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For me, focusing on how I cook means turning off other things like TV or music, following each task with dedication, taking as much care as I have time to do. To appreciate and even, if I don’t sound like too much of a hippy, marvel at my ingredients, our natural treasures. Make sure you take time to smell, taste and immerse yourself in the amazing process of cooking, and then finish it by putting the food on each plate with care if you can. When I cook like this I find it soothing, rewarding and everything I cook tastes better.
Our state of mind as we eat has a huge effect on how we digest our food and how we take in the nutrients and energy from it. Stress and anxiety around food and eating is something I try to avoid in my recipes and in my kitchen. I truly believe that a pizza and a beer enjoyed in good spirits, slowly and calmly with friends, can be as nourishing as endless green smoothies, which are inhaled on the run or sipped while reading emails at our desks with no real thought about the true meaning of nourishment. We’ve lost the connection with how we eat our food, the emotions going on around eating and the sense of offering that comes with feeding ourselves. I don’t manage it every time I eat but a couple of seconds to slow down and be thankful for the food on my plate before diving in seems to set a good tone for the meal and often allows me to appreciate the flavours, textures and sensations a little more.
A few observations on cooking and eating mindfully and with grace
— Turn off music, radio and phones, if you can, so that you can focus on all the sensations of cooking.
— Try to notice the little things – the colour change in the skin of a peach, the tiny pores on the skin of an orange, the condensation on the lid of a pan.
— Notice the sounds – the sizzle of frying, the bubbling of a pot. These tell you as much about what you are cooking and where you are in the process as anything you can see.
— Follow the process with all your senses, smell the changes as ingredients are added, feel how a mixture firms up as you stir it, notice the change in colour as you fry or blanch. And notice how you feel, whether ingredients or smells bring up memories or emotions.
— Try and keep your attention totally focused on your food and if your mind wanders, don’t worry, just bring it back to the food.
— Tune in to even the most mundane parts of the job – peeling carrots, picking herbs – immersing yourself totally in the detail of each task will allow you to switch off from other pressures.
Broken eggs with cavolo nero, ricotta and chickpeas
Broken eggs are somewhere between scrambled and poached eggs. They cook gently in the pan with a couple of turns of the spoon, then finish their cooking at the table. A heavy or cast-iron frying pan is great here, as it holds on to the heat better.
I first ate eggs like this at Raw Duck, a favourite breakfast spot near where I live. Cooking eggs this way means the last bit of cooking is controlled at the table, which means no overcooked, rubbery eggs, and that you can spoon them out when they are cooked just as you like, leaving some in the pan for people who like their eggs less runny.
You can use kale or any greens you have, and any other beans would work in place of the chickpeas – if they are home-cooked so much the better. A scattering of toasted almonds or hazelnuts or even dukkah would be welcome here too.
SERVES 4
1 head of cavolo nero (about 300g)
olive oil
1 x 400g tin of chickpeas, drained (or about 250g home-cooked – see here)
1 clove of garlic, thinly sliced
1 red chilli, finely chopped
the juice of 1 unwaxed lemon and the zest from half
a good grating of nutmeg
6 medium organic eggs
4 rounds of toast or toasted flatbreads, to serve
100g ricotta or thick Greek yoghurt
Strip the leaves from the cavolo nero, shredding any larger ones. Finely chop the stalks, discarding any really thick sinewy ones.
Heat a heavy, ideally cast-iron, medium frying pan (about 28cm) on a medium heat. Add a little olive oil, then the chickpeas, cook for a couple of minutes to crisp a little, then add the chopped cavolo nero stalks, garlic and chilli. Cook for another few minutes until the stalks are tender and the garlic has started to brown, then add the leaves. Add the lemon juice, zest, a good pinch of salt and pepper and the nutmeg, then cook for 4–5 minutes until the cavolo nero leaves have softened.
Next break each egg into a bowl and get your flatbreads or toast ready. Spoon the ricotta into the pan, dotting it around, then pour the eggs one by one gently on top of the cavolo nero mixture. Keep the pan on the heat and gently stir the eggs a couple of times, just to break them a little. You want the whites and yolks to stay separate, not to mix them together as you would with scrambled eggs. Quickly take the pan off the heat and carry it to the table along with a wooden spoon; the residual heat of the pan will continue to cook the eggs. Use the wooden spoon and continue to stir until the eggs are set to your liking, I like mine to be soft and curdy. Serve right away with charred flatbreads or hot toast.
