The juicy fruit is newly in season and delicious in both savoury and sweet dishes. Here are some tried and tested delights
This is a cake made using the traditions of Italy. Sharp plums or damsons are placed atop a simple almond and polenta cake. Flourless and dairy-free, it is not intentionally health conscious; it just ends up being delicious this way. It will stay fresh for three days if wrapped in foil.
Continue reading...The release of Paris Hilton’s Netflix series where she semi-cooks semi-dishes is the latest in an increasing trend of stars spending more time in the kitchen
To state the obvious, nobody is going to watch Cooking With Paris to sharpen their culinary skills. The new Netflix series piggybacks on last year’s bizarre, almost Lynchian YouTube video where Paris Hilton cooked what can only be described an anti-lasagne, and stretches it out to a painful degree. In episode one, Hilton attempts to make marshmallows for Kim Kardashian and grunts with disgust when they make a mess of her lace gloves. In episode two, Hilton takes time out from making a funfetti flan to pose in the photo booth she installed in her living room. If you hang around long enough to find out what happens in episode three, you’re a braver soul than me.
Related: Cooking With Paris review – Hilton in the kitchen? Prepare to have your mind blown
Continue reading...Imperial College London researchers also find that drinking coffee protects against liver cancer
Consuming alcohol increases the risk of getting more cancers than previously thought, according to a major study, which also found that drinking coffee protects against liver cancer.
Alcohol consumption is linked to several cancers including those of the head and neck – mouth, pharynx and larynx – oesophageal and bowel, along with the more widely known connection with breast and liver cancer, according to an international team led by Imperial College London.
Continue reading...There are many quick, easy and delicious ways to eat an aubergine. Here are some of the best options, including salads and shakshuka
The aubergine hasn’t always had the most pristine reputation. There was a time when eating one required a complicated dance of slicing and salting and draining to remove its unpleasant bitterness. Luckily, though, most mass-market aubergines available in the UK have now had the bitterness bred out of them, so aubergine dishes are no longer so frustratingly time-consuming.
Once society has managed to find an alternative sexting emoji, the aubergine’s rehabilitation will be complete. In the meantime, let’s look at the ways aubergine can be utilised in all manner of global dishes.
Continue reading...A resurgence in the traditional drink is offering rural communities independence and a sustainable alternative to industrial soy and cattle farming
Four men emerge from the intense heat and steam of the barbacuá into the cold winter’s night in the rural district of Edelira, southern Paraguay. They rest, leaning on pitchforks they have used to turn over the prized load of fragrant yerba mate leaves inside this traditional drying oven. The centuries-old design drives hot air from a fire on to the large wooden frame where the leaves sit.
“I control the leaf’s humidity through intuition,” says Lisandro Benítez, the group’s lead, or uru. “Too humid and it won’t have the right flavour, too hot and dry and it could catch fire.”
Continue reading...The secret to an authentic taste and mouth-feel is fat, so what’s the best substitute for dairy? Our resident perfectionist tries them all …
Plant-based ice-cream, like so much else in the vegan world, has come on leaps and bounds in both range and quality in recent years as the market for it has grown, but many commercial varieties still replace dairy and eggs with a long list of perfectly harmless, yet still less than enticing ingredients such as fully refined soybean oil. Without stabilisers, the homemade kind may not last quite as well in the freezer but, frankly, it doesn’t need to: it’s unlikely to be in there long.
This recipe makes a virtue of coconut’s flavour, as well as of its natural creaminess, though you could also use it as a base for other ingredients, folding in fruit puree or chocolate chips after churning, say, or adding the likes of cocoa powder or peppermint extract to the base itself. Richer than a sorbet, lighter and cleaner than standard ice-cream, it’s really not just for vegans.
Continue reading...It’s white, milky, better for the planet – and even works in a cappuccino
Name: Potato milk.
Age: Brand new, although a powdered version has been available – although not very widely – for some years
Continue reading...The MSC’s coveted blue tick is the world’s biggest, and some say best, fishery ecolabel. So why is it in the headlines – and does it really do what it says on the tin?
