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Galettes au sarrasin, buckwheat crêpes, with a classic topping of ham, cheese and an egg. The type of pancakes best suited to savoury toppings, galettes from Brittany are healthy and easy to make.
Burger wellingtons with mushrooms and shallots wrapped in puff pastry, an easy version of beef Wellington. It’s a fancy dish for dummies, it’s your Valentine’s Day dinner this year.
Butter beans with ham hock, a slow cooked stew of incredible flavours and richness, the ultimate comfort dish.
Butter Stollen, German Christmas bread, at its most indulgent. Two kinds of Stollen in one recipe: packed with fruit and almonds, and swirled with smooth nut filling.
How to cook spinach? Simply, with lots of butter and thinly sliced garlic. Buttered spinach is a perfect side dish, healthy and ready in minutes.
Five-spice butternut squash in cheesy custard is precisely the treatment the squash needs to be a great dish. No surprise, it’s a recipe from Ottolenghi.
Looking for a delicious and healthy vegetarian dish? Try my cabbage and walnut casserole recipe! Baked with a savoury mixture of onions, spices and herbs, this comfort food is perfect for any occasion.
Cabbage lasagne, a vegetarian dish of pasta layered with a filling of lightly cooked cabbage with tomatoes. Surprisingly flavourful and delicious!
Camembert en croute: baked Camembert wrapped in homemade shortcrust pastry. A divine cheese parcel in cornmeal shortcrust with Cheddar and thyme. Who doesn't love baked cheese?
Homemade candied mixed orange and lemon peel is so gorgeous you might want to nibble on it instead of putting it into a fruitcake. So make twice as much!
Caramelised courgettes with basil and garlic: is it a sauce, a condiment, a side dish? All of those and more.
Cardamom cake with a crunchy almond bottom layer which turns into upside down topping, is a delicious, fragrant sponge lifted only with air beaten into the eggs and sugar mix.
Carrot cupcakes with orange buttercream frosting. Best cupcakes ever – adopted for Halloween because carrot cake mix is a/ comforting, b/ easy to make with kids...
Cassoulet - the ultimate comfort dish, with duck and pork. Pork belly provided the fat, a little bacon a little smokiness; and I sprinkled breadcrumbs over the casserole as well as the serving bowls.
Cauliflower cheese with spices, garlic and creamy sauce. Interesting thing about comfort foods is that they usually tend to be quite bland. I guess when it's cold outside or you're feeling a bit down you don't fancy stimulating senses too much.
Celeriac gratin - thinly sliced celeriac baked in cream, garlic and Gruyère cheese sauce. Adding cheesy sauce to most veg transforms them into something delishhh so celeriac gratin will work even for people not that keen on the knobbly brute.
Vegetarian Wellington, with mushroom and spinach layer around baked celeriac centre. Easy to make ahead, even easier to make it vegan: just use vegan pastry and skip the butter.
Celeriac, carrot and apple remoulade with creme fraiche and wholegrain mustard dressing is a seasonal winter salad and a great side dish for seafood.
Fresh chanterelles sautéed in a little butter, piled on thick slices of toasted bread, make lunch, starter or a snack fit for gods. Scottish or French chanterelles, sunny yellow wild mushrooms, are autumn’s best.
The best cheese fondue, smooth as velvet and comforting as a blanket. This tastes absolutely fantastic. And so it should – it’s Heston’s recipe from the book ‘Heston Blumenthal at home’.
Sweetcorn tart with cheese topping on a crusty, cheesy base of pizza dough. Vegetarian and gorgeous, for lunch or dinner. Shop bough dough is OKAY.
Indulgent cherry jam with preserved chunks of cherries. The best thing about eating cherries is spitting out the pips, right ahead, no matter where.
Pork, chestnut and mushroom stuffing for turkey or goose, perfect Christmas trimming. But don't stuff the bird - cook the stuffing separately to ensure both cook evenly.
Chicken Fiorentina, or petto di pollo alla fiorentina. Chicken Florentine style, with creamy spinach sauce, is an easy and incredibly tasty dish, ready in minutes.
Roast chicken with seared halloumi cheese and peach salsa is the perfect warm salad with sweet and spicy combination of flavours.