Twice-baked potato skins with crispy buffalo chickpeas
These double-baked potato skins bring back childhood memories of American diners but, rather than the inch-deep cheese, these are piled high with spicy baked chickpeas, which pick up a pleasing crunch in the oven, and a grown-up ‘sour cream’ dip. I make the dip using cashews, which I blitz to a cream, but you can use yoghurt instead of the cashews if you’d prefer. I serve these with a salad for dinner but they would be great as a party snack if you used smaller potatoes. Kids love them if you go easy on the spice.
SERVES 4
4 medium baking potatoes
olive oil
1 red onion, finely chopped
1 stick of celery, finely chopped (reserving the inner leaves)
1 teaspoon smoked sweet paprika
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
2 x 400g tins of chickpeas or other white beans, drained (or 500g home-cooked chickpeas, see here)
200ml passata or blitzed tinned tomatoes
a pinch of dried chilli flakes (I use a generous pinch of a mild Turkish variety called pul biber)
a small bunch of flat-leaf parsley, leaves picked
FOR THE DIP
100g cashew nuts, soaked in cold water for about an hour or 150ml thick Greek yoghurt
the zest and juice of 1 unwaxed lemon
a small bunch of chives, chopped
Preheat the oven to 200ºC/180ºC fan/gas 6. Set up two oven racks in the middle of the oven. Wash and dry the potatoes, prick with a fork and rub with a little olive oil, then sprinkle over some salt and rub in with your hands. Place the potatoes directly on the top oven rack. Bake them until they feel tender and the skin is crisp, about 1–1½ hours.
While the potatoes are baking, get on with the chickpeas. Heat a pan on a medium heat. Pour in a little olive oil, add the onion and cook for 10 minutes, until soft, then add the celery, paprika, cumin and garlic and cook for another 10–15 minutes until soft and sticky.
Add the chickpeas, passata and chilli and stir again. Season with a little salt and pepper and cook for another 10 minutes, until the passata has thickened and it has all come together nicely. While the chickpeas are cooking, make the dip. If you are using the cashews, drain them and put them into a blender with 5 tablespoons of cold water and blitz until very smooth, then mix with the other ingredients. If using yoghurt, simply mix everything together.
Once the potatoes are baked and cool enough for you to handle them, cut them in half lengthwise. Lay the halves on a baking tray. Scoop out a couple of tablespoons of potato from each half, season the inside of the potato with salt and drizzle with olive oil.
Save the scooped out potato for another meal. Divide the chickpeas between the potatoes and bake in the oven for another 10 minutes so that the chickpeas crisp a little. Serve each potato topped with the parsley and celery leaves and the dip.
Caper, herb and egg flatbreads
This recipe is really quick to make and is one of the most flavourful fast lunches I know. Corn tortillas crisped and filled with egg, herbs and some punch from capers and cornichons; it’s a recipe that crosses continents, but that’s often how I cook. It’s as quick as making a sandwich, and while we eat this all year round it’s something I make most often in the winter, when I want food from the stovetop and warmth. It is loosely based on a much-cooked recipe from my friend Heidi Swanson.
This recipe serves two as a lunch or light dinner, but scale it up as you need. For the herbs I use dill and basil, but mint, tarragon, parsley and chives would all work too. I buy large corn tortillas online from a good Mexican supplier (the Cool Chile company: coolchile.co.uk); the standard ones in the shops just aren’t the same. Flour tortillas will work well here too.
SERVES 2 AS A LIGHT MEAL
200g thick Greek yoghurt
1 unwaxed lemon
2 avocados
2 organic eggs
olive oil
2 medium corn or flour tortillas or wraps (about 12cm)
a few sprigs of soft herbs (see note above), chopped
2 tablespoons small capers
a few cornichons, roughly chopped
25g freshly grated Parmesan (I use a vegetarian one)
First, in a bowl mix the yoghurt with the grated zest and juice of half the lemon, a pinch of sea salt and a good grind of black pepper.
Cut the avocados into quarters and remove the stones, then cut each one down to the skin in thin slices. Squeeze over the juice from the remaining lemon half and set aside. Beat the eggs in a little cup with a pinch of salt.
