The dish I can’t quit: Nigella Lawson, Alice Waters and Asma Khan on their favourite old recipes
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
No recipe is born of immaculate conception. This is not a bad thing — except, of course, if the owner of your local small plates bar is insisting they discovered nduja on a personal research trip to Calabria. The best chefs are those who read widely, are inspired readily and admit to the debt owed. Happily, this is easier to do at a time when provenance and authenticity are so much in fashion that a chef’s granny is more revered than Larousse.
Here, 18 of the very best cooks reveal a recipe they return to frequently, and why, drawing from a century-plus of cookbooks, many are now out of print. Taken together, their contributions prove that, for the most part, even the very accomplished are just like the rest of us: they want to cook things that are easy, comforting and that work well at a dinner party.
Compiled by Harriet Fitch Little and Jethro Robathan
Anna Del Conte’s chickpea and pasta soup
I’ve been cooking this recipe for more than 30 years. Small children love it, teenagers love it, fully fledged and ageing adults love it. I don’t really understand how you couldn’t.
It’s as simple as it is comforting. Although I have long ago stopped reading the recipe to make this, I always think of Anna when I do, most particularly as I stir her special softening mixture for the chickpeas as they soak. Having said that, I often cook this in an electric pressure cooker (I have also proceeded thus in a slow-cooker) without soaking the chickpeas at all, which makes me feel friskily spontaneous! Anna’s original recipe calls for a huge amount — 600g — of dried chickpeas. Generally, I use far less, about 250g. And very often, I prefer thyme in place of her rosemary. I adore the leftovers, by which time it will be solid rather than soup, eaten at a balmy room temperature with a fine grating of lemon zest, a fresh sprinkling of chopped parsley and a good glug of olive oil.
the original recipe
To make a very large quantity
Put the chickpeas in a bowl and cover with plenty of water.
Mix together the bicarbonate of soda, flour and salt and add enough water to make a thin paste. Stir this mixture into the bowl with the chickpeas and leave to soak for at least 12 hours. It helps to soften the skin of the chickpeas.
When the chickpeas have doubled their weight, they are ready to be cooked. Drain and then rinse them. Put them in a large stockpot, or two smaller stockpots, and add the vegetable stock or the same quantity of water.
Tie the rosemary sprigs in a muslin bag and add to the stockpot. (This will make it possible to remove the rosemary without leaving any needles to float in the soup.)
Add the garlic to the stockpot and pour in half the oil. Cover the pan tightly and bring to the boil. Lower the heat and cook over the lowest simmer until the chickpeas are tender, which can take two to four hours. Do not uncover the pan for the first 1½ hours or the chickpeas will harden. For the same reason do not add any salt until the chickpeas are nearly ready.
When the chickpeas are tender, remove the garlic and the rosemary bundle which are floating on the surface of the soup.
Purée the tomatoes through a food mill or in a food processor and add to the soup with their juice. Stir well, add salt and pepper to taste and cook for a further 10 minutes or so.
Before you add the pasta, check that there is enough liquid in the pan. You may have to add some boiling water. Now add the pasta and cook until al dente. Ladle the soup into soup bowls and pour a little of the remaining oil in the middle of each bowl. Serve immediately, handing the parmesan round separately.
This recipe appears in “Entertaining all’Italiana”, Bantam, 1991. Nigella Lawson is a cook and a writer
Patience Gray’s green purée
By Jeremy Lee
Gray was a Fleet Street whiz kid who gave it all up to live off the land — in the Cyclades, Catalonia and, ultimately, in Puglia where she moved into a house with no electricity, gas or running water. This was decades before The Good Life hit our screens. She wrote this spectacularly rural book about local lore and recipes, which I remember buying on the day it was published and which I’ve been rereading recently to get ideas for my next book. You can chop and change vegetables according to the seasons.
Trying to recreate those dishes in an urban modern world, well, you might as well try to catch a cloud. But I have returned to her minestra di erbe passate on many occasions. The brilliant thing about it is it goes with anything — it could be used to dress beans or chickpeas, or sit with poached fish, used as a salad dressing or stirred into risotto and pasta.
the original recipe
Aromatics
Remove the biggest ribs from the beet, wash and roughly slice up all the greenstuff on a board, put it in a large bowl with water.
