11 h. 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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5 d. ago Meghan Markle admits she has much to learn in the kitchen after With Love recipes spark mixed reactions

The Duchess of Sussex made headlines last month for her single-skillet spaghetti in ‘With Love, Meghan’

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7 d. ago Rachel Roddy’s recipe for sausages with braised chicory | A kitchen in Rome

With a splash of white wine and a dash of balsamic, any good meaty sausages will do nicely in this simple but mouthwatering dishFrom Tuesday to Saturday, Andrea Legri makes approximately three kilos of sausage a day for his stall on Testaccio market. At about nine on any given morning, he may well be in the back section of the stall, which is visible through glass, his hands steadying the tabletop machine that feeds the minced pork into opaque casings. If ordered in advance, Andrea will also prepare sausages al punto di coltello (point of the knife) – that is, the meat cut by hand, which, paradoxically, manhandles it less and makes a colossal difference, producing a juicier, chewier sausage. One customer, who has been a regular for decades and with whom I am on dog-walking-nodding terms, quite regularly orders 3kg of hand-cut sausages for his family.Andrea is a third-generation butcher: his grandfather took on the stall in the late 1950s, when Testaccio was still a slaughterhouse di...

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2 w. ago Rachel Roddy’s recipe for pasta with peas, cream, lemon and cheese | A kitchen in Rome

Frozen peas are the small but mighty vegetable heroes of this satisfying dish that’s just made to be enjoyed as quickly as it comes togetherPeas freeze quickly because they are small. And, because they are small, so are the crystals that form when the water in their taut cells (imagine many minuscule balloons) turns to ice. And small crystals cause far less damage, puncturing and ripping to cell walls, which means that, when the pea defrosts and the ice returns to water, the cell walls are able to hold it, resulting in a firmer pea.Larger items, on the other hand, see the formation of larger ice crystals, which can puncture the walls (again, imagine minuscule balloons, but this time with lots of tiny rips), making them leaky when they defrost and causing mushy vegetables. This is why peas survive the industrial freezing process so much better than, say, carrots or a slice of aubergine. Continue reading...

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2 w. ago Mary Berry's chicken pasta recipe is a 'creamy and delicious' weekday meal

If you're a fan of creamy pasta dishes, then this chicken pasta recipe from Mary Berry is one to try. It's ideal for a quick and easy midweek dinner - and it's super satisfying

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3 w. ago Rachel Roddy’s recipe for mushrooms stuffed with anchovies, breadcrumbs and herbs | A kitchen in Rome

Bigger, older mushrooms have more flavour than younger, undeveloped ones – especially when they’re stuffed with anchovies, breadcrumbs and herbsAmong the endless brilliant advice in Jane Grigson’s The Mushroom Feast is a note about size that is really helpful. It is in relation to the cultivated mushrooms readily available in greengrocers and supermarkets, the controlled development of which she reveals to be as every bit as fascinating as the mysterious appearance of wild ones. Grigson reminds us that small button mushrooms are exactly that: small and immature. And, having just formed, they haven’t had the chance to develop flavour, which is why it’s advisable to buy medium-sized mushrooms or, even better, large, open or flat mushrooms that have been given the time to develop real flavour. “Left undisturbed in mushroom caves,” Grigson notes, “cultivated mushrooms can swell to a pound in weight and develop a flavour equal to field mushrooms.”While out mushroom hunting in the velvet ...

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3 w. ago Spiced chicken, pasta with peas and a twist on biscotti: three recipes from Guy Mirabella

The cookbook designer and former owner of Shop Ate Cafe & Store on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula shares his seasonal, Australian take on his Sicilian heritageGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailMany of my favourite recipes come from Sunday pranzo (lunch) at our family farm on the Morning Peninsula in Victoria, surrounded by Italian flavours. The food I love to eat and make is layered with Sicilian heritage and history. Continue reading...

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4 w. ago Rachel Roddy’s recipe for flatbreads stuffed with spinach and cheese | A kitchen in Rome

An easily workable dough that you can stuff with just about any filling you fancyThis week’s recipe involves making a dough of flour (any flour), water, olive oil, thick plain yoghurt and salt, and it requires no rising agent and no resting. Thanks to the olive oil and yoghurt, it is a dough that comes together easily and behaves in a way that reminds me of warm putty, coming away from the sides of the bowl, hardly sticking to the hands and almost bringing itself into a neat ball. Unlike so many things at the moment, it is a helpful, thoughtful and stretchy dough that can be rolled or pulled into sort-of circles that can accommodate just about any filling, although mine is inspired by the cheese and greens mixture that filled the Azerbaijani qu’tab my colleagues Alice and Deruba made me a few weeks ago.The best way to eat these flatbreads is, I think, two minutes and 23 seconds after they come out of the hot pan, so they have cooled just enough to handle and so that the puff of hot ...

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