- Food & Drink RSS Feed

Inventors free trapped ketchup

Sun, 27 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

It is the latest culinary invention to be hailed as the best thing since sliced bread: the non-stick ketchup bottle.

Spicy fish taco with cabbage 'slaw and avocado dressing

Sat, 26 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

When I was about 20 a friend came back from a trip to Mexico raving about the fish tacos he had been eating there. I've been making them ever since. The fish makes them healthier than most tacos and I love the way coating the fillets in polenta gives them a bit of crunch and texture.

Pork banh mi with lime mayo

Sat, 26 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

This sandwich is the result of French and Vietnamese cuisines colliding to make something delicious: a classic, light French baguette, filled with the fresh, vibrant flavours of South-east Asia. It's street food, but really it's a traditional dish that was created well before any of these things were hot topics.

Aussie burger

Sat, 26 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

Mad, yes, but don't knock this burger until you've tried it. And to be truly Aussie you should also have a fried egg in it! It's funny: although I stand by this combination, I think I'd be embarrassed to order pineapple on a pizza!

Tyrells hopes to take a bite out of US market

Sat, 26 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

Tyrrells, the crisp brand made solely from Herefordshire potatoes, has agreed a deal with snack distributor Royal Food to expand in the US. By late summer, bags of Tyrrells will be on sale in 260 Duane Reade Drug stores in Manhattan.

Wines of the week: Guimaro Ribeira Sacra 2010; Viognier de Pennautier 2010; Château Mont Milan Corbières 2010

Sat, 26 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

Sunday lunch

Yianni Papoutsis: 'A Las Vegas buffet is one of my favourite places to people-watch'

Sat, 26 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

My earliest food memory... Eating pork souvlaki on the street in my home town in Greece. Pork souvlaki is basically small chunks of marinaded pork cooked on a charcoal grill and served with salt, pepper, lemon juice, chilli flakes and a dab of mustard on a bit of greaseproof paper. It's still a favourite of mine, though I've never seen it done properly in England. Another one of my childhood favourites was fried fish served with this thick garlic sauce called skordalia. Apparently, I used to eat the sauce straight out of the bowl.

You'll soon pick this up: Tuck into Bill Granger's fresh street food

Sat, 26 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

Finger-food is a great way of entertaining at a casual get-together. We don't seem to know whether we are in summer or winter here at the moment so it's certainly safer than having a barbecue. At least you can escape indoors should the skies open.

Gallic gourmets are putting French cuisine back on the culinary map

Fri, 25 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

My best and worst restaurant meals of last year were both eaten in France – within 10km of each other in the Seine-Maritime département of Normandy where I share a holiday home. The menu of the worst meal was like being frog-marched back to the 1970s, to a time when croquette potatoes, tinned Russian salad and garish crab sticks could be served without irony.

Lindt's trademark hopes felled by lawyers' rabbit punch

Fri, 25 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

Lindt & Sprüngli, the Swiss confectioner that has produced gold-foiled and be-ribboned chocolate rabbits for the past 60 years, has been dealt a crushing blow by the European Union's Court of Justice.

So Moorish: Mark Hix offers his own take on classic Moroccan dishes

Fri, 25 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

Over the past 15 years, there has been a steady rise in the popularity of cooking using evocative, spicy, north African ingredients – think of restaurants such as Moro and Ottolenghi, or of one of the many pockets of London like Golborne Road in W10, which is lined with African street-food traders selling native ingredients and antique shops selling all sorts of artefacts. There is a real buzz on that street and the smells are amazing. So this week I thought I would offer you my own take on classic north African recipes.

The White Swan Inn, Market Place, Pickering, North Yorkshire

Fri, 25 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

Pickering in North Yorkshire is a country town with exactly the right sort of attractions: 12th-century castle; bustling steam railway; church with medieval wall paintings admired by Pevsner and, not least, a quietly handsome inn on the high street.

