Trusted British chef recipes, tested at home
Nigella Lawson’s chicken in a pot with lemon and orzo is a one-pot poached chicken cooked whole with leeks, carrots, lemon and tarragon, then finished with orzo swelling in the broth. A 1.5kg bird sits in 1.5 litres of water at 180°C (160°C fan) for 1¼ hours, then 15 minutes more once the orzo goes …
Nigella Lawson’s brown butter colcannon mash is her take on the Irish classic of mashed potato and kale, enriched with 150g of butter cooked to a nutty beurre noisette. It uses skin-on Rooster potatoes, full-fat milk, kale and spring onions, serves four to six, and the potatoes boil whole for anywhere from 40 minutes to …
Nigella Lawson’s Norwegian pork ribs are a slow-roasted slab of bone-in pork belly, rubbed with a green paste of garlic, juniper and dill, cooked until the meat is meltingly tender and the rind shatters into crackling. It roasts across three temperature stages over roughly three hours, and a 3kg joint serves four to six with …
Nigella Lawson’s Linzer cookies are jam-filled sandwich biscuits made from a short dough of ground toasted hazelnuts, butter, plain flour and a whisper of cinnamon. They bake at 180°C (160°C fan) for just 9-10 minutes, and the recipe makes 28 finished cookies with redcurrant jelly and raspberry jam glinting through the cut-out tops. The recipe …
Nigella Lawson’s rhubarb and custard trifle layers vermouth-soaked sponges, roasted pink forced rhubarb, homemade vanilla custard and softly whipped cream in one glass bowl. The rhubarb roasts at 200°C (180°C fan) for 30 minutes, the custard takes about 5 minutes on the hob, and the assembled trifle chills overnight. The recipe comes from Cook, Eat, …
Nigella Lawson’s luscious vegan gingerbread is a dark, sticky, deeply spiced tray cake made with golden syrup, black treacle, muscovado and oat milk, with finely chopped prunes standing in for the eggs. It bakes at 170°C for 50 to 55 minutes and cuts into 12 to 18 pieces. She’s openly proud of this one in …
Nigella Lawson’s vegan lemon polenta cake is a flat, syrup-soaked cake built on ground almonds and fine polenta, using light olive oil and almond-soy yogurt where the original had butter and eggs. It bakes at 180°C for about 40 minutes, gives 8 to 12 slices, and is naturally gluten-free. The story behind it, told in …
Nigella Lawson’s New Year doughnuts are Dutch oliebollen, little yeasted dough balls made with a nutmeg-and-lemon-scented batter, fried at 180°C for about 5 minutes until crisp outside and soft within, then dusted with icing sugar. The batter proves for around 1¼ hours. She frames them in Cook, Eat, Repeat (2020) as her way of celebrating …
Nigella Lawson’s fish finger bhorta cooks onions, chilli, ginger and garlic down soft, then folds oven-crisped fish fingers through the pan with English mustard, spinach, lime and coriander. The fish fingers bake at 220°C for 20 to 25 minutes, and it serves two with leftovers. The recipe isn’t hers by invention, and she says so …
Nigella Lawson’s spaghetti carbonara tosses spaghetti with crisp pancetta, egg yolk, a whole egg and parmesan, loosened by a splash of dry white vermouth reduced down with the bacon fat. It serves two, or one very hungry person, in about 15 minutes. She calls it her favourite, “along with all my other favourites,” in How …
