Onions are a kitchen hero—whether you’re slowly caramelising them for a rich stew, soup, or sauce, shaving them for a salad, or tossing them into a stir-fry. But there’s a little onion secret you should know; cutting them too far in advance can make them taste strange. Very strange…

Some cookie recipes say to chill the dough before baking, and if you think this step isn’t essential, think again.  Chilling the dough helps prevent excessive spreading in the oven. If you’ve ever cut or piped cookies, then admired the perfectly sharp edges only to watch them bake into formlessness, then chilling is the key…

There are so many reasons to love a stick blender. It won’t entirely replace a food processor as you need that for slightly different purposes – for bigger-batch in-bowl blending, for example. And a good processor comes with a bunch of cutting and grating discs which can be incredibly fast and useful when you need them. But for processing small quantities of something like…

It’s salad time! If you’re like us, you love bringing fresh, vibrant bowlfuls of perfectly balanced ingredients to the table, finished off with drizzles of some zesty, homemade dressing. While dressings are an intrinsic part of all our salad recipes, sometimes it’s great to just wing it and create your own…

There are two kinds of tarragon—French and Russian—and they are so not the same thing. If you’ve ever been underwhelmed by this amazing herb, or thought it tasted pretty horrible, there’s a fair chance you’ve used the wrong one…

Professional chefs and serious home cooks swear by carbon steel pans. They’re rugged like cast iron but are much lighter, which makes them easier to handle. More brands are offering pans made of ‘blackened’ carbon steel, and you might be wondering what this is...

Tamarind is a unique ingredient derived from a type of fruit and is distinctively tart and sweet. Growing in pods on large trees native to tropical Africa, its name comes from the Arabic term 'tamar hindi,' which means 'Indian date’, reflecting a longstanding association with Indian cooking...

You’ve probably heard people waxing lyrical about New Zealand King Salmon like it’s the absolute bees freaking knees and TBH, it kind of is. But what’s the actual deal? How does King Salmon stack up against other varieties like Atlantic or sockeye...

Cabbage is boring, right? Not really. We know it’s not as sexy as asparagus or fennel or artichokes but it’s a hard-working, affordable staple in most kitchens. When should you use bog standard green cabbage and when should you reach for red...

Pectin, friends, is a polysaccharide (a type of carbohydrate) found in the cell walls of plants. We only care about it as it’s crucial for jam-making (and relishes and chutneys too) because it acts as a gelling agent and is what helps a preserve set…

Capers are the unopened flower buds of the caper bush (Capparis spinosa), a perennial plant native to the Mediterranean region. It’s a hardy shrub that thrives in rocky, arid, sunny environments and is found in parts of Italy, Spain, Greece, and North Africa. Capers are also cultivated in Australia…

Crème fraîche and sour cream are both creamy dairy products commonly used in either sweet or savoury dishes. They’re kind of the same, but different enough to warrant a bit of a dive, so here goes, in fancy bullet points, no less…

The slow cooker is a beloved kitchen appliance that transforms tough cuts of meat into tender goodness. Its story begins in the early 20th century with a man named Irving Nachumsohn, later known as Irving Naxon. Inspired by his Jewish heritage…

“SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, Lovely SPAM! Wonderful SPAM! “ So chirped Monty Python in their famous 1970 sketch and they’re not the only ones who have had fun with SPAM; we mean, smooth, salty, pink meat in a can?…

Literal screeds have been written about this and look, we could wax science-y on the subject but chemical reactions and molecular changes aren’t really our thing. So instead, we’ll invite you on a sensory journey. Where you shut your eyes, sit back and imagine…

Nope. Not exactly. Well, actually, not at all. Native to India and from a tree called Murraya koenigii, these pointy, slender, fine leaves have a complex citrusy, somewhat earthy and fragrant flavour that’s unlike anything else…

Deep frying at home. It’s a LOT. All that oil… finding the right pot or other vessel… the risk of burning the house down. It can seem really intimidating, but armed with the right info and a few precautions…

Good question. Cottage cheese is not an ingredient that often finds its way into our cooking and we hate to hate on it but here we go anyway… it’s kind of damp and bland…

Extra virgin olive oil is an unrefined oil that’s mechanically extracted from olives using no heat or chemicals… bog standard olive oil is refined and extracted using heat…

Y’all know and love cocoa. And geeze, how bloody blah would baking be without it? Very. We can’t even. Cocoa is essentially what’s left after cacao beans are fermented, roasted, then pressed to extract the…