Tom Cooks!

The strawberry season is well under way. How have your experiences been? I rate it a bit better than last year, but that’s not saying much. We’ll have to wait and see if the two warm days this week represent our entire summer. With luck the red beauties will soon get the sun on their…

Claire Macdonald Just over a year ago at the Masterchefs’ Lunch, I met one of my food heroes, Claire Macdonald. Not only is she delightful, she gave me permission to reproduce her recipes. We try to stay seasonal here, and ingredients don’t get much more seasonal than British asparagus. I’ve written about it before. As…

This pleasantly alliterative recipe is my take on a dish which I ate at Valvona & Crolla, which was reviewed last week. It is laughably simple. Like pesto itself, you can play about with the ingredients, but if you omit any, you’d have to rename the dish, obviously. You can use any pasta you like,…

Last week we had a wee history lesson: this week brings us up to date. Today’s recipe is for Coronation Quiche, devised by Royal Chef Mark Flanagan, apparently in consultation with the King and Queen Consort. Critics of Coronation chicken were heard to mutter that with its curry flavour it was hardly British. I can…

Now don’t start complaining that we still have a couple of weeks to go. When it comes to matters royal, the art of preparation knows no bounds. I can tell you that contingency plans for the late Queen dying in Scotland started some 15 years ago. We have only 15 days. Time to start practising.…

This is a variation on a recipe which I found on the internet. I’m always suspicious of those recipes  which call for luscious ripe plum tomatoes. I suspect their authors are still harbouring memories of summer holidays in Italy or Spain. I use the tinned variety. As an aside, am I alone in refusing to…

I say, I say, I say, what do you get if you pour boiling water down a rabbit hole? Hot cross bunnies! Boom, boom! I thank you! Well it made my nieces laugh – when they were about three. As I hinted on Wednesday, today’s recipe is for hot cross buns. (On Good Friday? Where…

After musing on the delights of the rijsttafel the other day, I thought this might be a good time for an Indonesian recipe. Google Indonesian food and by far the most common dish is nasi goreng. Well I did that on the old site – seven years ago, I discover – and, to be frank,…

The Milkmaid by Vermeer In this country we’re not too inventive with bread once it’s past its best. On the continent they’re much more creative, though it does help if you are in a country rich with good quality oil, and ripe tomatoes. A supply of breadcrumbs in the freezer is always useful for a…

Mark Baird is well known in Tom Eats! as the Retired Captain of Industry. His post of Head of Alcohol in Society of Diageo together with his natural Italian charm (not everyone knows of his proud ancestry) made him hugely influential and respected in the drinks industry. Both he and his lovely wife Liz are…

By making your own rolls at home you really start to get some economic benefits. We’re going to start by turning that first batch of dough you made from a few weeks ago into rolls. A standard morning roll weighs about 80g, which means you’ll get at least 10 of them from your dough. Remember…

Your first attempt at bread. Congratulations. Now while I hear that many of you were delighted, some of you had problems. Let’s consider some of them. My dough went into a sticky mess and I couldn’t work with it Getting the amount of water right is tricky, even when you follow a recipe. While the…

So you’ve never made bread before. No problem, that applies to millions of you. We’re into February, so I’m not trying to get you to make resolutions. Assuming you eat bread, and buy some or all of it as part of your supermarket shopping, I give you one very small challenge. Follow this column and…

Tom Cooks! is continuing the theme of things to spread on your toast. That’s about the only thing that today’s recipe has in common with last week’s lemon curd. That one was quick. This week’s, like January itself, seems to go on for ever. Seville oranges will only be available for another couple of weeks…

So do you have a citrus problem? Find them coming at you from everywhere? That happened to us last year. We threw our first party in over two years. Both L and I both bought lemons and limes by the ton, and probably used but two on the day. Nothing worse than watching them shrinking…

Claire Macdonald This is a genius of a recipe. Even by Claire Macdonald’s standards she has surpassed herself. And with the pheasant season drawing to a close, pheasant breasts are really economical. I think I paid £3 for the meat for the whole dish. With a terrine, you generally require a chutney. No need here…

I mentioned a month or two ago that – to my own surprise – this column has just celebrated its seventh birthday. 7 years. A time for introspection, albeit one without an itch. It started off on the back of two cook books. The first was written for me by my mum when I was…

The original plan for today was to give you a stollen recipe; however, that would have been three sweet things in a row, and I haven’t had time to test it. Next year, perhaps. So, staying seasonal, what shall we have? Over the next two or three weeks, eating patterns will change for many of…

Many families like a trifle on the table at Christmas time. This recipe is taken from Wendy Barrie’s book, Meadows: The Swedish Farmer & The Scottish Cook which we reviewed on Wednesday. A badly made trifle can be disgusting. There are no shortcuts in this recipe as it features home made Swiss roll for the…

With Christmas approaching, I had a fancy to include a cake recipe. Not a traditional Christmas cake – for me it has too much similarity to Christmas pudding, the true highlight (after the roast potatoes) of Christmas dinner. I acquired a stollen recipe from a friend, but I’m suspicious of the yeast quantities given. Not…

With the onset of winter you expect the temperature to drop. That’s fine. In fact I rather enjoy the clear, crisp, blue skied days, but not those damp, dank ones where the cold seems to seep into your bone marrow. At such times comfort food is called for. But which one? Looking through the archives…

This is a homage to Portugal where I holidayed recently. The country is the world’s largest consumer of salt cod. In every supermarket you’ll see racks and racks of the stuff, stiff as a board, probably handy as an offensive weapon. You’ll find variations wherever cod was common, Newfoundland, Norway and the Faroe Islands. It’s…

While there are probably no new recipes under the sun, this one did come out of my head. One of the many reasons I like Nigel Slater so much is that he says he will often just decide what to cook for dinner when looking at the contents of his fridge. While his TV programmes…

Call this beef stew if you like, but that’s akin to saying that Leonardo da Vinci could paint a wee bit. Today’s column was inspired by two things. After being delighted by Felicity Cloake’s Red Sauce, Brown Sauce, reviewed in On The Side a few weeks ago, I bought a copy of her earlier work, One More…