Tom Cooks!

I tried to steal spaghetti from the shop, but the female guard saw me, and I couldn’t get pasta. Believe it or not, Masai Graham’s piece of hilarity was voted the funniest joke at the year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe. It did two things for me. Firstly, I found it a depressingly sad reflection of the…

Charles Dickens goes into a bar. -I’ll have a martini, please. -Certainly, sir. Olive or twist? Your task is to spot the anachronism. Well the cocktail (then known as a Martinez, named for a town in California) almost certainly existed at the time of Dickens’ last trip to the States; however, the practice of adding…

You ungrateful lot may not appreciate it, but this recipe writing is fraught with peril, not to say downright danger. Seasonality is one thing, but to publish a recipe which works only when the mercury is high can be fool hardy at best. Worse still if you have a restaurant and need to plan menus…

Way back I used to be a lawyer, remember? That’s why you have to trust me. It’s also why my disclaimers are printed very clearly at the top. #1 This recipe is not from last week’s heroine Sandra Folkes-Joseph. I did ask her, but I was pushing my luck. Once I get her the publishing…

On Wednesday, we introduced you to the remarkable Sandra Folkes-Joseph. Having spent some time in Antigua tracking it down, I was blown away by her signature dish of curry goat. Tongue in cheek, I offered my services in her kitchen free in exchange for the the recipe. With astonishing generosity she sent it to me …

Well on Wednesday you had me rhapsodising about mangoes in the flesh, as it were, luscious, soft, exquisite, juicy … (that’s quite enough – Ed.) But if you can’t get fruit of that quality, you can still do good things. The first of these is a recipe of L’s, always popular if catering for a…

Here at Johnston Towers we’ve been eating a lot of venison of late. In a fit of thoughtless shopping I’d stocked up the freezer at Castle Game Scotland just a week before my butchery course at Edinburgh School of Food & Wine. To be frank it’s no hardship. I know I’ve featured venison dishes before,…

Before the break I wrote about a memorable week’s butchery course at the Edinburgh School of Food & Wine. As well as cutting up animals, we did a fair bit of cooking. Course teacher Ash and I lunched very well, and usually quite late, to the discomfiture of trouble and strife L. Not only did…

Last week we mentioned in passing strawberry coulis. Making a sorbet, or its crunchier cousin a granita, are just variations on the theme though the technique is slightly different. I’ll repeat last week’s disclaimer that the requisite degree of sweetness will depend on your berries and your personal taste. In true cheffy style I should…

We’re starting to get into prime strawberry season,  one of summer’s principal delights. I refer of course to British strawberries, not these ghastly forced things, consistency of wood, which arrive bearing hundreds if not thousands of air miles. But be warned. In the early part of the growing season on this sceptred isle, you will…

As the rain bounces off my window, I have two inspirations for today’s column. The first of these was reading that someone somewhere had decreed May to be the National Barbecue Month. In fairness, the weather in Scotland in May can often be surprisingly good. Sadly, not this year. I have cleaned my barbie in…

Claire Macdonald A few weeks ago I had the great pleasure of meeting Lady Claire Macdonald. Not only meeting her, but getting her permission to reproduce recipes from her huge range of cookery books. We own about a dozen. I commend each and every one of them to you. Needless to say, you’ll never get…

I wrote recently about attending the Masterchefs of GB lunch. There were sponsors a-plenty and we all received a goody bag to take home. Sponsors included The Glenlivet whisky and Bon Accord soft drinks. Not only did the bag have samples, it contained a few cocktail recipes which I thought I would share. But first,…

This is a very short recipe – soup ones always are. I was doing some fridge tidying up before we headed off to London for a few days’ hedonism. In the depths of the vegetable drawer (so often a source of inspiration for off the wall stuff) I discovered a bag of Jerusalem artichokes. It…

I am not a great eater of puddings. You may have noticed that the dessert selection is often missing from the Tom Eats! column. (My simple response is to say that it seems to work for Giles Coren, and he’s made a good living out of his scribblings.) I make an exception, however, whenever I…

Well, it’s Easter and we like to be seasonal, and give you something to celebrate with. To be extra topical, my plan was to feature Paska, a Ukrainian loaf traditionally made at Easter time. It’s a sweet loaf topped with a coiled, three strand braid. It’s usually jazzed up with saffron, raisins and other fruit. The…

These days, were you to go on a programme such as Masterchef and cook scallops any way other than searing in a hot pan, you would be met with derision. It wasn’t always thus. I remember asking a chef some decades ago how one should cook them. Gently in a lot of butter was the…

In Wednesday’s Chef Watch column, Graeme Cheevers chose scallops as his favourite ingredient. He’s certainly not alone in that. It’s a dish I always find hard to overlook on any menu. Like many stars of Scottish produce (especially those from the sea) we’ve moved on a long way from how we used to (mis)treat them.…

On Wednesday, On The Side introduced you to Dougie Bell of Lupe Pintos. Between them, he and his partner Rhoda Robertson have produced three excellent cook books, coveriing a broad range of cuisine from Mexico through the southern states of the USA and on to the Caribbean. The fourth in the series, The Mexican Wrestlers Cookbook was produced…

I seldom follow recipes when it comes to Indian food. I had got very cocky and reckoned I’d cracked it. There then followed a trio of dishes which were, as they might say it in my home town in Fife, pish poor. But undeterred, a pack of chicken thighs in hand and not a great…

And before you start, no potato either. No shepherds or cottagers are involved in today’s offering. As with many of my odder, off the cuff recipes, this was inspired by an item which was needing used. Without being obsessional about it, I dislike seeing food going to waste. A week or two ago I created…

Lime Drizzle Cake This article started with the intention of describing three or four things lime related; however, when I started writing about the lime cake, it brought back to me the extreme trauma of my early experiences of cake baking. Never made a cake, and think you can just pick up a recipe? Pshaw!…

As I wrote on Wednesday, I love limes. Having said that, I don’t go along with those who opine that they are interchangeable with lemons. Sometimes (indeed quite often) you just need that sharp, dish-enhancing zap which you’ll get only from its yellow cousin. But limes can be used at any stage of one’s menu.…

Virtually everyone has their favourite Del and Rodney memory. For most it will be the scene where David Jason tries to lean nonchalantly against the bar, only to discover that the counter had been raised. Great stuff, but I’m still tickled by their French trip. Del, thinking ahead to dinner, asks, What’s French for duck…