15 h. ago Jamie Oliver's 'easiest' chicken pasta recipe has only five ingredients

The celebrity chef's Greek-inspired chicken pasta dish is the perfect meal to cook for the family on a weeknight as it's packed with flavour and is easy on the purse

Society

3 d. ago Rachel Roddy’s recipe for chicken scaloppine with mushrooms and marsala | A kitchen in Rome

A melt-in-the-mouth dish of fried tenderised chicken in a mushroom and sweet wine sauceThe term escalope is borrowed from the old French escalope, meaning “shell or carapace”, which is likely to be borrowed from the old Norse skalpr (“sheath”) or Middle Dutch schelpe (“shell”). This explains the shape, and why the word evolved to describe a slice of meat that has been pounded until it’s the same slimness all over.This week’s recipe is inspired by the restaurant Bocca Di Lupo in Soho, which a few months ago, after a night at the theatre with my parents, was one of the few places still open and more than welcoming to walk-ins at 10.30pm. Sitting on the high stools at the end of the long, marble bar, Dad chose ravioli filled with ricotta and spinach, while Mum and I had scaloppine di pollo al marsala e funghi (thin chicken escalope with mushrooms in a soft, slightly thickened marsala sauce). The meal and wine would have been superb in any circumstance, but the feeling of relief combine...

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4 d. ago Scientists have finally discovered the secret to the 'perfect' pasta recipe

Italian scientists have revealed the physics of the perfect cacio e pepe sauce

Society

4 d. ago You've been making pasta wrong! Scientists reveal the ultimate recipe for Cacio e pepe

At first glance Cacio e pepe looks like a simple recipe containing only three ingredients - pasta, Pecorino Romano cheese and black pepper. But making it without lumps is harder than it looks.

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5 d. ago Italian scientists reveal the 'perfect' recipe for Cacio e pepe pasta

At first glance Cacio e pepe looks like a simple recipe containing only three ingredients - pasta, Pecorino Romano cheese and black pepper. But making it without lumps is harder than it looks.

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6 d. ago Sambal prawn pasta and cumin lamb noodles: Julie Lin’s Malaysian

A seafood pasta laced with butter and Malaysian flavours, and gloriously squidgy lasagne ‘noodles’ tossed with spiced lamb minceMy mum always says our love of pasta comes from the noodle culture we grew up with, and she’s spot on. Sometimes, I crave a buttery bowl of carbs, but one that’s layered with the bold, fishy flavours of Malaysia. This bucatini with prawns is one of my favourite meals when no one is watching. And when I’m short on time but craving squidgy carbs tangled with spiced lamb mince, the cuminy noodles are my self-loving pleasure. Completely incorrect in its origins, but undeniably delicious. Continue reading...

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1 week ago Rachel Roddy’s homage to Anna del Conte and Vincenzo Corrado’s fennel with pistachio, lemon and anchovy sauce | A kitchen in Rome

An ancient recipe for a sprightly side dish or salad with an eccentric ingredient combination that surprisingly works a treatI am looking after a pile of cookbooks at the moment. They belonged to the late cook and teacher Carla Tomasi, who wanted them to be useful, so gave them to the Latteria cooking studio. However, until the studio has more shelves, I have 15 of Carla’s 60 books sitting by my desk. They are a well-loved pile, but five in particular stand out as having been used and used. The first is Dan Lepard’s Short and Sweet, which, thanks to grey duct tape, is just about holding together, and the second is Thane Prince’s Perfect Preserves, also duct-taped. The third is a 1985 edition of Claudia Roden’s A Book of Middle Eastern Food, the fourth Elisabeth Luard’s 1991 The Flavours of Andalusia and the fifth Anna del Conte’s 1987 Gastronomy of Italy, all of which are missing at least one cover, have loose pages and bite marks (dogs?), are covered in brown paper and have their t...

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2 w. ago Rachel Roddy’s recipe for almond and potato cake with lemon curd and mascarpone | A kitchen in Rome

A sweet dessert with potato in it? You’d better believe it, plus it’s inspired by an Italian culinary legendWriting in 1891, in his cooking manual La Scienza in Cucina e L’arte di Mangiar Bene (Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well), Pellegrino Artusi introduces the potato as a tuber from the solanaceae (nightshade) family that was native to South America and introduced to Europe in the 16th century. He goes on to note that large-scale cultivation didn’t begin in Italy until the beginning of the 18th century, due to the “obstinacy of the masses who were averse to eating it”, adding that, little by little, the potato became more than accepted (by the poor as well as the rich), because of its good taste, ability to satisfy hunger and the way it lent itself to being cooked in so many ways.If my counting is correct, of 790 recipes in that seminal book, 30 of them include potatoes or a significant proportion of potato flour. What is especially interesting is that even though ...

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3 w. ago Stalks and all: how to turn a whole head of broccoli into a rustic and tasty Italian pasta dish | Waste not

Broccoli florets and stalks combine to delicious effect in this simple and thrifty bowl of pasta Today’s very simple and speedy Italian classic uses the whole broccoli – even the woody stalk. Inspired by Italian chef Gennaro Contaldo, the approach creates a delicious sauce that coats the pasta beautifully. Trim just a few millimetres off the discoloured end of the broccoli stalk, then, to ensure it cooks down and becomes tender, slice the rest of the stalk into 1cm-long pieces. Continue reading...

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3 w. ago Rachel Roddy’s recipe for pasta (or gnocchi) with aubergine, chilli, lemon and salted ricotta | A kitchen in Rome

A big, delicious, melting mush of creamy, garlicky aubergine (even if it does resemble a wet dishcloth)I have joked in the past about the peeled flesh of a baked aubergine and how, when sitting in a sieve balanced over the sink, it looks like a damp, grubby dishcloth. Well, a week or so ago, I lived this joke when I reached for a dishcloth that was, rather oddly, sitting on a plate, and for a nanosecond I thought that things really had reached a low for the cloth to be not just grubby, but slimy. That was before I realised I was about to pick up an aubergine and future baba ganoush.Other things occurred that evening, too, and in the end the aubergine was put in Tupperware with some peeled cloves of garlic and a squeeze of lemon (which I hoped might preserve it), and the box put in the fridge. It should not be a confession for a food writer whose job is to be resourceful, but I am going to admit it anyway: every time I put sealed Tupperware in the fridge, I wonder if it will get out ...

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