Diets
Vegetarian recipes
No meat or fish.
Vegetarian cooking here means dishes that were designed that way rather than dishes with the meat removed, which is the difference between a good one and a disappointing one. What has to be replaced is not the protein but the savoury depth that browning meat provides, and the things that supply it are their own: mushrooms, tomato paste cooked out properly, fermented ingredients, hard cheese, and browning applied to vegetables with the same seriousness. Every recipe tagged here is checked for hidden animal ingredients — Parmesan and most traditional hard cheeses use animal rennet, and Worcestershire sauce contains anchovy.
60 recipes
Wet Brine for Chicken and Pork
A five per cent salt brine for lean chicken and pork, chilled hard before the meat goes in, with the timings that stop it going spongy.
Warm Farro and Roast Squash Bowl
Farro boiled like pasta and dressed while it is still hot, under roast squash, crisped kale and feta, so it eats as a meal.
Vinegret
Beetroot, potato, carrot and sauerkraut dressed with oil rather than mayonnaise, with the beetroot oiled first to hold the colour.
Vegetable Stock
A light stock of leek, carrot, celery and onion simmered for only forty minutes, because long cooking turns vegetable stock bitter.
Vatrushka
Yeasted buns pressed into a ring around a well of sweetened curd cheese, baked until the filling sets to a soft custard.
Vanilla Custard
A pouring custard of egg yolks, milk and cream thickened over low heat until it coats the back of a spoon.
Toasted Honey Granola
An oat and almond granola bound with honey and baked in a slab, so it breaks into proper clusters rather than loose dust.
Swiss Roll
A fatless whisked sponge baked in ten minutes and rolled while it is still hot, which is the only way it curls without cracking.
Sticky Toffee Pudding
A dark date sponge skewered and soaked with hot toffee sauce the moment it leaves the oven, then served with the rest of the sauce.
Spiced Fruit Tea Loaf
Dried fruit soaked overnight in strong tea, then stirred into a batter with no fat in it at all and baked slowly into a dark loaf.
Spaghetti Carbonara
Guanciale, egg yolk and pecorino brought together off the heat into a glossy sauce, with no cream anywhere near the pan.
Spaghetti Aglio e Olio
Garlic sliced thin and taken slowly to pale gold in olive oil, emulsified with pasta water into a sauce that is nothing but those two things.
Soft Scrambled Eggs
Eggs cooked slowly over low heat and stirred constantly, so they set as small soft curds instead of dry rubbery sheets.
Smetannik
Soft honey-scented sponge layers stacked with a whipped soured cream filling and left overnight to soften.
Smashed Cucumber Salad
Cucumbers smashed rather than sliced so the torn faces grip a soy, vinegar and sesame dressing instead of shedding it.
Slow-Cooked Black Dal
Whole urad soaked overnight and simmered for hours until it turns black and glossy, then finished with butter and a little cream.
Simple Tomato Sauce
Tinned tomatoes crushed by hand and cooked slowly with garlic until the oil splits back out, which is when the sauce is done.
Sauerkraut
Cabbage and carrot salted, packed down and left to ferment under its own brine until it turns sour and keeps.
Salted Tomato Salad
Ripe tomatoes salted twenty minutes ahead, then dressed with the juice that draws out of them rather than plain oil.
Roasted Cauliflower with Tahini
Cauliflower roasted hot in wedges so the cut faces brown, served under a tahini sauce loosened to a pouring cream with water.
Roast Squash and Sage Soup
Squash roasted until the cut faces caramelise, then blended with stock and sage, which gives a depth that simmering raw cubes never reaches.
Raspberry Sorbet
Sieved raspberry puree frozen with a measured sugar syrup and beaten every forty-five minutes, which is what keeps it scoopable.
Quick Salted Cucumbers
Small cucumbers held a day or two in a dill and garlic brine, salted right through but still raw and crunchy.
Quick Pickled Red Onions
Thin red onion slices covered in warm sweet-sharp brine, bright magenta and ready to eat in half an hour.
Ptichye Moloko
An agar-set soufflé of whipped egg white, sugar syrup and butter on thin sponge, sealed under dark chocolate.
Potato Gnocchi with Sage Butter
Baked potatoes riced while hot and bound with as little flour as they will take, which is the difference between light gnocchi and bullets.
Poached Eggs
Eggs slid into barely moving water, with an honest account of what the vinegar and the whirlpool do and do not fix.
