Posts by Tom Johnston

E, my Italian teacher, and I were having a laugh the other week. The subject of our hilarity concerned Italian salami. Not, I hasten to add, one of those smutty jokes about the size or firmness of sausages. Quite the reverse. We were talking about the lesser known soft, not to say floppy one, the…

L, my T & S*, spoils me on a regular basis. She knows I’m very partial to lemon sole, whose texture she dislikes: she also knows (as do most of you by now) of my love of dressed crab. At a recent visit to McPhersons the fishmonger, bless her soul, she bought both. It transpired…

My sister recently celebrated a birthday of some significance. I suppose you could argue that at our age, getting through another year is a milestone, but we’ll let that pass. She told me that for her birthday our Aunt Agnes (not related, but that’s what you called your parents’ friends in those far off days)…

Here in Johnston Towers we are big fans of smoked haddock. L is happy having hers poached and served very simply with oatcakes. For me it needs mash. For really filling comfort food, top it with a sauce made using the poaching milk, and perhaps a poached egg as well. But whatever we’re doing, we…

Autumn. The game season. The gift that just keeps giving. On a regular basis we toddle out to Castle Game and fill our shopping basket. Then and only then do I start thinking about how I’m going to cook it. Today’s dish worked exceptionally well. Partridge has a delicate flavour. You have to be careful…

At heart this is just a posh version of that simplest of Italian classics, spaghetti oglio, aglio e peperoncino,  ie with oil, garlic and chilli. It’s so easy as to defy belief. For today’s dish, the quality of your ingredients will make all the difference, though I did improvise. A few pointers. Use your very…

Mielko Itadakimasu! The customary saying before eating in Japan. It’s more than just bon appétit: it literally means I will have the food respectfully. For this, the last article influenced by our jaunt to Japan, I’ll say thank you (arigato) to Mielko, the lady who taught us to make sushi, and who sent us away…

For the first cook of the post Japan period, it’s surely appropriate to start with what is probably the best known Japanese food, sushi. As we alluded to on Wednesday, there are about five varieties. I exclude sashimi from that, as no rice is involved. Today’s version, makizushi, is so called because you use a…