The genesis for this dish was a recipe for baked chicken, prawn and chorizo rice that was recommended by a friend a very long time ago. Through my years of cooking it, the recipe has morphed into something clearly related to the original and yet different enough to merit its own post here. We’ve been eating it about once a week for much of this pandemic year (with some time off in the summer when it was too hot to contemplate turning on the oven), because it’s fast and easy and delicious and comforting and we almost always have the ingredients sitting around in the fridge.

This is another “throw everything in a tray and let it cook” sort of meal, and there’s no trick to it, but let me mention a few things about the ingredients. First, you want to use Spanish chorizo, not Mexican chorizo (which is a different but equally delicious thing). I tend to use softer cooking chorizo rather than the firmer ready-to-eat chorizo, but use whatever you have available. If you can’t find cherry tomatoes, just cut up some bigger tomatoes. I generally go for arborio rice, which is a typical short-grain risotto rice, but I’ve also used bomba paella rice in the past and it works well too (though it’s not quite as creamy). And I never actually measure out the peas, I just thaw “an amount” in the microwave while everything else is cooking and stir them in at the end. They’re not essential, but they’re good for a pop of color and sweetness.

For two people you’ll need:

• 130 g (4.5 oz) cherry tomatoes left whole
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 2 peppers, diced
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 200 g (7 oz) Spanish chorizo, thickly sliced or cubed
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 150 g (3/4 cup) arborio rice
• 1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary (optional but very nice)
• 1 teaspoon smoked Spanish paprika (also optional but very nice)
• 500 ml (2 cups) chicken or vegetable stock (cube is fine)
• about 100g (3/4 cup) frozen green peas, thawed
• salt and pepper to taste
• lemon wedges to serve

Heat your oven to 200C/390F.

Put the tomatoes, onion, peppers, garlic, chorizo and olive oil in a roasting tray and cook for 20 minutes, until the vegetables have softened and the chorizo has started to brown.

Stir in the rice, rosemary, paprika and stock and return the tray to the oven for another 20 minutes, until the stock has been absorbed and the rice is tender but still has a bit of bite. Stir in the green peas and season if necessary. Serve the rice with lemon wedges to squeeze over.

I can testify that this is as just good eaten properly at the dining room table with a green salad and a fruity Spanish wine as it is eaten from tray tables in front of the TV after a long, stressful day.

The recipe piqued my interest with its combination of juniper and cloves on the chicken, somewhat unusual flavors to which I’m always drawn. I’m also not one to ever pass up puy lentils, so this cozy, one(ish)-pot bistro dish went into regular rotation for dinner. I was so convinced of its broad appeal that in 2011 I scaled it up to feed 13 people at a retreat for Jeremy’s company (it’s what I’m preparing in this picture). It converted one person to liking lentils and prompted several others to ask for the recipe, so my instincts weren’t wrong. And a year later I finally bought a second-hand copy of Bistro Chicken: 100 Easy Yet Elegant Recipes with French Flair, the cookbook from which the online recipe was adapted—only to realize that the Blue Kitchen adaptation was superior to the original.

Even with improvements, however, aspects of the recipe still seemed unnecessarily fiddly. Pre-cooking the lentils in a separate pot not only dirtied another dish, it also risked the lentils being overcooked at the end of the baking period. Scattering raw onions and carrots over the lentils before baking posed the opposite risk, namely, that they’d still be slightly crunchy when the chicken was done. And not pre-browning the chicken often resulted in chicken skin that was still sadly flabby by the time everything else was ready. Also, lentils with no bay leaf? No way.

Enter my beloved 28-cm cast-iron skillet and my plan to turn this already delicious recipe into a more streamlined, foolproof and truly one-pot dish. The basic ingredients are the same, though they appear in different forms. I’ve added a few things (celery, the above-mentioned bay leaf) and swapped a few things (chicken stock instead of water, though water will do in a pinch), but the spirit of the recipe and the flavors I first fell in love with are very much intact.

When I cooked this chicken the other night, I was struck by its resemblance to the popular combination of duck confit and lentils, and I realized (very belatedly) that this is exactly what the recipe is going for. The aromatic salt rub infuses the chicken, the lentils are enriched by the traditional trio of onion, celery and carrot, and together they produce a meal that is simple, rustic and deeply satisfying.

For two people (who like a lot of lentils!) you’ll need:

• two chicken legs or four thighs, bone-in and skin-on
• 6 juniper berries, crushed
• a pinch of ground cloves
• 1 tablespoon coarse sea salt
• a generous grind of pepper
• 1 tsp chopped thyme or rosemary (optional but good)
• olive oil
• 1/2 cup/50g chopped onion
• 1/2 cup/50g chopped carrot
• 1/2 cup/50g chopped celery
• 1 garlic clove, chopped
• 1 dried bay leaf
• 1 cup/235ml white wine
• 1 cup/200g dried Puy or other green lentils, rinsed
• 2 cups/470ml chicken stock
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
• handful of coarsely chopped parsley (optional but pretty)
• splash of extra-virgin olive oil

If you’re cooking straight away, preheat the oven to 175C/350F. If you’re going to let the chicken sit in its salt rub for a while, hold off on the oven until you’re ready to cook.

