Slow cooker spice-honey lamb shoulder with jewelled rice
There’s something lovely about slow-cooker cooking. It makes meat juicy and really concentrates flavours. It’s pretty much impossible to overcook meat using a slow-cooker and unless you leave the lid off yours and go walkabout for a few days, nothing ever burns in one either…
Everything-good-for-you lamb köfte soup
If you want a virtuous, nutritious soup, or you just want to make 300g of mince stretch a long way… you’ll love this Turkish-inspired number. It’s also great when you’re looking for an alternative to the ubiquitous veggie, barley and chicken (or ham) meal-in-a-bowl that turns up…
Smoked salmon, cabbage fritter and sour cream
It had to happen sooner or later; cabbage has officially entered the zeitgeist. Remember when cauliflower was suddenly a thing? Then Brussel’s sprouts? No? Well they were and now it’s cabbage’s turn to have a little moment. Cabbage is suddenly all the rage..
Roast capsicum, feta, olives and oregano
We’re doing our best to slip in as many vibrant veggie-based dishes as we can before the dark days of winter set in. Not that we have anything against braises, pies, soups, root veggies and all that comfort food you generally hoover through in winter. (Did someone say ‘roasted kūmara’?)…
Chicken schnitty tenders with caper mayo
We ask All The Questions around here. Such as, ‘what’s better than crumbed chicken?’ Parmesan-crumbed chicken, duh! And, ‘what's’ better than parmesan-crumbed chicken?’ DOUBLE parmesan-crumbed chicken, of course. That’s right…
Salmon fish cakes
Loads of cuisines have their take on a fish cake; in Thailand they're called tod mun pla and are infused with red curry paste; in Malaysia they’re called otak otak and involve grinding fish to a paste with coconut milk and spices, wrapping in banana leaves, then grilling. Delish…
Spinach and lemon orzo with lamb snags
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?” …
Stuffed meatloaf (Polpettone)
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’…
Blueberry scones
Oh, shoot… did we miss Valentine’s Day? Cue the mournful violins and activate the Sad Face emojis. 🎻😥 Just kidding; we don’t really give a rats about V. Day but hey. If you do, don’t let us rain on your chocolate/champers/Hallmark card parade!…
Fennel, egg and anchovy salad
Can we have a ‘heck yeah!’ from the crowd for the mighty mandoline? We love this labour-saving slicing device SO MUCH; it might well be our fave kitchen gizmo ever. It makes short work of precision cutting, giving prep that professional, consistently neat edge…
Quick-braised asparagus and lettuce (yes, really)
We heard you wanted some dead-easy sides for Christmas feasting. You didn’t? You’re getting some anyway. Such as this recipe from the ‘so-Frenchy-so-chic’ school of vegetable thought, which translates to not splashy, not majorly ‘on trend’…
Braised chicken marbella-style
1982 called and wants its chicken back… Chicken Marbella, to be exact. If you kids ever wondered how your forebears dinner-partied hard, look no further than this tasty relic from the beloved classic, The Silver Palate Cookbook…
Lemon sago
Here’s an old fashioned dessert that’s totally worth resurrecting. It’s the kind of thing popular in a previous epoch, when food options were more limited, everyone had a lemon tree, and people didn’t respond to the concept of sago with a screwed-up unhappy face…
Pea, kale and quinoa ‘tabbouleh’
Ah, quinoa. Remember the tiresome mania for quinoa? When the Western world ‘discovered’ it (despite about 7000 years of quinoa domestication) and hipsters practically snorted it for breakfast? Who can forget how the price for the poor bloody Bolivians, who rely on it as a nutrient-rich staple, went utterly bonkers? We hate food trends…
Lemon ricotta pasta with parmesan crumbs
Here’s a cheese-heavy pasta dish that’s the kind of simple thing to make when you can’t be arsed to properly cook… which, if you’re anything like us, is maybe quite often. All you do is cook some dried pasta (a tube-y one works great), then heave it into a large pan with some of the pasta cooking water, lemon, herbs, ricotta, a bit…
Braised celery with saffron, potatoes and green olives
“Ooh yum, celery for dinner!” Said no-one ever. But when a mighty pert bunch costs two bucks, we’ll give the what-the-heck-do-you-do-with-bulk-celery challenge a red hot go. Soup is the most obvious solution, but if it’s hot, that’s not really a G.O.. There’s only so much celery you can eat raw, so braising strikes us as a good way to go…