Chicken tagine with peas and fennel

Fri, 25 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

This is a nice seasonal sharing dish that you could serve at a dinner party. It's not always practical to cook the stew in the actual tagine itself, which is why tagines are usually used just for serving in.

Stuffed sardines

Fri, 25 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

This is a typical north African fried fish dish. Ask your butcher to butterfly you about 12 sardines. Or you can do this yourself by cutting off the heads, slitting the stomach to remove the guts and running your thumb down the back bone and just pulling the bone away, leaving the fillets attached to each other along the back. Once you have done a few of them you will get the hang of it.

Moroccan market salad

Fri, 25 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

You probably won't find a Moroccan salad like this in Morocco – unless it's in someone's home and the cook is a bit experimental. I cooked a similar dish for friends last year in Tangier which was inspired by a stroll around the medina, and is the way I like to cook when I'm abroad. You could use prawns or any other firm fish, or create a meaty version using chicken, rabbit or lamb.

Carrot and cumin salad

Fri, 25 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

I love serving this salad either as a stand-alone salad for a mezze-type buffet or with meat or fish like red mullet.

The 10 Best summer cookbooks

Thu, 24 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

1. The Food of Spain by Claudia Roden

The 10 best summer cookbooks

Thu, 24 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

1. The Food of Spain by Claudia Roden

Smoked salmon fishcakes

Thu, 24 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

1kg new potatoes
150g smoked salmon, roughly chopped
4 spring onions, roughly sliced
2 fresh red chillies, chopped into rings, seeds and all
100g pitted black or green olives, roughly chopped
1 tablespoon capers, roughly chopped
Half a beaten egg
3 tablespoons roughly chopped fresh coriander
Juice and zest of half a lime
2 tablespoons plain flour
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Extra virgin olive oil

The supper on its uppers: Why we need to learn to entertain lavishly for less

Thu, 24 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

The dinner party, that great social institution variously loved and dreaded by the middle-classes, is reportedly in decline. If there is to be a place for chat about house prices and schooling for little Oliver (whose appearance in pyjamas at the dining room door may or may not be encouraged) it will not be around a table awash with wine and irregular soup spoons.

Like mamma used to make: Pizza Pilgrims is proving a word-of mouth sensation

Thu, 24 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

"This is my new toy," laughs James Elliot as he points a laser gun into the back of a van. It's no ordinary van, though. The dark-green Piaggio Ape parked in one of the stallholders' spots in Soho's Berwick Street market is one of a kind. In the back, rather than the shabby tools of a Roman handyman, it has a custom-built pizza oven in which James, his brother Thom and their colleague Louis Lillywhite cook the best pizzas in Soho.

On The Menu: Rhea eggs; Nyetimber British sparkling wine; Higgidy crustless quiches; Cartmel Village Shop; Millie's Jubilee cookies

Thu, 24 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

This week I've been eating...rhea eggs

My life in food: Thierry Muret, chocolatier

Thu, 24 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

Godiva Chocolates, founded in Brussels in 1926, is known for its upmarket milk chocolate. Since 1988, Thierry Muret, a trained chemist as well as chocolatier, has been its development chef. The latest Godiva boutique opens today in Harrods in London.

Dairy Crest's first loss as deliveries drop

Thu, 24 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

The drop in demand for home milk deliveries and supermarket competition has caused Dairy Crest to post its first annual loss as a public company, after a £81.7m writedown.

Gorgeous Georgian: Now we can enjoy the cuisine of Russia's fiery neighbour nearer home

Thu, 24 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

I was in Tbilisi to explore Georgia's legendary cuisine, but despite its reputation, could not believe the strangeness and deliciousness of the dishes coming at me. Strips of delicately poached chicken submerged in a thin but rich sauce of ground walnuts, infused with garlic, trout from a nearby river, pan-fried crisp and enrobed in a ruby-red pomegranate coulis.