Trusted British chef recipes, tested at home
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, ginger and orange soup is a quick, soothing blended soup of baked sweet potato, fresh ginger, orange and a hit of cayenne. It serves 2 to 4, from her book Simply Nigella. She has it regularly for supper and makes life easier by keeping a stash of baked sweet potatoes in …
Nigella Lawson’s sticky toffee pudding is a deep, dark date sponge glazed and served with a rich muscovado toffee sauce. It makes 9 generous slabs, from her book At My Table. She calls it the glory of a sticky toffee pudding, and says her version is deeper and darker than the original: still sweet, but …
Nigella Lawson’s roast duck with orange, soy and ginger is a two-stage duck, steam-roasted then roasted hot, served with an aromatic orange, soy and ginger broth-gravy. It serves 4 to 6, from her book At My Table. She developed it to improve on her old How to Eat method, which involved poaching the ducks in …
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 red cabbage with cranberries is a long-braised, spiced red cabbage cooked with red onion, apple juice, cinnamon, cloves and a double hit of cranberries. It serves 8 to 10, from her book At My Table. She describes the sweetness of the braised cabbage as perfectly punctuated by the cheek-squeaky sharpness of the cranberries. …
Nigella Lawson’s roast red chicory is quartered red chicory roasted with olive oil, dry white vermouth and thyme until charred, wilted and mellowed. It serves 3 to 4, from her book At My Table. She’s firmly of the “bitter-is-better” school and says barely a week goes by without her cooking it, often just to let …
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 …