Trusted British chef recipes, tested at home
Nigella Lawson’s crunchy chicken cutlets are flattened chicken escalopes coated in mustard, cinnamon and crushed cornflakes, fried crisp and served with rocket, tomatoes and lemon. It serves 2, from her book Simply Nigella. She says she could have called them Cornflake-Crunchy Chicken Cutlets, since the crisp coating comes not from breadcrumbs but from cornflakes. That’s …
Nigella Lawson’s chicken and wild rice is a warmly spiced one-pot of chicken thighs and wild rice, studded with dried cranberries and cooked in the oven in turmeric-golden stock. It serves 6, from her book Simply Nigella. She’s cooked a version of it for years, and only on returning to a scribbled note recently realised …
Nigella Lawson’s apricot almond cake is a moist, fragrant, flourless cake of ground almonds and polenta, scented with cardamom and rosewater and studded with soft dried apricots. It cuts into 8 to 10 slices, from her book Simply Nigella. She calls it her idea of a perfect cake: simple, beautiful, fragrant and beguiling, and invitingly …
Nigella Lawson’s simple salsa is a warm, cooked tomato salsa simmered with red onion, garlic, cumin and plenty of jalapeño. It makes enough for 6 to 8 people to dip into over drinks, from her book Simply Nigella. As far as she’s concerned, you can never go wrong with a simple, spiky salsa and a …
Nigella Lawson’s triple chocolate buckwheat cookies are rich, gluten-free chocolate cookies made with nutty buckwheat flour, cocoa, melted dark chocolate and chocolate chips. The batch makes about 25, from her book Simply Nigella. She calls them a prime example of “procrastibaking”, a term she credits to Aya Reina: she first made them during the Simply …
Nigella Lawson’s sweet potato tacos are warm corn tortillas filled with spiced roasted sweet potato wedges, shredded lettuce and gherkins, a creamy avocado-coriander sauce and a fresh tomato-and-pear relish. It serves 3 to 4, from her book At My Table. She’s firmly in the soft-shell camp: given the choice between a crisp, curled-up taco-boat and …
Nigella Lawson’s rose and pepper pavlova is a marshmallow-bellied meringue subtly spiced with black pepper and rosewater, topped with whipped cream, passionfruit-macerated strawberries and their juice. It serves 8 to 12, from her book At My Table. The flavours sound bold but taste delicate. The idea came from her maternal grandfather, who ate strawberries with …
Nigella Lawson’s golden garlic mayonnaise is a quick, saffron-tinted, garlicky mayonnaise made in one minute with a stick blender. It makes about 250ml, from her book At My Table. She grew up making proper mayonnaise by hand under her mother’s strict instructions, and long felt doing it any other way was sacrilegious. Then she found …
Nigella Lawson’s forgotten cookies are a cross between a meringue and a cookie, flavoured with cardamom and studded with chocolate chips and pistachios. The batch makes 12 to 14, from her book At My Table. A friend described them as tasting like a cookie within a cookie, and at home they’re known as “Merookies”, immensely …
Nigella Lawson’s chicken with red grapes and Marsala is a pan-roasted chicken supper for two, with golden crisp-skinned chicken, sweet roasted grapes and a mustardy Marsala sauce scented with thyme. It serves 2, from her book At My Table. She calls it the perfect autumnal supper, brimming with mellow fruitfulness, the muskiness of the Marsala …