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COOKING
Nigella Lawson
'Food, for me, is a constant pleasure: I like to think greedily about it, reflect deeply on it, learn from it; it provides comfort, inspiration, meaning and beauty ... More than just a mantra, 'cook, eat, repeat' is the story of my life." - Nigella Lawson
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Cook, Eat, Repeat is a delicious and delightful combination of recipes intertwined with essays about food, all written in Nigella's engaging and insightful prose. Whether asking 'What is a Recipe?' or declaring death to the Guilty Pleasure, Nigella's wisdom about food and life comes to the fore, with tasty new recipes. @The recipes I write come from my life, my home", says Nigella, and in this book she shares the rhythms and rituals of her kitchen through over 150 new recipes that make the most of her favourite ingredients.
Dedicated chapters include 'A is for Anchovy' (a celebration of the bacon of the sea), 'Rhubarb', 'A Loving Defence of Brown Food', a suitably expansive chapter devoted to family dinners, plus inspiration for vegan feasts, solo suppers and new ideas for Christmas. Within these chapters are recipes for all seasons and tastes and include Burnt Onion and Aubergine Dip; Butternut with Beetroot, Chilli and Ginger Sauce; Fish Finger Bhorta; Spaghetti with Chard and Anchovies and Chicken with Garlic Cream Sauce. And for those with a sweet tooth you'll be delighted with Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake; Basque Burnt Cheesecake, Cherry and Almond Crumble plus the recipe below ... |
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Chocolate, tahini banana bread
Nigella Lawson
Nigella Lawson
I HAVE been making a banana bread with chocolate and tahini on repeat for a while now, and every time I’ve eaten it over the last year or so, I couldn’t help thinking that the particular combination of intense chocolatiness, sweet, texture-softening banana and the rich earthiness of tahini would make the perfect warm pudding.
Finally, I tried it out. And much as I adore the elegant subtlety of the banana bread, I was enraptured by it in pudding form. A warm, soft and squidgy cake, it is both embracingly cosy and almost regally sumptuous. You could serve it just with crème fraîche, a little bit of tang to offset the pudding-cake’s richness, but I stir 4 teaspoons of tahini into 250ml of double cream and whisk gently by hand and for not very long, until it’s softly whipped. And I don’t stop there: after I’ve dolloped the tahini cream on to my pud, I drizzle over some (shop-bought, not homemade) date molasses, which is like sticky toffee pudding in syrup form.
Whether you’re making the delectable banana bread or the pudding-cake (and, for that matter, any recipe in this book that has tahini in it) do try and get proper Middle Eastern tahini, which is smokier and more fluid, with a full-bodied velvetiness, than the more widely available Mediterranean one on which I have bent more spoons than Uri Geller.
You can easily double the quantities below to fill a 900g loaf tin or 23cm round pie dish, depending on whether you’re making bread or pud; in either case, I don’t find it makes an appreciable difference to the cooking time. You can make a vegan version of both, omitting the egg, and upping the bananas to 350g and the tahini to 75g. For the pudding, you will need to add 50g of plant-based yogurt, too; I used the same almond-soy variety as I do for the Vegan Lemon Polenta Cake (p.257 of Cook, Eat, Repeat). Neither the pudding nor the bread will rise a lot without the egg, but the taste is still magnificent. Dark chocolate chips should be dairy-free, but do check the packet.
GIVES approx. 10 slices of banana bread or makes a pudding for 2-3.
Finally, I tried it out. And much as I adore the elegant subtlety of the banana bread, I was enraptured by it in pudding form. A warm, soft and squidgy cake, it is both embracingly cosy and almost regally sumptuous. You could serve it just with crème fraîche, a little bit of tang to offset the pudding-cake’s richness, but I stir 4 teaspoons of tahini into 250ml of double cream and whisk gently by hand and for not very long, until it’s softly whipped. And I don’t stop there: after I’ve dolloped the tahini cream on to my pud, I drizzle over some (shop-bought, not homemade) date molasses, which is like sticky toffee pudding in syrup form.
