Tom Cooks!

How profligate, I hear you cry. Taking something which is  delicate, delicious and downright dear, and turning it into soup? Nay, best beloveds, nay. Imparting culinary knowledge to my bambini has always been a source of pleasure, never more so than when it related to today’s star veg. Having been asked how far down one…

I’ve long been a fan of the way the French put together a salade composée. The British style of having a few ingredients laid out on a flat plate always looks sad, and usually tastes that way as well. While the base for today’s offeriing will always be leaves (well dressed of course),  you can…

Overseeing school dinners very many years ago in an unnamed establishment outwith Edinburgh,  L asked what the day’s veg was. Ravioli, came the reply. In our enjoyment of pasta in Britain we’ve come a long way since then, but when it comes to the stuffed stuff, we’re still a long way behind the home country. Shop…

If you’re French and you’re reading this, do you realise how much of a laugh the Italians are having at your expense? My admiration of the cuisine of la belle France knows few bounds except, perhaps, when it comes to today’s star ingredient. We refer not the little tubers which cause extreme flatulence, the so called…

No! Not that sort of salsa! If you think I’m going to be a dance master in April, you little know your man. Even before the titanium hip I discovered that I had been born lacking a sense of rhythm. The delights of dancing the salsa (which, as you know, is a Cuban fusion of…

Well, sod seasonality! I said firmly to the laptop. No, I’m not referring to what we should cook or eat, but to the issues it raises for us scribblers. You might think that Easter would be a gift, with all its food traditions. Yes, but this is the ninth year of Tom Cooks! Fortunately, many of…

I’m shocked, let me tell you. Totally shocked. No, I’m not being Louis Renault, Casablanca’s police chief, on discovering that gambling is carried on at Ricks Cafe (just before receiving his winnings). Rather it’s the lack of goulash recipes out there. My go to encylopaedia is Prue Leith’s Cookery Bible. There you can find out how…

Those of you of a certain age may be having a nostalgic chuckle at this point. Rhubarb  is radio jargon for unintelligible background speech. Extras would mutter the word over and over to provided atmosphere for, say, a party scene. The Goons, ultimate radio anarchists, had a sketch where it was repeated, clearly and audibly,…

You may have noticed the low and slow theme recently. As well as oxtail and  beef short ribs, my haul from Balgove Farm included a good chunk of pork belly. That’s currently in the freezer, but with an offspring scheduled to visit soon, the mind is turning over what to do with it. A few…

While the nights may be getting longer, the miserable weather which fills them calls for slow cooking. Now with a recipe which is best done over two days, the climate may have improved by day two, but it’s a risk worth taking. While in St Andrews recently I popped into Balgove farm shop. Their prices…

I’d rather be a horse than a rat. But deep down I secretly envy my as yet unborn grandchild. If all goes well in April, he or she will be a dragon. Now who wouldn’t want that? As you may know, tomorrow (Saturday) marks the Chinese New Year. I discover I was  born in the…

This has to be the ultimate example of a what do I have in the fridge dish. I had made a sweet and sour chicken a few days earlier and had a batch of chicken thighs. The plan was to make a sort of chicken chasseur, with red wine, beef stock and mushrooms. There were a…

What do you mean, this isn’t cooking?  Who said that? Hands up. Listen, matey, in this house cooking is any combination of foods to produce a routine masterpiece. Ice is food; rum is food; so are the other ingredients. So that’s you told. I have to say that as so many rum based cocktails are…

When arriving in another country, it’s never too early to get started on food. So in the taxi from the airport I had two early and important questions for the driver. Where is good to eat, and what are the national foods? I can reveal that in Barbados there are two or three dishes with…

For this, the last Tom Cooks! this side of Christmas, I felt something festive was in order. And following on from Annie Gray on Wednesday I thought something with a bit of history would be appropriate. While Annie did get in touch with me to say that this Christmas she would be having ramen, not…

Despite Wednesday’s column, I’m not advocating a boycott of farmed salmon, just urging everyone to be careful about what they buy. It must be said that many chefs are now in the former category, as reported in a fairly recent edition of The National.   Campbell Mickel Just after I went to press, I heard from my…

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…