Trusted British chef recipes, tested at home
Nigella Lawson’s brownies are a big-batch traybake with a crinkled, paler top and a dark, dense, gooey middle, built on dark chocolate, butter, walnuts and six eggs. They bake at 180°C for about 25 minutes and cut into 48. She frames them as a birthday cake in How To Be A Domestic Goddess (2000), an …
Nigella Lawson’s banana bread is a soft, dense loaf built on very ripe bananas, walnuts and sultanas soaked in dark rum. It bakes low at 170°C for one to one and three-quarter hours and gives you 8 to 10 slices. She calls it the first recipe anyone nervous about baking should try, and rates it …
Nigella Lawson’s steak with anchovy elixir is rare rump, sliced thin and dribbled with a grey sauce of salt-packed anchovies, garlic, lemon and olive oil. The steak takes three minutes a side, the elixir about ten minutes, and it makes roughly 350ml. She calls it “the very apogee of anchovydom” in Cook, Eat, Repeat (2020), …
Nigella Lawson’s gemelli with anchovies, tomato and mascarpone is a creamy, tangy, gently spiced pasta that comes together in the time it takes the pasta to boil. Anchovies melt into the oil, cherry tomatoes break down into a sauce, and mascarpone pulls it all into silky richness. It serves two and takes about 15 minutes. …
Nigella Lawson’s pasta risotto cooks orzo like a risotto, straight in the pan with its water, so the starch stays in and makes its own creamy sauce. Crisp pancetta and sweet peas run through it, finished with butter and Parmesan. It serves two hungry adults or four small children and takes about 15 minutes in …
Nigella Lawson’s chocolate raspberry pudding cake sits somewhere between a dense chocolate cake and a warm mousse, with sharp raspberries buried inside like garnets in mud. Dark chocolate, coffee and a splash of Chambord make it rich and grown-up. It serves eight and is best eaten warm, about an hour out of the oven. The …
Nigella Lawson’s prodigious pavlova is a giant billowing meringue, crisp outside and marshmallow-soft within, piled with softly whipped cream and a tumble of passionfruit, lychees and raspberry sauce. The tropical fruit cuts through the sweetness. It makes 14 generous slices and needs an hour in the oven plus cooling. The recipe is from Nigella Christmas, …
Nigella Lawson’s ginger and walnut carrot cake is a single-layer, oil-based sponge packed with grated carrot, crumbled walnuts and finely chopped crystallised ginger. It’s topped with a ginger-spiked cream cheese icing, on top only, not through the middle. It cuts into 8 to 12 slices and bakes at 170C for around 50 minutes. The recipe …
Nigella Lawson’s chicken with red grapes and Marsala pan-fries chicken supremes until the skin is golden, then roasts them with grapes in a Marsala, stock and mustard sauce. The grapes soften and burst, sweetening a rich, savoury syrup. It serves two and takes about half an hour, most of it hands-off in the oven. The …
Nigella Lawson’s black pudding meatballs mix minced beef with crumbled black pudding, herbs and a little chilli, then simmer them in a deep tomato and Worcestershire sauce. The black pudding makes them richer and more savoury than a plain beef meatball. It serves four to six and takes about an hour and a quarter start …