It’s best to cook the tortillas one by one. Heat a frying pan big enough to fit your tortilla over a medium heat. Add a tiny splash of olive oil, then add half the egg and let it set into a kind of pancake for 10–15 seconds. Working quickly, place a tortilla on top of the egg; you want the egg still to be a bit runny so that it will attach itself to the tortilla as it sets. When the egg has set, use a spatula to turn the whole thing over, sprinkle over half the herbs, half the capers and cornichons and half the cheese. Cook until the cheese has melted. Repeat this process for the second tortilla.
To serve, fold the tortillas in half and top with the yoghurt and slices of the avocado. To make a meal of them, serve with a little lemon-dressed green salad.
Beetroot and mustard seed fritters with cardamom yoghurt
This time of year gets a tough write-up; grey, dark and rainy, and yes, sometimes it is. But my kitchen is filled with arguably the most colourful produce of the year: blood oranges, pink radicchio and creamy Castelfranco, splattered with pink like a Jackson Pollock painting. There is so much deep red, orange, pink and scarlet.
Beetroots too, in all their colours: neon yellow, bright burnt orange, candy-cane stripes and of course the deep magenta of the red beets. You can use any beetroot you like for these spiced fritters; I often make them with ready-cooked ones.
Vegans can add some extra flour and a tablespoon of chia seeds mixed with 3 tablespoons of water in place of the egg, and use coconut yoghurt.
SERVES 4
1 x 400g tin or jar of chickpeas, drained (or 250g home-cooked, see here)
coconut or groundnut oil
2 teaspoons mustard seeds
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
250g cooked beetroot, peeled
2 tablespoons chopped coriander
2 spring onions, chopped
the zest and juice of ½ an unwaxed lemon
1 organic egg
FOR THE YOGHURT SAUCE
2 cardamom pods
150g thick Greek yoghurt
the zest and juice of ½ an unwaxed lemon
TO SERVE (OPTIONAL)
chapatis or flatbreads
a few handfuls of green salad leaves
First, put two thirds of the chickpeas into a food processor and pulse until you have a rough paste, Roughly squash the remainder with a fork so they break into smaller pieces.
Next, make the yoghurt sauce. Bash the cardamom pods to remove the seeds, then lightly toast the seeds in a dry frying pan over a medium heat. Grind in a pestle and mortar until you have a fine powder. Transfer this to a bowl, add the yoghurt, lemon zest and juice and a good pinch of salt to taste. Stir well and put to one side.
Put the frying pan back on the heat, add a splash of oil, then add the mustard and cumin seeds. When the mustard seeds begin to pop and start to smell more fragrant, tip them into a mixing bowl.
Grate the beetroot using a coarse grater, then squeeze the beetroot to remove excess liquid and transfer to a mixing bowl with the seeds. Add the other fritter ingredients, season with salt and pepper and mix well. Using the palms of your hands, take heaped tablespoons of the mixture and shape into small fritters (about 12). Put a little oil into a large frying pan and place it on a medium heat. Fry some of the fritters for 2–3 minutes on each side, until golden brown. Transfer to a plate lined with kitchen paper and repeat with the rest.
Serve warm with the cardamom yoghurt, some green leaves and chapatis or flatbreads.
Gentle potato chowder with toasted chilli oil
This soup is like yin and yang: a very gentle, warming potato chowder, cooked in milk, with lentils for sustenance, that I top with a searing chilli and toasted almond oil. The oil sits on top of the white soup like lava, a serious punch of toasty fire. It’s one of the most comforting soups and warms you right down to your toes.
I use ancho chilli flakes. Ancho is a lot milder and has a more rounded, complex, dried fruit flavour than the supermarket dried chilli flakes, which can just add heat, so if you are using those I would suggest a teaspoon, unless you like things very hot. The chilli oil makes more oil than you need but keeps for months. It can be made in the time it takes to simmer the soup, but shop-bought chilli oil will stand in.