Whether you’re making the delectable banana bread or the pudding-cake (and, for that matter, any recipe in this book that has tahini in it) do try and get proper Middle Eastern tahini, which is smokier and more fluid, with a full-bodied velvetiness, than the more widely available Mediterranean one on which I have bent more spoons than Uri Geller.
You can easily double the quantities below to fill a 900g loaf tin or 23cm round pie dish, depending on whether you’re making bread or pud; in either case, I don’t find it makes an appreciable difference to the cooking time. You can make a vegan version of both, omitting the egg, and upping the bananas to 350g and the tahini to 75g. For the pudding, you will need to add 50g of plant-based yogurt, too; I used the same almond-soy variety as I do for the Vegan Lemon Polenta Cake (p.257 of Cook, Eat, Repeat). Neither the pudding nor the bread will rise a lot without the egg, but the taste is still magnificent. Dark chocolate chips should be dairy-free, but do check the packet.
GIVES approx. 10 slices of banana bread or makes a pudding for 2-3.
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INGREDIENTS
250g (approx. 2 medium) very ripe or overripe bananas (skin-on weight) 60ml olive or vegetable oil 50g tahini, at room temperature (and see recipe intro) 50g full-fat Greek yogurt, at room temperature (but only for the pud) 1 large egg, at room temperature 50g caster sugar 50g soft dark brown sugar for the pud; 35g for the bread 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 60g plain flour (or gluten-free plain flour) 25g cocoa 1⁄2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda 1⁄4 teaspoon fine sea salt 100g dark chocolate chips 11⁄2 teaspoons sesame seeds, to sprinkle on top (only for the bread) |
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METHOD
1. Heat the oven to 170°C/150°C Fan if you’re making banana bread, or 180°C/160°C180o Fan for the pudding. Put a paper liner into a (450g) loaf tin or, for the pudding, get out an ovenproof dish with a capacity of about 750ml; mine is 18cm in diameter and 5cm deep.
2. Peel the bananas (don’t throw the skins away, though, but use them to make the Banana Skin and Cauliflower Curry on p.35) and, either by hand or using an electric mixer, mash the bananas, then beat in the oil. I use an American 1⁄4 cup (60ml) measure to do this, and then fill it up with tahini (conveniently, 60ml of tahini weighs 50g) and beat that in. If you’re making the pudding, beat in the yogurt (you can also fill the 1⁄4 cup measure with it to get 50g). Whether you’re making the pudding or the bread, now’s the time to beat in the egg, then the sugars and vanilla.
3. Whisk or fork together the flour, cocoa, bicarb and salt and slowly beat into the batter and when you can no longer see any specks of white, fold in the chocolate chips with a bendy spatula, which you will need to scrape the runny batter into either loaf tin or ovenproof dish. If it’s banana bread you’re making, sprinkle over the sesame seeds.
4. First, instructions for the bread: cook for 45–50 minutes until risen and firm to the touch, or until a cake tester comes out almost clean; some chocolate chips will make it a little sticky in parts. And don’t worry about the cracks on the top; that is part of its deal, as it is for the pudding. Let it cool completely in its tin on a wire rack and – if you can bear to wait – once it’s cold, slip it out of the tin and wrap it in baking parchment, then foil, and leave it for a day before slicing and eating. I understand if this is too much to ask;
I confess I don’t always manage to wait.
5. And now for the pudding-cake: cook for 40–45 minutes, depending on whether you want it to have a gooily molten centre or not. Once it’s out of the oven, let it stand for 5–10 minutes before diving in for that first squidgy spoonful.
1. Heat the oven to 170°C/150°C Fan if you’re making banana bread, or 180°C/160°C180o Fan for the pudding. Put a paper liner into a (450g) loaf tin or, for the pudding, get out an ovenproof dish with a capacity of about 750ml; mine is 18cm in diameter and 5cm deep.
2. Peel the bananas (don’t throw the skins away, though, but use them to make the Banana Skin and Cauliflower Curry on p.35) and, either by hand or using an electric mixer, mash the bananas, then beat in the oil. I use an American 1⁄4 cup (60ml) measure to do this, and then fill it up with tahini (conveniently, 60ml of tahini weighs 50g) and beat that in. If you’re making the pudding, beat in the yogurt (you can also fill the 1⁄4 cup measure with it to get 50g). Whether you’re making the pudding or the bread, now’s the time to beat in the egg, then the sugars and vanilla.
