Chef at Large

As with most of her cooking, this soup is hearty, nutritious, healthy and filling.
No fat people in Zainab’s house - everyone here is fit and healthy, in stark contrast to my portly self. Definitely the cooking!
This soup is no exception. Filling and nutritious, it uses onions, tomatoes, leeks, carrots and green cabbage for the body. [...]

I travel to Bakewell nearly every day of the week to work at a client’s premises. Try as I did, I finally succumbed to the smell of freshly baked Bakewell puddings.
As per Wikipedia: The tale told to tourists is that this dish is an accidental invention of the 1860s, which occurred when a nobleman visiting [...]

Made using a pre-mixed tomato basil mixture, this bread is the perfect accompaniment to any soup. Soft, tangy and delicious it tastes wonderful with a light spread of cheese or butter.

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Pan Haggerty is a delicious and simple to make dish. I wouldn’t say its quick, but your kids will love it. My wife ended up scraping the pan, so I’m pretty sure it appeals to children. (I hope she’s not reading this).
Oil a pan, put a layer of sliced potatoes, then a layer of sliced [...]

Going by Toni’s recipe of a few days back, I thought of trying it at home. Problem was, I couldn’t find lamb or fresh rosemary. So, decided to follow procedure and change the ingredients. Here’s what finally hapenned:

Find a pan large enough to hold leg
Fill water, place on heat and add bay leaf, turmeric, salt, [...]

A dismal Saturday morning in Buckinghamshire - drizzle, spray from passing cars and a keen breeze making me desire a hearty dinner.
A glance into the butcher’s window had me (mentally) dancing for joy as there was a perfect leg of lamb hanging from the rail. It weighed 1.60kgs and was too long [...]

This is a deliciously different stew, that can be made with any kind of meat you like, in any form. I’m not sure which cuisine to categorise this under, since as it is a little American and a bit Asian. It does have a very interesting flavor nonetheless and goes very well with a hunk [...]

My love for cooking arose from the kitchens of ‘East End’, in Cannanore, where my grandmother stirred and shook and whipped up the most delicious delicacies. The kitchen was old fashioned. Wood fires burned throughout the day and my grandmother who was called Mammu, by all her grandchildren, had to blow frequently through a long [...]

Here’s a contribution from my mother:
There’s nothing more invigorating than a hearty breakfast. There was a time when breakfasts in my mother’s home were huge and wholesome. Fried, poached or boiled eggs, thick slices of toast, butter, marmalade, chutney, rashers of bacon, fried tomatoes and thick slices of roast potatoes and that wasn’t all! There [...]

Apparently, I’ve been doing it wrong all along!
Stuck with the problem of poaching the perfect egg, I’ve been trying to get something close to acceptable for a while. More often than not however, I would end up with thready and tattered whites. Not acceptable!
After doing a bit of reading and some experimenting, here’s the consistent [...]