SERVES 4
25g unsalted butter or 2 tablespoons coconut oil
2 leeks, washed, trimmed and cut into 1cm-thick rounds
2 tablespoons flour (I use spelt)
1 tablespoon vegetable stock powder or 1 stock cube
800g floury potatoes, peeled and cut into rough chunks
300ml whole milk or soy milk
1 x 400g tin of green lentils, drained (or 250g home-cooked, see here)
FOR THE CHILLI OIL
2 red chillies
1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon dried chilli flakes (see note above)
2 cloves of garlic
1 heaped tablespoon almonds
200ml mild-flavoured oil (light olive or rapeseed)
Fill and boil a kettle. In a medium-large pot, melt the butter over a medium heat. Add the leeks with a pinch of salt, lower the heat and cook, stirring occasionally, until they are soft and sweet; this should take about 10 minutes.
Stir in the flour and allow to cook for another minute or so to get rid of the raw flour flavour. Gradually add 600ml of hot water from the kettle, a bit at a time, then add the stock powder or cube. Add the potatoes and bring the mixture to a simmer. Cook until the potatoes are cooked through, which should take about 25 minutes, making sure you stir the soup from time to time to stop it sticking.
Meanwhile, make the chilli oil. Put the fresh and dried chilli and garlic into a food processor and pulse until fine, then add the almonds, a good pinch of salt and a generous amount of black pepper. Pulse again, put the lot into a small saucepan with the oil and cook slowly for 10 minutes or so, until everything is toasted and golden, then remove from the heat and set aside. The oil can be used warm (not hot) on your soup. The leftovers should be left to cool completely, then stored in a jar in the fridge for up to 3 months.
Back to the soup. Add the milk to the pot, stir in the lentils, and heat until the milk is just simmering. Serve the soup ladled into deep bowls, topped with a slick of the chilli oil.
Kimchi and miso noodle soup
I make kimchi purely so that I can make this soup. It is clean-tasting and enlivening, nicely sharp with spice and the mellow vinegary punch of the kimchi. I don’t care much for kimchi on its own (John eats it by the jar), but I do think that it is an incredible ingredient to use as a flavourful base for stews, in dressings, and in wraps and sandwiches. The amount of kimchi that you use is quite dependent on how strong it is. My home-made one (here) is quite mellow but shop-bought ones can be much more potent, so taste it first and use your tastebuds as a guide, adding more if you need.
I cook with miso a lot and it happens to be really good for you too. I learned recently that if you heat it too much it loses a lot of its goodness, so now, when I can, I mix it with a little of the liquid I am adding it to, then stir it in at the end like a seasoning and don’t cook it for ages.
I have used gochujang paste here, which is a fermented chilli paste from Korea with complex flavours. It’s getting easier to find and it does add an extra edge to the soup. If you can’t get the paste, dried chilli works just fine. Do be careful to check the paste’s ingredients list, as some varieties contain ingredients I’d rather not eat!
SERVES 4
200g Asian mushrooms (enoki, shimeji, shiitake, oyster)
1 tablespoon tamari or soy sauce, plus a little extra to season and serve
juice of ½ a lemon
2 tablespoons runny honey or agave nectar
250g soba noodles (I use 100 per cent buckwheat ones)
3 tablespoons sesame oil
6 spring onions, trimmed and finely chopped
a small thumb-sized piece of ginger, peeled and grated
1 teaspoon gochujang paste or dried chilli flakes
4 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
100–150g cabbage kimchi, (see here) drained
250g purple sprouting broccoli, woody ends removed and cut into thumb-length pieces
3 tablespoons miso paste (I use a brown rice one)
250g extra-firm tofu
TO SERVE
sesame seeds
squeeze of lemon or lime
some coriander or shiso leaves (optional)
First, put your mushrooms into a bowl with the tamari, lemon juice and 1 tablespoon of the honey, and put to one side to marinate for at least 15 minutes.
Cook the soba noodles according to the packet instructions. Drain and run under cold water then toss in tablespoon of the sesame oil.
Heat the remaining oil in a large soup pan over a medium to high heat. Once the mushrooms have had their marinating time, drain them but keep the marinade. Add the mushrooms to the pan in a single layer with a pinch of salt (you can do this in batches if you need to). Cook until the mushrooms are golden where they meet the pan, then toss and keep cooking until the mushrooms are deeply browned all over – this should take 5 minutes or so. Remove from the pan and set aside.
