slow food

Lamb shawarma, or Mother’s Day lunch

A Middle Eastern street food classic, a lamb shawarma – spicy, subtle and wonderfully rich meat, served in pitta bread.A Middle Eastern street food classic, a lamb shawarma – spicy, subtle and wonderfully rich meat, served in pitta bread.

It’s Mother’s Day today. It’s a bittersweet experience, the pleasure of seeing our kids with their homemade cards and bunches of daffodils tinged with the regret of not being able to give my own mum the same things, not being able to hug her and tell her I love her any more. It gets easier [...]

Food & drink

Very slow roasted shoulder of lamb with merguez spices

Very slow roasted shoulder of lamb with merguez spices

A shoulder of lamb is a hefty cut, but it’s cheap and it goes a long way. This method leaves the lamb falling apart, tender from the best part of a day in the oven. It’s very satisfying and relaxing to know that something great is happening in your oven at home whilst you’re out [...]

Food & drink

Slow roasted pork belly

How to slowly roast a piece of pork belly to produce tender meat and crispy crackling.

These are challenging times. The talk at work is of mergers and takeovers, arrears and repossession, cost reduction and redundancy. People are feeling the pinch. A slowly roasted pork belly can’t fail to lift the mood. A cheap, easy and forgiving cut, pork belly is at it’s best when cooked lazily in a low oven, [...]

Food & drink

A completely unseasonal dinner

A completely unseasonal dinner post image

It’s the middle of August, and it hasn’t stopped raining for weeks. No roofer will come near my leaking skylight. Against this backdrop, a dinner of brisket and root vegetables doesn’t seem too out-of-place, so I threw together a mediocre piece of brisket from the forgotten depths of the freezer with carrots, onions and mushrooms [...]

Food & drink