Chop up the aromatics and simmer them in butter until they begin to colour. Put in the undrained greenstuff, with the tomatoes and potato, add salt and pepper and boil up, stirring.
When the greens have reduced in volume, cover with hot water and cook briefly till tender, then pass through a sieve.
Stir some fresh butter into the purée and, if you like, a little thick cream. Serve with grated parmesan.
This recipe appears in “Honey from a Weed”, Prospect Books, 1986. Jeremy Lee is chef-patron of Quo Vadis
Elizabeth David’s salade niçoise
By Alice Waters
Elizabeth David wrote her recipes as if she were telling you a story; the words never felt dry or cold, with ingredients listed out in precise amounts. When you’re reading, you’re fully engaged in her prose, not only because of its elegance, but because each recipe’s free-form nature invites you to really think about what you’re cooking and rely on your own senses.
Salade niçoise in Summer Cooking (1955) caught my attention because of its versatility and simplicity. Classically, the ingredients are fairly well set, but there are endless ways to change it. I like to make it with spicy salad greens such as rocket and herbs like chervil. Sometimes I even add a little fennel. But it was David’s use of garlic that captivated me. All the recipe says is, “There should be garlic in the dressing”! I fell in love with the flavour, and I’ve used garlic in virtually all of my vinaigrettes ever since.
the original recipe
There is no precise recipe for a salade niçoise. It usually contains lettuce hearts, black olives, hard-boiled eggs, anchovies, and sometimes tunny [tuna] fish. There should be garlic in the dressing.
In La Cuisine à Nice, Lucien Heyraud gives a salade niçoise composed of young globe artichokes cut in quarters, black olives, raw pimento, quarters of tomato and anchovy fillets. There are, however, as many versions of it as there are cooks in Provence, but in whatever way it is interpreted it should be a simple and rather crude country salad. The ingredients should be put in the bowl with each category kept separate, in large pieces, nicely arranged so that the salad looks colourful and fresh. The dressing should be mixed in at the table.
This recipe appears in “Summer Cooking”, Museum Press, 1955, and is now available from Grub Street Publishing. Alice Waters is founder of Chez Panisse
Digvijaya Singh’s korma khada masale ka
By Asma Khan
When I first read Digvijaya Singh’s Cooking Delights of the Maharajas in the mid-1990s, it inspired a profound shift in my thinking on the cooking and gastronomy of my own royal family. The recipes of royal families had always been closely guarded, passed down through generations by word of mouth. To see recipes like these written down was revolutionary!
The korma khada masale ka is a quintessential example of royal cooking. “Khada masale” (whole spices) allows them to display their quality through their colour, fragrance and flavours. Mastering this recipe will help you understand how to balance complex flavours.
the original recipe (serves 4-6)
Heat the ghee, add cardamoms, cloves and bay leaves. Then add sliced onions and fry them to a golden brown. Add meat along with curd, salt, red chilli powder, whole red chillies, coriander seeds, cumin seeds and ginger and enough water to cook the meat.
When meat is tender and very little water remains, add whole onions, garlic and green chillies, and cook on low heat. While stirring, be careful not to break the onions and garlic.
When onions are tender and water dries up, add (separately) the cooked peas, saffron, lime juice and coriander leaves, and stir gently. While serving, add pieces of eggs. Boil peas separately with salt and add only as much water that it should dry up when peas are tender but not mushy.
This recipe appears in “Cooking Delights of the Maharajas”, published in 1982 by Viking Adult. Asma Khan is founder of Darjeeling Express
Gianni Grimaldi’s ‘farinata’ chickpea tart
By Ruth Rogers
Soon after opening the River Cafe, Rose [Gray] and I discovered a series of books called La Cucina Delle Regioni D’Italia (1989). The recipes are handwritten in Italian on rustic brown paper with English translations. Each book is devoted to a region of Italy, Liguria being one of our favourites. Farinata is a street food, but it’s also delicate and refined. In Liguria, they make it in a special copper pan, which was one of the first items we sought for our online shop. We cook farinata in the wood oven, but it’s simple enough to make at home. With only three ingredients — chickpea flour, olive oil and water — it’s gluten free and we vary it with seasonal herbs, sage, rosemary, thyme or fennel seeds. Delicious with prosciutto or mozzarella or on its own.