Fill and boil the kettle. Put the empty pan back on a medium heat, add the spring onions and sauté for a few minutes before adding the ginger and gochujang paste. After another minute or so, add the garlic and the drained kimchi. Sizzle until the garlic is starting to brown around the edges. Add 1¼ litres of water from the kettle along with the remaining tablespoon of honey and bring to the boil. Now, add the broccoli and simmer for 1 minute, or just until the broccoli becomes bright green.
Remove the soup from heat. Place the miso in a small bowl and whisk it with a splash of the broth to thin it out. Stir the thinned miso into the soup. Taste your soup; you really need to get the balance right here. If the broth tastes a bit flat, you might need more salt or miso, or a splash of soy sauce.
Just before serving, cut the tofu into little 2cm pieces and drizzle it with the reserved marinade from the mushrooms.
To serve, divide the noodles between four bowls and ladle over the soup. Top with the tofu, mushrooms and a sprinkle of sesame seeds. Finish with more soy if you like, a squeeze of lemon or lime and the shiso or coriander leaves if using.
Green peppercorn and lemongrass coconut broth
This is what we eat when we feel like the cold has got the better of us. It’s packed with immune-system-boosting turmeric, ginger and garlic to fight off colds, and some fiery green chilli to blow away cobwebs. I use green peppercorns too, as I love the grassy punch they give; seek out the fresh ones on tiny branches if you can, but if not the brined ones in jars will do just fine. The paste can be made in advance or in a double batch and the leftovers will keep in the fridge for a few days and in the freezer for a couple of months.
SERVES 4
4 tablespoons coconut oil
a thumb-sized piece of ginger (about 50g), peeled and roughly chopped
2 cloves of garlic, peeled
1–2 small green chillies, stalk removed
4 spring onions, trimmed and roughly chopped
a small bunch of coriander (leaves and stalks)
a few sprigs of mint, leaves only
1 heaped teaspoon ground turmeric or a small thumb of fresh, grated
15 fresh or brined green peppercorns (see note above)
2 x 400ml tins of coconut milk
2 limes
1 tablespoon vegetable stock powder or ½ a stock cube
1 tablespoon tamari or soy sauce
1 stalk of lemongrass
½ a medium butternut squash, deseeded and peeled
100g thin vermicelli brown rice noodles
100g spinach or winter greens, shredded
1 tablespoon coconut sugar or honey
Gently melt the coconut oil in a pan over a low heat – you don’t want to heat it, just melt it. Put the ginger, garlic and chilli (the amount you use and whether you keep the seeds in depends on how hot you like things) into your food processor with the spring onions, almost all of the coriander and the mint leaves (keep a few leaves back for serving). Add the coconut oil, then blitz for 30 seconds or until you have a smooth, deep green paste.
Place a deep, medium-sized pan over a medium heat and add the herb paste, stirring it for a minute while it warms. Stir in the turmeric, peppercorns, both tins of coconut milk, the juice of one of the limes, the stock powder and the tamari. Fill one of the tins one and a half times with hot water from the kettle and add the water to the pan.
Using a rolling pin or pestle, smash the lemongrass so that it splinters but remains together, then tuck it into the pan. Bring the liquid to the boil, then lower the heat and leave to simmer, bubbling gently.
Fill and boil a kettle. Meanwhile, slice the squash as thinly as you can and add this to the pan too. Place the noodles in a heatproof bowl and pour over enough of the boiling water from the kettle to cover them.
Once the squash is cooked through, add the greens to the soup and allow the liquid to come to a simmer again. Check the seasoning of the soup, adding the coconut sugar if it needs some sweetness and more lime and salt as needed. Drain the noodles, then divide them between four deep soup bowls. Ladle over the soup and vegetables, adding a generous squeeze of lime juice and, if you like, a few of the reserved coriander and mint leaves.
Not-chicken soup
This is a soup for the soul; chicken soup without the chicken and with no apology. It’s the get-well soup I have been searching for, to cure whatever ails you, whether that’s a cold or a broken heart. As gentle and as nourishing as they come, the soup has a base of slow-cooked sweet fennel and leek, layered with old friends celery and carrot, with a pep of ginger and lemon and a warmth from a generous amount of white pepper. Crisp little pieces of tofu top the broth, sticky from a minute or two in a pan, with some soy and a sprinkling of seasoning.