Chicken and mushroom pie with cheddar and thyme homemade crust. I think I’ve achieved almost perfection here, below, with my cheddar thyme pastry packed with chicken and porcini mix cooked from scratch.
Chicken and prawn paella, an absolutely foolproof recipe. For best results use paella rice, Bomba or Calasparra and an ordinary large frying pan.
Chicken saltimbocca, thin escalopes of chicken fillet layered with sage leaves, Parmesan and Parma ham. Saltimbocca is classically made with veal but the chicken version is easier and delicious.
Roast chicken breast with butter fried spicy sweetcorn and crispy baked feta cheese crumbs, three great recipes in one wonderful dish.
Chicken with grapes and olives oven baked with a few chestnut mushrooms looks autumnal and tastes divine. Sweet and salty combo is not just for caramel ice cream, you see!
Traditional recipe for chocolate covered lebkuchen or gingerbreads. Chocolate coated and with jam filling, they are soft and indulgent. And the fun of dipping cookies in melted chocolate is the spirit of Christmas!
Chocolate genoise sponge cake with raspberry flavoured buttercream and whipped chocolate ganache frosting is the perfect birthday, holiday or any celebration cake.
Chocolate hot cross buns with sticky glaze and white chocolate crosses are messy to eat, difficult to toast and absolutely irresistible this Easter! Flavoured with cocoa and of course the 'hot' spice mix, with a crunch of cacao nibs.
The easiest chocolate mousse dessert, whipped ganache flavoured with Grand Marnier. I’m offering the grownup version here: darkest chocolate, Grand Marnier; but it’s made just as well with milk chocolate and no alcohol, or even white chocolate (skip sugar in both cases).
Traditional Christmas fruitcake, my family recipe going back three generations. Polish Christmas keks, teacake or fruitcake, is lighter and more delicate than its English counterpart, though its name is derived from English Christmas cake.
A different take on a Christmas pudding, with carrots and dates, baked instead of steamed. A cross between a carrot and date cake, a lighter sticky toffee pudding, baked not steamed, sauce still served – this is the one to try.
Christmas Stollen with homemade marzipan. Stollen tastes absolutely divine when still warm from the oven but it keeps very well. The German Christmas bread symbolised baby Jesus swaddled in clothing
Dutch gingerbread biscuits, speculaasbrokken, thick and chunky. They are the easiest Christmas cookies, baked in a large slab decorated with almonds.
Chunky ratatouille with chicken pieces, a perfect wholesome and easy one-pot meat-and-veg dish braised in the oven. And it’s just as nice on the following day!
Wholemeal cider bread with chunks of apples. They allegedly came up with this bread in Normandy but I think anyone could do it: just have a drop of cider (or calvados) and decide you’ll chuck all those apples into the bread do, for a prank.
Cinnamon twist star bread, inspired by kanelbullar, Swedish cinnamon buns. A giant kanelbulle twisted into a star bread shape, with cinnamon, apple and chocolate fillings. It tastes as good as pretty it looks!
Cold brewed delicious coffee for a smooth iced drink. Cold brewing works, the coffee is tasty and slightly less bitter than hot-brewed; it’s damn refreshing on a hot day and it miles healthier than any iced concoction bought from Starbucks or Costa.
Colomba di Pasqua, Easter Dove is the traditional Italian cake baked for Easter in cases shaped like a dove. A gorgeous, almond studded and orange flavoured colomba is perfect for Easter Sunday.
Slow roasted tomato confit. It brings out the flavour hidden deep when it comes to those plasticky looking imported fruits. It’s a slow job – the longer the better. They should still retain their shape but become very soft and quite a bit darker in colour.
Corn on the cob with tahini butter: steamed to perfection in the microwave, slathered with tahini butter, the easiest and the tastiest ear of sweetcorn you’ll ever have tried!
Corn ribs from the oven, with homemade dukkah, just like the ones served at Ottolenghi’s Rovi. It’s totally a snack du moment – and de toujours, I hope.
Savoury courgette wheat and rye bread with Parmesan, it is perfectly good for slicing, buttering, and turning into ham sandwiches.
Couscous with asparagus chunks, toasted pistachio nuts and fresh herbs, it’s a warm salad of perfectly matching ingredients.