSIVE: From a little-known ingredient to a one-minute cooking trick, a top chef and restaurant owner shared his tips for elevating pasta

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6 d. ago Ravneet Gill and Mattie Taiano’s recipes for a Friendmas sharing menu

The husband and wife team cook up a winter storm with lamb shoulder, dauphinoise and brown sugar meringues – just don’t ask them who’s doing the cleaning upWhen I first started seeing Mattie, there was a constant dinner party at his mum’s house,” recalls pastry chef Ravneet Gill. “There were loads of people there all the time, being fed with massive bowls of home-cooked food and a big block of parmesan.” There was an open-door policy, with pastas and roast meats on heavy rotation, confirms her now-husband and fellow chef, Taiano. And it’s this sentiment that has carried through to the couple’s restaurant, Gina, which opened in Chingford, east London, earlier this year, a process they documented in their newsletter, Club Gina.Named after Taiano’s late mother, it is very much a neighbourhood joint, Gill points out, with the food – from pithiviers and vol au vents to Gina’s pasta with tomato sauce, half a roast chicken with little gems and aioli to share on Sundays, and slabs of “Ravi’...

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8 d. ago Chef warns never serve pasta straight away and perform simple one

From a quick one-minute technique to an unusual ingredient, a top chef shared his best tips for elevating your pasta dishes

Events

1 week ago How to make the perfect butter paneer – recipe | Felicity Cloake's How to make the perfect

Which versions of this much-loved and widely adapted rich vegetarian curry will be distilled into the perfect take?This luxuriantly rich, vegetarian curry – a cousin of butter chicken, which is thought to have been created in the postwar kitchens of Delhi’s Moti Mahal, though by whom is the subject of hot dispute – is, according to chef Vivek Singh, “the most famous and widely interpreted dish in India”. His fellow chef Sanjeev Kapoor describes it as “one of the bestselling dishes in restaurants” there, but here in the UK, though it’s no doubt widely enjoyed, it seems to fly somewhat under the radar on menus, where even the chicken original plays second fiddle to our beloved chicken tikka masala.If you haven’t yet fallen for the crowdpleasing charms of fresh cheese in a mild tomato sauce, consider this a strong suggestion to give it a whirl. Paneer makhni (makhni being the Hindi word for butter, hence also dal makhni), tastes incredibly fancy, but it’s relatively simple and quick to...

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2 w. ago Rome decries ‘Italian sounding’ pasta sauces on sale in EU parliament store

Agriculture minister calls for immediate investigation over carbonara sauce containing the wrong type of cured meatItaly’s agriculture minister, Francesco Lollobrigida, has called for an immediate investigation after coming across what he claimed were jars of “Italian sounding” pasta sauce on the shelves of the European parliament’s supermarket.Lollobrigida, of Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, was particularly vexed by a carbonara sauce made with “Italiaanse pancetta” – the classic Roman pasta dish is made with a different cured meat, guanciale – and a tomato sauce containing “oignons de Calabria”, or onions from Calabria. Continue reading...

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3 w. ago Whisk unlikely ingredient into sauce to make cauliflower cheese 'taste better'

A recipe expert has shared a simple tip to make cauliflower cheese taste even better, and it's all down to one unusual ingredient that you can add to the sauce pretty easily

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3 w. ago Same sheet, different dish: how to use up excess lasagne sheets

Smash them up and put them in soup or serve with pasta sauce, says our overstocked panel of pasta pundits• Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.comI’ve accidentally bought too many boxes of dried lasagne sheets. How can I use them up? Jemma, by email This is sounding all too familiar to Jordon Ezra King, the man behind the A Curious Cook newsletter. “It’s funny Jemma asks this,” he says, “because I was in this exact same situation earlier this year after over-catering for a client dinner.” The first thing to say is there’s no immediate rush, he adds: “It sounds obvious, but you can keep the boxes for a long time.” Fortunately for Jemma and her shopping mishap, however, lasagne sheets are also flexible, and their shape doesn’t have to dictate what you do with them.With this in mind, soupy things are good to get on the weekly dinner rotation, be that pasta e ceci or minestrone, the latter being the go-to of choice for Mattie Taiano, chef and co-owner with Ravneet Gill of Gi...

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