Vanilla ice cream. It’s so boring it’s almost a joke, you’d think? That maybe true of the mass-produced, bland, tasteless soft-scoop rubbish you get at any mediocre supermarket, but the real thing is something else altogether. At it’s best – at it’s very best – vanilla is the king of ice creams, fantastic on its [...]
There’s little more evocative of France, more French in itself, than the baguette. The sight of people walking quickly home before breakfast, a still-warm baguette tucked firmly under their arm is a common one, such is the baguette’s place in French life. British-style white-sliced bread stands no chance in France. There’s tradition involved – no [...]
This beef pie has a very British feel to it, despite its French origins. I was asked exactly what makes it French, and I must admit to struggling to find an answer. There’s some garlic in it, I suppose, and it has that general feel of traditional French cooking…simple, practical, thrifty and generous of flavour…but [...]
It’s often said that simplicity in cooking is a virtue, that ingredients should be allowed to speak for themselves. This recipe has just four ingredients, and at a push, you could drop one of those, but they’re carefully combined into something quite exceptional, something that won’t hang around for very long once it’s cooled. The [...]
Making your own cheese is always an adventure. This is the simplest possible method, but there’s still something magical about it, about how warm milk just splits apart with so little provocation and turns into something completely different. From this humble start, curds forming in a pan of milk, come all forms of cheese. The [...]