3. Whisk or fork together the flour, cocoa, bicarb and salt and slowly beat into the batter and when you can no longer see any specks of white, fold in the chocolate chips with a bendy spatula, which you will need to scrape the runny batter into either loaf tin or ovenproof dish. If it’s banana bread you’re making, sprinkle over the sesame seeds.
4. First, instructions for the bread: cook for 45–50 minutes until risen and firm to the touch, or until a cake tester comes out almost clean; some chocolate chips will make it a little sticky in parts. And don’t worry about the cracks on the top; that is part of its deal, as it is for the pudding. Let it cool completely in its tin on a wire rack and – if you can bear to wait – once it’s cold, slip it out of the tin and wrap it in baking parchment, then foil, and leave it for a day before slicing and eating. I understand if this is too much to ask;
I confess I don’t always manage to wait.
5. And now for the pudding-cake: cook for 40–45 minutes, depending on whether you want it to have a gooily molten centre or not. Once it’s out of the oven, let it stand for 5–10 minutes before diving in for that first squidgy spoonful.
Extract from Cook, Eat, Repeat by Nigella Lawson. Chatto & Windus $RRP49.99
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Ciao! My name's Marina Totta. Welcome to some of my recipes!
In Italy, making pasta together is a Sunday tradition. We cook together and express our love for family and friends through food. My pasta journey began at four years of age in my Grandmother Benedetta’s kitchen in Sicily, where she taught me to craft my first handmade tagliatelle. I love to teach and can’t wait to share my family recipes with you, in my pasta making classes in Melbourne. Prior to arriving in this beautiful country, I Iived in Bologna, the Italian capital of pasta making. There I learnt how to master different flours and to blend them properly with eggs or water. Florence, Shanghai, Taipei and Hong Kong have also been my home. During my time abroad, I would regularly prepare Italian food to remain connected to my heritage and family back home. When living in Taipei, I founded the successful in-home cooking school “Ginger Kitchen”, where I hosted dinners and workshops to share my love for Pasta and Italian cooking. Just when we thought that we were starting a “new normal”, we are back in iso again. So, while we are staying home why don’t we make pasta together? My new virtual class dates are live, so you can choose between Lasagna from scratch, gluten free pasta, handmade pasta 101 and rainbow pasta. Please have a look at my website. |
Fresh Basil Pesto Farfalle
Marina Totta
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Serves 4 people; Preparation time: 10 min; Cooking time: 10 min
Ingredients 350g bowties pasta 1 cup fresh basil leaves ½ cup fresh parsley leaves 1/4 cup breadcrumbs 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese 1 clove garlic (roasted or fresh) 1/3 cup olive oil Salt and fresh ground pepper, to taste Method Fill a large pot with lightly salted water and bring to a rolling boil. Meanwhile make the pesto: Combine oil, basil, parsley, pine nuts, garlic and salt in a food processor or blender. With the machine running, slowly drizzle in a few spoonsful of very cold water. Continue processing until the mixture is well blended but still has some texture, pausing to scrape down the sides as necessary. Add black pepper and Parmesan. Taste and adjust seasoning if required. Set aside till needed. |
Cook farfalle in the boiling water according to packaging’s instructions.
Spoon the pesto into a large bowl and add just cooked, drained farfalle. Pesto is the rare pasta sauce that isn’t heated, all for the sake of keeping that beautiful emerald green colour.
Garnish with some more Parmesan and toasted breadcrumbs.
Learn how to make fresh Farfalle and more and, this Sunday join me at 4pm Making Pasta with kids - Online via Zoom. Check website below
Spoon the pesto into a large bowl and add just cooked, drained farfalle. Pesto is the rare pasta sauce that isn’t heated, all for the sake of keeping that beautiful emerald green colour.
Garnish with some more Parmesan and toasted breadcrumbs.
Learn how to make fresh Farfalle and more and, this Sunday join me at 4pm Making Pasta with kids - Online via Zoom. Check website below