This month, two right whales in the Gulf of St Lawrence were found entangled in fishing gear. One, a female, was first spotted entangled off Cape Cod last year, but rescuers were not able to fully free her; the other, a male, is believed to have become entangled in the Gulf.
Hunted to near extinction before a partial whaling ban in 1935, North Atlantic right whales are once more critically endangered, with only 356 left. The main threat remains human contact: entanglement in fishing gear, and ship strikes. Fatal encounters, caused in part by the whales’ migratory shift into Canada’s snow crab grounds, have soared: more than a tenth of the population died or were seriously injured between 2017 and 2021, mostly in Canada and New England.
Continue reading...Painstaking research deciphers carvings of religious bounty dating back almost five centuries
For almost 500 years, the arch that connects the largest Gothic cathedral in the world with its Renaissance sacristy has offered visitors a sumptuous, if little glimpsed – and even less studied – vision of religious bounty.
The 68 beautifully carved plates of food that adorn the archway in Seville’s cathedral offer rather more than bread and wine.
Continue reading...Insects have declined by 75% in the past 50 years – and the consequences may soon be catastrophic. Biologist Dave Goulson reveals the vital services they perform
I have been fascinated by insects all my life. One of my earliest memories is of finding, at the age of five or six, some stripy yellow-and-black caterpillars feeding on weeds in the school playground. I put them in my empty lunchbox, and took them home. Eventually they transformed into handsome magenta and black moths. This seemed like magic to me – and still does. I was hooked.
In pursuit of insects I have travelled the world, from the deserts of Patagonia to the icy peaks of Fjordland in New Zealand and the forested mountains of Bhutan. I have watched clouds of birdwing butterflies sipping minerals from the banks of a river in Borneo, and thousands of fireflies flashing in synchrony at night in the swamps of Thailand. At home in my garden in Sussex I have spent countless hours watching grasshoppers court a mate and see off rivals, earwigs tend their young, ants milk honeydew from aphids, and leaf-cutter bees snip leaves to line their nests.
Continue reading...Steering clear of wheat, rye and barley doesn’t mean avoiding delicious dishes. Here are some of the tastiest offerings, including soda bread, peanut butter cookies and banana oat pancakes
My favourite gluten-free recipe is poodla (small pancakes), which I make using gram (chickpea) flour, water, cumin seeds, garam masala, turmeric and salt, with added chillies (chopped), grated onion and grated courgettes (it also works with mashed peas, spinach, grated cauliflower etc). Simply make a batter to any consistency, add your vegetables, then shallow fry on both sides. It’s delicious with a raita and a salad; we eat them for breakfast, lunch and sometimes as a main meal. Rekha Shah, retired, Bournemouth
Continue reading...Do you like your popsicles milky, fruity or boozy? Whatever your preference, here is a complete guide to making quick, delicious freezer treats
Along with bling and outrage, the ice lolly is probably the thing fashion designers and toddlers most have in common. It is instant dessert and an edible sticking plaster. Mostly, whether you go to town with the freeze-ins, the ombrés and the post-freezer coatings, it is heatwave relief on a stick.
Almost any liquid, bar neat, heavy alcohol, freezes well – from double cream and coconut milk to freshly pulped watermelon (for which there’s a stellar hack: slice off the top of the fruit, plunge in a hand blender and juice the inside, then strain). Make sure whichever option you plump for is overly flavourful – mild juice will make for a meh lick.
Continue reading...The comedian and Masked Singer panellist on his fascination with chicken, mum’s Caribbean specials and the secret to great mac and cheese
At home, my mum did the cooking. It was me, my two sisters and my mum. She mainly cooked Caribbean dishes: mutton and rice, curry chicken and rice, sometimes curry goat, rice and peas, but that would be for a wedding or something. You wouldn’t have curry goat all the time. It’s mad when I think about it, because when you’ve got kids and you’ve just come back from work, I can see how easy it is to put some chips in the oven. But my mum was always cooking from scratch. To this day, she still does it.