Ruth Rogers is co-founder of the River Cafe
Corey Lee’s jasmine chicken and dates
By Jeremy Chan
I was mesmerised by this recipe when I first saw it in Benu (2015), and it really drew me into the idea of cooking. Poached chicken was something my father had taught me with Hainan-style chicken, but this was the first time I’d seen it done in such a refined, clean fashion. I love the way the chicken broth is infused with tea. I cook my own interpretation at home, but maybe one day I will do a version like this at Ikoyi.
Jeremy Chan is chef at Ikoyi
Sami Tamimi’s cauliflower fritters
By Itamar Srulovich
This is probably the recipe I have cooked most in my life. Every time I make it, I remember the first time I tried it at the first Ottolenghi shop in Notting Hill. I was head chef, Sami Tamimi was executive chef and the proximity made me a better cook. He whipped up these fritters he’d had in his childhood from memory, and they became an instant hit — no matter how many we made, they were the first thing to sell out.
Back then, Sami and Yotam [Ottolenghi] were just shooting Ottolenghi: The Cookbook (2008), which has the recipe for these fritters as well a picture of me, holding a pencil and looking stern. Ottolenghi was not quite the household name it is now, but if you tried those fritters, or any of the food in this book, you’d have known it was going to be big.
Itamar Srulovich is co-founder of Honey & Co
Olga Hess’s goulash
By Anna Tobias
I didn’t actually know who Olga Hess was when I bought her cookbook. We cook a lot of middle European food at Café Deco and I probably found Viennese Cooking (1952) by Googling “good Austrian cookbooks”, “second-hand cookbooks” or similar. The only recipe I cook regularly, both at home and at the restaurant, has the politically incorrect title “gypsy goulash”. A lot of goulash recipes are made with veal or beef, but I grew up eating pork-based variants, which this one includes. Its flavour focus is very simple, unlike some goulash — Simon Hopkinson’s recipe uses tinned piquillo peppers, for example, whereas this recipe sticks with paprika and caraway as the main additions. It’s good for entertaining; everyone is happy with goulash for dinner, chefs and friends alike.
Anna Tobias is chef-director of Café Deco
Madhur Jaffrey’s sambhar
By Ravinder Bhogal
Madhur Jaffrey is an icon — actor, food writer, cook and broadcaster — with a career spanning decades. She was the first to eloquently demystify Indian food and educate the masses on the vast regionality. Traditional Indian recipes are often as nebulous as folklore, but Madhur took charge of codifying and preserving them. My mother is a tremendous cook, but her measurements are often unhelpfully gauged by something we call andaaza, which loosely translates as intuition.
If I wanted a reliable recipe, it was Madhur, not mother who knew best. Eastern Vegetarian Cooking (1983) has recipes from as far and wide as Turkey and China, with a whole chapter dedicated to beans, pulses and legumes. Jaffrey wittily called dhal “LSD” for “life saving dhal”, and I have endlessly riffed on her recipe for sambhar, a south Indian dhal.
Ravinder Bhogal is chef-patron of Jikoni
Naoko Takei Moore and Kyle Connaughton’s salted kombu with ginger rice
By Daniel Humm
I have a beautiful clay donabe at home that I love to use to cook rice, as it heats all the ingredients steadily, and consistently. While Donabe (2015) is a relatively recent cookbook, its blend of traditional and contemporary recipes has quickly made it a staple in my home. This particular recipe holds a special place in my heart because it uses both my favourite cooking method and an all-time favourite ingredient, shio kombu, which here adds a beautiful umami flavour.
Daniel Humm is chef-owner of Eleven Madison Park
Rose Carrarini’s cod in tomato water
By Erchen Chang
I love the story behind Rose Carrarini who, with no cooking background, set up shop in Marylebone selling quiche, sandwiches and soups, and then opened Rose Bakery in Paris. She led the way in a simpler way of cooking, putting vegetables at the forefront.
One of my favourite recipes from Breakfast, Lunch, Tea (2006) is her cod in tomato water dish. It makes me feel good. A broth is not normally considered something you’d have on a hot summer day, but I love this dish for that reason.
Erchen Chang is co-founder of BAO
Pellegrino Artusi’s torta margherita
By Emiko Davies
Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well (1891), or Artusi, as the book is affectionately known, was my introduction to Tuscan cooking. The torta margherita was one of the first recipes I made from the 790-recipe tome. It has three ingredients and is basically a cloudlike sponge cake, made with potato starch rather than flour. I’ve made it into zuppa inglese and piped it into lady fingers as the base for truly home-made tiramisu.
