Honey Soy Chicken

Marinating some chicken pieces in this honey & soy marinade means that you get not only beautifully tender and flavoursome dark meat falling off the bone but you’ll also end up with the most amazingly delicious sauce for drizzling over when you serve. Make sure then to serve this with something that you can soak up some of those tasty juices with. I opted for roasted baby potatoes but you...

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Cauliflower & Potato Curry

Of all the vegetarian dishes that I have cooked over the years, the one I have whipped up most frequently is probably this, or at least a variation of it. I say that as the recipe for this is actually quite fluid and I have probably never cooked it in exactly the same way twice. Potatoes and cauliflower are of course the mainstays but you can also add further veg as you see fit - often I add...

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Taiwanese Meat & Mushroom Sauce with Rice

I’ve made a Taiwanese meat sauce before and in that recipe I mention that it can be made with chunks of pork, as that was, or with minced pork, as of course this is.This is basically then a Chinese spaghetti bolognese, Taiwanese style and can be served over noodles, or as I have done here, rice.I think that Taiwanese stewed pork is 滷肉, read as 'lu rou' in Mandarin and when boiled eggs are simmered...

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Chorizo & Asparagus 'Carbonara'

At the time of cooking, and indeed writing the first draft of this, I was trying to clear the freezer of random odds and ends in the hope that I would then have some space for a dump of freezer meals such as chilli, ragu etc for when the baby arrived and I suspected I wouldn’t have the time (or inclination as it turned out) to cook.. We had two lonely little cooking chorizo wallowing at the...

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Pork with Sichuan Chilli Oil Sauce

My 2nd recipe this week from the October 2014 issue of Olive magazine - moving from the Chettinad region of India to Chengdu in China and of course Sichuan cuisine: one of my favourites.The recipes featured were taken from a cookbook called Hunan: A Lifetime of Secrets from Mr. Peng’s Kitchen. Confusingly the recipes therein are Sichuan in origin rather than Hunanese - the (co-)author, Mr Peng...

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Baked Gnocchi with Bacon & Bocconcini

Depending on what our plans are I tend to like to cook more complicated, drawn out recipes on a Sunday but on this occasion hubby (although he was only bf at the time!) was in Cambridge and I was in North London for the day so I wanted something quick yet lovely and comforting (comfort food for me is a 12 month a year thing - but was particularly so in my rather pregnant, at the time, condition).The...

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