We couldn’t afford the supermarket. My mum would get a lot from the markets, predominantly East Street or Brixton Market. We’d eat a lot of fish: snapper, sometimes red bream. It’s only since I’ve gotten a bit older that I’ve had other fish, like sea bass for example. Yeah, we weren’t eating sea bass.
Continue reading...Over the past year, many of us have suffered from physical and emotional exhaustion. It is no surprise that people have turned to food for comfort
Naomi Boles hit a wall last October. “I wasn’t sleeping at all and I felt like I couldn’t keep going,” she recalls. “I was so stressed, and even when I was in bed my brain was constantly racing as I was worrying so much about my health, about my income, about my children. When I went to the doctor, it was like I’d reached a point where I couldn’t carry on any more.”
Nine months on, she is still recovering from that burnout. “I am finally getting to the point where I can be a bit easier on myself and not constantly be in this fight-or-flight mode,” she says.
Continue reading...Nation settles one of its most vexed questions as survey finds large majority of Spaniards prefer tortilla de patatas with onion
In a rare moment of national unity unseen since a certain British chef recklessly floated the idea of adding chorizo to paella, Spain has come together at last to settle one of its most ancient, vexed and divisive questions.
No longer will tempers flare at bar counters nor arguments rive friends, families and neighbours gathered together at table. Chefs, critics and home-cooks can put aside their opinions – and their spatulas – safe in the knowledge that yes, an overwhelming majority of Spaniards really do prefer their tortilla de patatas with onion.
Continue reading...Investigation shows scale of big food corporations’ market dominance and political power
Continue reading...Sausages are a fabulous ingredient in their own right, and should never just be served up with a pile of veg. Here’s how to use them with panache
It is easy to be lazy with a sausage. They are already seasoned, so all you have to do is cook them, put them on a plate next to some other stuff and eat them. But to simply plonk a banger next to a pile of veg is to do it a grave disservice – far better to use the sausage as an ingredient in its own right. Here are 10 recipes that do exactly that.
Continue reading...The industry has a growing number of women earning plaudits at its renowned bodegas. But are they really better than men?
“I think of my wines as barefoot children that need love and care,” says winemaker Marta Casas, holding her glass up to the light. Below her, the vineyards of Penedès roll away almost to the sea, but she could be virtually anywhere in Spain.
Just as they fought their way into the male domain of haute cuisine, a growing number of Spanish women are seeking a career in winemaking, with three times as many taking courses in oenology compared with 10 years ago. This was given an added boost in 2018 when Almudena Alberca was made Spain’s first female master of wine, one of only 149 in the world.
Continue reading...If you want to learn more about what’s going on in your gut, the first step is to turn your poo blue. How long it takes for a muffin dyed with blue food colouring to pass through your system is a measure of your gut health: the median is 28.7 hours; longer transit times suggest your gut isn’t as healthy as it could be. We are only now beginning to understand the importance of the gut microbiome: could this be the start of a golden age for gut-health science?
“The gut microbiome is the most important scientific discovery for human healthcare in recent decades,” says James Kinross, a microbiome scientist and surgeon at Imperial College London. “We discovered it – or rediscovered it – in the age of genetic sequencing less than 15 years ago. The only organ which is bigger is the liver.” And, for all that the internet may be full of probiotic or wellness companies making big health claims about gut health, “We don’t really know how it works,” he says. At the risk of sounding like the late Donald Rumsfeld, there’s what we know, what we think we know, and an awful lot that we don’t yet have a clue about.
Continue reading...There is so much more to do with an avocado than just mash it up, whether you decide to make a grilled peach salad, Mexican chicken soup or fabulous ice-cream
Avocado has three main uses: the first is avocado toast; the second is guacamole; the third is being held aloft as a totem for why millennials will never be able to afford their own homes. This is all rather unfair. The sheer number of air miles that it takes to reach your plate is often so vast that an avocado should be a treat. Thoughtlessly slapping one on a piece of toast simply won’t cut it. Here are some more distinctive uses for this ingredient.
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