Recipe collections

The best pizza dough recipe that makes the best thin crust pizza in the world. 72-hour no-knead dough, perfect for a baking stone or a baking steel.

Asparagus risotto with frico, Parmesan crisps, is my favourite recipe for spring. A good asparagus risotto is all about fresh asparagus, great flavour and hard work of stirring the pot!

Asparagus tart on puff pastry, modestly cheesy but superiorly easy to make. It’s a delightful springtime brunch or lunch dish, making the most of the short British asparagus season while it lasts.

Aubergine parmigiana, or parmigiana di melanzane is the best Italian vegetable dish, made of layers of aubergine, mozzarella, homemade tomato sauce and basil. Topped with Parmesan, though that's not where the name is derived from!

Autumn vegetable tian, a cheesy bake of carrots, parsnips, potatoes and other root vegetables, easily made ahead.

Avocado and red kidney bean salad with crispy garlic and crunchy seed and nut topping, the garlic and the topping alone make this recipe worth trying!

Baba ganoush, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean dish, is a wonderfully smoky, creamy and smooth dip made with whipped flesh of charred whole aubergine.

Baked fennel with tomatoes and plums: three ingredients and what a burst of flavour. It makes a good vegetarian lunch or an interesting side for meat or fish.

Baked figs with blue cheese, a drop of honey and a drizzle of balsamic can be a gorgeous starter, side dish, lunch or even a healthy dessert.

My baked rice pilaf is a veggie dish, with three kinds of mushrooms just for variety; and because there aren’t many things that can’t be improved with dried porcini flavour.

Baked tomatoes stuffed with herby cheese and breadcrumb filling. For the vegetarian option skip the anchovies and use vegetarian cheese.

Beetroot leaf tart is a great way to use beetroot leaves. Never throw them away! Beet greens are nutritious and delicious, small young ones on baby beetroot can be used raw in salads.

Blistered green beans or sugar snap peas charred under the grill and flavoured with crispy chilli oil, that’s a quick and easy version of Sichuan dry fried beans.

Broccoli and Stilton soup, easy, tasty and proper comfort food. This one is made without blender, just chunkily mashed with potato ricer.

Broccoli cheese spiced up with anchovies and Cayenne pepper, an excellent alternative to cauliflower cheese.

Broccoli frittata starts on the hob and finishes in the oven. With cheese and a little crème fraiche in the egg mix it’s fluffy and very satisfying.

Mejadra is a simple lentil and brown rice dish and my recipe has a great fried onions shortcut tip. Levantine rice and lentils were the biblical Esau’s ‘bowl of stew’. Probably.

A simple vegetarian dish of brown rice with mushrooms. Brown rice with brown mushrooms is not going to win me any photographic awards, that’s for sure. There’s no denying the fact that it’s brown - completely and utterly.

Bucatini pasta with creamy Alfredo sauce, peas and spinach. Bucatini is thick spaghetti-like pasta shape and it goes well with Alfredo sauce, a sprinkling of Parrmesan and a handful of peas..

Bulgur wheat pilaf with red peppers and raisins: cooked like rice pilaf but refreshingly different; looks like couscous but it’s more nutritious; whole grain of cereal but not slimy like barley. That’s my perfect grain!

Five-spice butternut squash in cheesy custard is precisely the treatment the squash needs to be a great dish. No surprise, it’s a recipe from Ottolenghi.

Looking for a delicious and healthy vegetarian dish? Try my cabbage and walnut casserole recipe! Baked with a savoury mixture of onions, spices and herbs, this comfort food is perfect for any occasion.

Cabbage lasagne, a vegetarian dish of pasta layered with a filling of lightly cooked cabbage with tomatoes. Surprisingly flavourful and delicious!

Camembert en croute: baked Camembert wrapped in homemade shortcrust pastry. A divine cheese parcel in cornmeal shortcrust with Cheddar and thyme. Who doesn't love baked cheese?

Caramelised fennel slices sautéed in a pan with maple syrup and white balsamic vinegar. The best way of cooking fennel, it makes an exquisite side dish, or a lovely starter served with a chunk of crusty bread.