Pavlova
A meringue dried for two hours in a cool oven so the shell stays crisp and the centre collapses to marshmallow under the cream.
Pasta alla Norma
Fried aubergine folded through a simple tomato sauce with torn basil and salted ricotta, which is the ingredient the dish stands or falls on.
Paskha
Sweetened curd cheese beaten with butter, egg yolks and candied fruit, then drained overnight in a pyramid mould.
Mujaddara
Lentils and rice cooked in one pot under a mound of onions fried well past golden, which is where the whole flavour comes from.
Medovik
Honey layer cake of thin baked discs, filled with soured cream and left overnight until the layers soften into cake.
Mayonnaise
Egg yolk, oil and acid whisked by hand into a thick emulsion, with the drop-by-drop start that decides whether it holds or splits.
Lemony Chickpea and Herb Salad
Chickpeas dressed while they are still warm so they drink the lemon and oil, then turned through parsley, mint and dill by the handful.
Lemon Tart
A sharp lemon cream baked low and slow in a blind-baked sweet pastry case, so it sets to a smooth cut rather than curdling.
Lemon Drizzle Loaf Cake
A creamed-method lemon loaf finished with a granular sugar and juice drizzle poured on hot, which sets into a crunchy crust.
Kvass
A lightly fermented drink made from dried dark rye bread, sugar and yeast, sour and faintly sweet.
Kulich
Tall enriched Easter bread coloured with saffron and studded with raisins, finished with a white glaze that runs down the sides.
Kissel
Fruit cooked with sugar and thickened with potato starch, served thin enough to drink or thick enough to eat with a spoon.
Herbed Farro Salad
Farro boiled loose in salted water like pasta, dressed while it is still hot, then packed with three soft herbs.
Guryev Kasha
Semolina baked in layers between the skins lifted from scalded cream, with nuts, preserved fruit and caramel.
Green Beans with Brown Butter and Almonds
Beans blanched hard in salted water and chilled in ice, then reheated in butter browned with flaked almonds.
Gratin Dauphinois
Thin potato slices simmered in cream on the hob until their own starch thickens it, then baked slowly until set.
Gazpacho
A chilled Andalusian soup of raw tomatoes, cucumber and pepper blended with bread and olive oil, which is what turns it creamy rather than watery.
Garlic Naan
A yoghurt-enriched yeasted dough cooked in a screaming hot pan and blistered under the grill, which stands in for a tandoor.
Garam Masala
Whole spices toasted one kind at a time, cooled and ground, which is what separates a fresh blend from the grey dust in a jar.
Everyday Vinaigrette
A mustard-emulsified dressing built on three parts oil to one part acid, a ratio worth memorising so you never need the recipe again.
Egg Fried Rice
Yesterday's rice broken up cold and fried hard in a wide pan, so the grains stay separate and toast instead of steaming to paste.
Devilled Eggs
Hard-boiled yolks beaten with mustard, mayonnaise and cayenne and piped back into the whites, with paprika over the top.
Dark Chocolate Mousse
Dark chocolate lightened with whisked egg whites and set by nothing but cocoa butter, which is why it needs no cream and no gelatine.
Dark Chocolate Brownies
Fudgy brownies built on melted dark chocolate and eggs whisked to a foam, which is what gives them their paper-thin crackled top.
Crunchy Cabbage Slaw
Shredded cabbage salted and drained for an hour first, so the mustard dressing stays thick instead of thinning to a puddle.
Crisp Hash Browns
Grated potato rinsed of its loose starch and wrung genuinely dry, then pressed into hot fat so it fries crisp instead of steaming.
Crème Caramel
A baked custard turned out under its own caramel, cooked in a water bath at a low temperature so it sets smooth rather than pitted.
Creamy Oat Porridge
Rolled oats cooked in milk and water and stirred throughout, which draws out the starch that separates creamy from watery.
Creamed Spinach
Wilted spinach squeezed bone dry before it meets the cream, which is the whole difference between this and a puddle.
Classic French Omelette
Three eggs cooked in under a minute in a hot buttered pan, stirred hard then rolled, so the outside stays pale and the centre soft.
Chickpea and Spinach Stew
Dried chickpeas cooked from scratch and thickened with fried bread pounded to a paste, which is how Seville gets body without cream.
Cacio e Pepe
Spaghetti in a sauce of nothing but pecorino, black pepper and starchy pasta water, emulsified off the heat so it stays smooth.
Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Chocolate chip cookies made with browned butter and a long overnight rest, which deepens the flavour and stops them spreading thin.