You can roll it, stack it, drizzle icing on it or just present it as Artusi intended, on its own, perfect for dunking quickly into coffee.
Emiko Davies is author of “Gohan: Everyday Japanese Cooking” (2023)
Gary Rhodes’ steamed sponge pudding
By Emily Roux
There are some cookbooks you return to for just one recipe.
For me, it’s the treacle sponge in More Rhodes Around Britain (1995), which my family always cooked in winter. It was a bit of a waiting game: it takes several hours to steam and there’s always a chance the water will leak in. You tip it out on to a plate and the treacle drizzles down like a volcano. With my oldest child now turned four, I think I’ll start the tradition with my own family.
At the restaurant, this would be too heavy, too old-school. We try to cook dishes that you wouldn’t be able to achieve at home.
Emily Roux, is co-owner of Caractère
Jean-François Piège’s orange cake
Like many, I cooked a lot at home during lockdown, particularly pastries with my daughters. Of course, it was simple cakes and not the pastries I used to work on in restaurants. So I had to get inspiration for basic “patisserie”, and I was delighted to find this recipe in Jean-François Piège Pour Tous (2016). It is based around citrus, one of my favourite ingredients. Not only can this cake be savoured as it is, but it can also be made with fruits on the top or stuffed with a special cream. I know I will make everyone happy with this simple recipe.
The writer is chef-patron of Hélène Darroze at The Connaught
Leah Chase’s gumbo
No one has inspired me more, professionally or personally, than the late, great Leah Chase of the legendary Dooky Chase’s Restaurant. Back when New Orleans was deeply segregated, her restaurant became a meeting place for civil rights leaders. She cooked Creole cuisine from the heart — greens and yams, jambalaya, and, of course, gumbo.
Whenever I make the gumbo from The Dooky Chase Cookbook (1990) I feel like I can hear Ms Leah in my ear. She famously admonished President Obama when he added a little hot sauce, saying “Don’t mess it up.” All these years later, I’m still trying not to mess it up.
Marcus Samuelsson is chef-owner of Red Rooster
Ferran Adrià’s gazpacho de bogavante
By José Andrés
A few years after I left El Bulli, Ferran Adrià published El Sabor del Mediterráneo (1993), a cookbook that, much like its author, turned alta gastronomía on its head. Before Ferran, nobody seemed to pay much attention to the differences between “traditional” versus “modern” cooking. To me, Gazpacho de Bogavante is the perfect representation that a dish can be both at the same time. Ferran, with all of his creativity, his bravery, his genius, reveals each individual component of the iconic Spanish gazpacho, questioning our understanding of the dish’s essence. A ubiquitous cold soup or a carefully composed salad? The gazpacho remains the protagonist, but the lobster and the dish’s customary garnishes, previously ornamental afterthoughts, gain a new purpose. A monologue becomes a symphony. A revolution on the plate.
José Andrés is a chef and the founder of World Central Kitchen
Margaret Costa’s crab quiche
By Sally Abé
Around the time that I started cooking at The Harwood Arms I became interested in the history of English cooking, which is when I came across the Four Seasons Cookery Book (1970). If you go back to that generation — before the wave of celebrity chefs like Ainsley Harriott and Gary Rhodes — you do find that it’s generally women who are writing recipes suitable for home cooking. I’ve been cooking a version of the crab quiche for a long time now. Crab is an incredible meat and available all year round, but you can enliven this base recipe with so many things depending on the time of year — right now, asparagus or peas.
Sally Abé is chef-consultant at The Pem
Massimo Bottura and Lara Gilmore’s grilled green beans, cucumbers, and chive flowers
By Alain Ducasse
Slow Food, Fast Cars (2023) is pure joy. But, coming from Lara and Massimo, that’s no surprise. Osteria Francescana, in Modena, is the restaurant that made Massimo famous, but he always takes pleasure in going where you least expect him. This is how Lara and he led me into their admirable refettorio initiatives [community hubs designed to combat food waste]. We share many beliefs about cooking, especially the role that the cook must play in taking care of the planet. We also share the same affection for country inns rooted in their regions. From this book, I’ve chosen a simple plant-based recipe, very offbeat, and above all, absolutely delicious.
Alain Ducasse is chef-owner of Le Meurice
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