Perfect for cherry season, this rich tart serves a LOT of people as it’s quite lavish, so it’s an excellent option to serve to a crowd. All it needs as an accompaniment is a good splodge of whipped cream, and it's good to go…

In a world choking on food trends, we can almost hear you yawn at the mere mention of panforte. But panforte doesn’t care about going viral on The Tok – it’s so above all that noise. It’s as eternal as Siena’s cobbles and is never flashy, never out of date. Dense, chewy, spiced and totally delicious, we make batches for edible gifts at Christmas time because it’s way less hassle than…

We know that absolutely nothing beats a serve of blanched, new season’s asparagus, and we like ours piled on a platter with some crisp, golden, olive-y crumbs for a bit of crunchy-salty contrast.

Move over, mince pies! Well, maybe not… after all, absolutely nothing beats that melty, gooey, fruity goodness of a superlative Christmas mince pie. Sometimes though, you don’t have the time to make these; they’re really only super-good if you make everything from scratch, including the pastry…

When time’s short, we pimp like crazy. And nothing begs pimping more than a tub of hummus… and look, you could make your own for this recipe if you liked. But we’re cheating like hell here because we’re all out of time this week and we’re rooting for Team Easy. You just grab a half kilo of lamb (or beef) mince, give it a hard sear, amp it up with spices, a slosh of pomegranate molasses and…

“My favourite kind of Indian desserts are custards and creams. I can remember savouring silky smooth shrikhand and rich warm kheer during big holiday dinner. Possets give me the same type of feel. They are a citrus-flavoured (usually lemon) dessert that has a texture similar to pudding or pot de crème but without eggs…”

“Dirty chai is a chai with a shot of espresso, and it’s what kept me going through grad school. The combination of chai spices, milky black tea, and bitter coffee is stellar. You can make this semi-homemade if you’re short on time by using boxed brownie mix. I promise I won’t judge…”

“My mom has an intense green thumb, and her pride and joy is her night-blooming jasmine. Summer nights were spent sitting outside basking in the aroma of jasmine while eating freshly cut fruit from my dad. This tiramisu is an edible version of those memories, and it’s made with ladyfingers that are soaked in a delicate jasmine tea and layered with ripe strawberries and a velvety…”

Semolina—yeah, we get it, it’s a bit of a love-hate thing. And we know why: flashbacks to dodgy school puddings that were overly sweet, gloopy, and borderline inedible. One of our grandmothers, for reasons that still mystify us, used lemon essence in her semolina despite having a fruit-laden lemon tree right outside her kitchen window. Go figure…

Spring greens! Creamy buttermilk dressing! Poached chicken! All the Spring Things! If we lost you at ‘poached chicken’, hear us out. We’ve legit found a way to poach chicken breast fillets so they don’t turn into tasteless cardboard and it’s super, super easy. Happily for the busy cook, it even involves an amount of neglect. Here’s the scoop…

“This tart-ified version of a carrot cake might not be an obvious classic, but it belongs in this chapter as a great foundational recipe for the tarts in our ‘Not Your Average Tarts’ chapter. The cream cheese glaze is what makes this one special – it’s designed to taste the same as a typical cream cheese frosting and to sit perfectly flat across the top of the tart…”

“Being a travelling monk in sixteenth-century Sicily couldn’t have been easy. During Lent, the season of austerity preceding Easter, monks were expected to hike on foot day after day for forty days, ministering to the faithful across the land. Although they were able to stop at monasteries for sustenance, eating meat was prohibited…”

“Unusually for an Asian nation, the Vietnamese have a fondness for coffee – a taste they acquired from their French colonisers. (Interestingly, Vietnam supplies the world coffee trade with much of its robusta beans, most of which end up as instant coffee.) The left-over syrup keeps well and tastes delicious spooned over ice-cream.”

Let’s talk skordalia – part sauce, part dip, and all kinds of delicious. The name comes from the Greek word skordo (σκόρδο), meaning garlic, which tells you everything you need to know… if you don’t like garlic, trust us when we tell you this isn’t for you so just jog on. Creamy, rich and punchy…

Are you a Christmas cake procrastinator? Do you start every festive season intending to make a gloriously boozy, fruit-packed cake, the kind that you make on Labour Day and put away to beautifully age? Only to realise it's nearly December already and you don’t have so much as a single raisin in the house or the correct sized tin…

If you’re missing the ‘easy cheesy’ in your life, these fritters are here to sort you! Packed with sweet peas, fresh mint, and two kinds of cheese, they’re the ultimate light spring dish. And let’s take a moment to appreciate the humble frozen pea – the unsung hero of the freezer aisle. Picked at their peak and frozen in a flash, they bring that vibrant pop of green yumness to any dish…

“Being a travelling monk in sixteenth-century Sicily couldn’t have been easy. During Lent, the season of austerity preceding Easter, monks were expected to hike on foot day after day for forty days, ministering to the faithful across the land. Although they were able to stop at monasteries for sustenance, eating meat was prohibited…”

“If you’ve been to the Caffè Sicilia in Noto, it’s likely you’ve had your way with a warm brioche dipped into a bowl of slushy granita di mandorle made with freshly pressed almond milk. It’s a deliciously fragrant contrast of textures and temperatures. Although they call it a granita, it’s more like a cremolata. Unlike granita, where you want a bit of crunch…”

“There’s an excellent Sicilian pasticceria in my neighborhood in Brooklyn called Monteleone, owned by a man who was born and raised in Sicily. His pastries taste as authentic as any you’ll find in Sicily and, lucky for all of us, he makes cuccidati year-round, not just at Christmas time. (That’s when he makes a larger, ring-shaped version called buccellati, or bracelets.)…”

Pickled salmon; we’re making this for Christmas! It’s a vibrant and tangy dish that brings together the best of two worlds: spanking fresh salmon and the bold punch of pickling. Historically, pickled fish was an excellent way to preserve fresh catches before refrigeration, making it a staple in colder climates (like Scandinavian countries) where fresh food…