There’s a certain kind of tyranny baked into a recipe. “Cut that this big. Weigh those precisely. Use this sized pot. Cook for exactly this amount of time. No, DON’T stir yet. OK, stir NOW. And put a lid on that, would you?” …

In a world filled with ready-made pastes, jars of pre-mulched garlic and citrus juices in squeezy bottles (do not use these! They’re pasteurised, contain preservatives, and taste like rubbish), sometimes it’s nice to grab a whole pile of aromatic fresh stuff and chop…

Bloody autocorrect. Ours has a field day with ingredient names we’d think it should jolly well know better. We’ve ‘butthurt’ our corn when it should have been buttered. We added ‘shitpotle’ not chipotle to our chilli, although this one was arguably more of a straight typo…

Before travel was easy and relatively affordable, a great cook book featuring recipes from some far flung cuisine was a real window into the world. Yes; we’re that old. We actually pre-date the internet. Short of jumping on a plane, the best way to expand our culinary horizons…

We have to come clean. We’re hoarding olive oil. Did you know that prices are at a 26 year high? Maybe you’ve noticed them trend through the roof over the last 12 months or so – you can largely blame a two year drought in Spain, the world’s biggest producer, for this…

A classic Chinese dish from the cookbook Bao Family by Céline Chung. These tasty dumplings are simple to make and well-loved…

A popular Chinese dish from the cookbook Bao Family by Céline Chung. Tasty, simple to make, and packed with flavour…

“White pomfret was Amah’s favourite fish to eat, but it was really expensive. I knew every time we ate it something special had happened: maybe my dad had closed a business deal, maybe one of us got straight As at school or maybe it was for Lunar New Year. It was precious…

“Malaysian roast chicken has crispy, dark skin and lots of flavour from the five-spice and salt rub. Back in primary school, when my mum was working and it was just us boys and Dad, he would often ask, ‘Chicken rice tonight?’ It was always a big yes from us, and we’d go to the chicken rice shop near our house where…

“The quality of beef in Malaysia sucks, and my grandparents never ate beef because of their religious beliefs. One of the few times we ate it was at Kayu Nasi Kandar, a shop in Petaling Jaya that serves rice with a choice of curries on top. The rendang gravy at Kayu was delicious, but the beef was so tough and chewy…

If you’re going to make a meatloaf, you may as well make one with knobs on, no? That’s our philosophy anyway and the Sicilians, bless ‘em, agree; this dish is based on a homey Sicilian dish called polpettone. Which is simply Italian for ‘meatloaf’…

If tofu’s not your thing, maybe chicken is and you won’t notice there’s bean curd in the mix in this effortless Chinese-inspired dish. We genuinely love tofu, but totally get that some of you think it’s bland. TBH that’s kind of the point of tofu…

Oops. We’ve been doing pesto ALL WRONG. Well, pretty much wrong. We just heave all the ingredients into a food processor, blitz the hell out of them, then presto! Pesto!…

Darn. It’s back to reality with a dirty great thud after a glorious summer break, when we enjoy slumming it in the cooking department, letting our fresh produce purchases and whatever knocks around the fridge inform lazy dinner decisions. Very. Lazy. Dinner…

Inspired by a 2023 visit to the Veneto, this easy, summery chicken dish is a riff on the famous sarde in saor, a Venetian sweet-sour arrangement. Consisting of fresh, deep-fried sardines marinated in a vinegary mixture containing piles of tender, cooked onion, raisins and pine nuts…

“This recipe makes wings similar to the type you find at izakaya and kushikatsu (fried skewers) restaurants. After being fried, the wings are dipped into a sauce, which, naturally enough, slightly softens the crispness. The wings are at their absolute best eaten within 10 minutes of being fried and dipped but are delicious…

“If you’ve eaten KFC – Korean fried chicken – chances are high that the first version you tasted was the sweet and spicy Dakgangjeong or Yangnyeom. The two are very similar, but my Korean friends tell me that Dakgangjeong is sweeter and sticker, while Yangnyeom is spicier…

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…

I love the silky texture and fresh, sweet flavour of raw salmon, but of course I also love the dense, meaty flavour of grilled salmon – this delivers the best of both worlds, with tangy ponzu and hot green chillies to offset the richness of the fish…

We couldn’t do a cookbook without one of our all-time fave dinners in it. We have this at least once a week. It is utterly divine — soul food at its best. The mac is a great way to use up any random bits of cheese in the door of the fridge. We usually serve this with a tangy garden salad (for balance)…