Caramelised leek and Cheddar tart on shortcrust pastry, homemade or shop bought, is a fabulous, easy dish, as good to serve warm as it is cold.

Cauliflower cheese with spices, garlic and creamy sauce. Interesting thing about comfort foods is that they usually tend to be quite bland. I guess when it's cold outside or you're feeling a bit down you don't fancy stimulating senses too much.

Roasted cauliflower parmigiana, cauliflower slices, parmesan and mozzarella layered with simple tomato sauce. A good veggie dish which actually tastes much better than you’d think.

Vegetarian Wellington, with mushroom and spinach layer around baked celeriac centre. Easy to make ahead, even easier to make it vegan: just use vegan pastry and skip the butter.

Celeriac, carrot and apple remoulade with creme fraiche and wholegrain mustard dressing is a seasonal winter salad and a great side dish for seafood.

Oven roasted celeriac steak with sweet potato chips, vegetarian bliss with no meat substitutes in sight. And it’s made vegan with a simple tweak. Who needs Quorn?

Cheese and mushroom omelette is a quick and easy breakfast or lunch dish. Beat the eggs well and work quickly for a perfectly fluffy omelette.

The best cheese fondue, smooth as velvet and comforting as a blanket. This tastes absolutely fantastic. And so it should – it’s Heston’s recipe from the book ‘Heston Blumenthal at home’.

Cheesy sweetcorn tart on a crusty base of pizza dough. It's vegetarian and gorgeous, as a snack, for lunch or dinner. Use leftover frozen pizza dough or a shop bought dough portion or base.

Simple chickpea salad with pancetta, red pepper and mushrooms makes a quick and easy lunchtime dish. Tinned chickpeas are dry roasted in a pan with cayenne pepper.

Chilli con corn – vegetarian sweetcorn chilli with beans goes well with tortillas, baked potatoes or nachos. Corn on the cob cooked with classic chilli flavours – the fresher ears of corn, the better!

Chunky vegetable lasagne, with peppers, courgettes and tomatoes. Coated with creamy white sauce with mozzarella layer, it will cook to a bubbling, gorgeous perfection.

Conchiglioni, jumbo pasta shells, filled with ricotta and walnuts and baked in tomato sauce. Vegetarian filling of three cheeses with herbs and a walnut crunch take a little time to prepare but the result is worth every second.

Corn on the cob with tahini butter: steamed to perfection in the microwave, slathered with tahini butter, the easiest and the tastiest ear of sweetcorn you’ll ever have tried!

Corn ribs from the oven, with homemade dukkah, just like the ones served at Ottolenghi’s Rovi. It’s totally a snack du moment – and de toujours, I hope.

Courgette and spinach tian with garlic, pine nuts and cheese. Make a note of the courgette treatment – that’s how this boring vegetable needs to be handled. Squeeze the living daylights out of it and it might just be vaguely tasty.

Zucchini parmigiana becomes here zucchini alla pecorino – let’s stick to courgette gratin, shall we? I like courgette but do agree it needs some oomph to make it less bland and it must borrow flavour from elsewhere – tomato sauce for instance.

Courgette fritters in tomato and paprika cornmeal crust. Why is it such a thing about courgettes every summer? Magazines, blogs and weekend supplements fall over themselves to supply novel ways of utilising courgettes:

Couscous with asparagus chunks, toasted pistachio nuts and fresh herbs, it’s a warm salad of perfectly matching ingredients.

Creamed Jerusalem artichokes, aka topinamburs, taste wonderfully nutty with a velvet texture when cooked in cream like this. With added tarragon for the flavour as well as to alieviate gas inducing quality of the artichokes.

Creamed corn with blue cheese and fresh ripe tomatoes. Creamed corn in fact is now my number one method of cooking corn and that’s how I’ll continue until the end of the summer and beyond – it’s gorgeous.

Creamy fettuccine with roasted mushrooms, delightfully easy and amazingly tasty. Cooked down cream makes sauce and oven roasted mushroom slices are stirred into the pasta.

Crispy and spicy roasted chickpeas with grilled peppers, a wholesome vegetarian lunch or dinner as chickpeas are an excellent source of protein and fibre.