Combine the crushed juniper berries, cloves, salt, pepper and optional herb in a small bowl and rub the mixture all over the chicken pieces. Set the chicken aside for as long as you can manage—longer is better (e.g., a few hours in a covered container in the fridge) because the salt and spices will penetrate more, but if you don’t have time, don’t fret, just get cooking (turn on the oven!).

In a deep oven-proof skillet or Dutch oven/cast-iron casserole dish, heat a splash of olive oil over medium-high heat and brown the chicken for a few minutes on each side (it just needs to take on some color, it doesn’t need to be brown-brown). Remove the chicken and set it aside.

In the same pan—adding another splash of oil and lowering the heat if necessary—saute the onion, carrot and celery for about five minutes, until they’ve also just started to soften. Throw in the chopped garlic and bay leaf and stir for 30 seconds or so, then douse the vegetables with the wine and let it reduce for 2 to 3 minutes.

When the wine has cooked down, stir in the lentils and chicken stock and bring the whole thing up to a simmer. If your chicken stock is unsalted, you’ll probably want to add a pinch or two of salt now (though the salt from the chicken will also season the lentils). Nestle the chicken pieces skin-side up in the brothy lentils, so most of the chicken is submerged and the skin is just exposed. Move the whole pan to the oven and cook the chicken and lentils, uncovered, for about 40 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through and the lentils are tender.

Once everything is done, remove the pan from the oven. You can serve it family-style in its cooking pot or you can dish it up into separate bowls. In any case, sprinkle the finished dish with the red-wine vinegar (for some welcome acidity), the parsely (for color—this dish is tasty but rather monochrome, as you can see below) and a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil (because why not?). Then sit down at the table with an easy-drinking red wine and a crisp green salad and enjoy the French bistro vibe!

But this recipe is not for that. Tagliatelle al ragù alla bolognese may be the spiritual precursor to spaghetti bolognese in that it is a pasta dish with meat sauce, but that’s pretty much where the similarity ends. The “original” (whatever that might mean) version of dish you find in Bologna consists of a fluffy mound of tender, golden tagliatelle just coated in a simple sauce, where the meat (and tomato, for that matter) plays a supporting role. The pasta and the sauce pretty much get equal billing here, and the whole thing is traditionally meant to be consumed in a smaller portion prior to your main course.

Tagliatelle al ragù is not “better” than spaghetti bolognese, it’s just different. It’s lighter, but still very rich and satisfying. It’s not any more difficult to make, but it looks and feels a little more refined (though still quite rustic). It requires minimal ingredients, it works perfectly well as a main course, and it is the very taste of Bologna, one of the great food cities of the world.

For a main course for two people, you’ll need:

• a knob of butter
• a few slices of unsmoked bacon or pancetta, finely chopped
• 1 small onion, finely diced (about 1/3 cup)
• 1 small carrot, finely diced (about 1/3 cup)
• 1 small stick of celery, finely diced (about 1/3 cup)
• salt
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste/puree
• 100g (3.5oz) minced meat, either a mixture of beef and pork or just beef
• splash of white wine (about 1/4 cup)
• 500ml (about 2 cups) beef broth (a stock cube is fine)
• splash of milk
• enough tagliatelle for two (in my house, that means 250g or half a pound—homemade or store-bought, your choice)

Melt the knob of butter in a pot over medium-low heat, add the bacon and cook for a minute or two, until the fat starts to render, then add the onion, carrot, celery and a pinch of salt. Cook slowly until the vegetables are softened, stirring often (this will take about 15 minutes—don’t rush it).

Raise the heat to medium, stir in the tomato paste, then add the meat and cook for minute or two, stirring constantly, just until the meat starts to turn grey (not brown—just not pink anymore). Add the wine and simmer until most of the liquid evaporates.

Add about 200ml (about 1 cup) of the beef broth, bring to a simmer, then turn the heat to low, partially cover the pot and cook the sauce, stirring occasionally, for a good hour or longer. Add more broth as you go if the mixture gets too dry; you want it to be more juicy than soupy. Towards the end of the cooking time, stir in a splash of milk and cook it through for about 15 minutes for added silkiness.

Serve the ragù with the best tagliatelle you can get your hands on and a generous dusting of grated parmesan.

Like most classics, there are countless versions of puttanesca sauce, but the main elements are generally the same: tomatoes, garlic, anchovies, capers and olives. My little Garlic cookbook additionally uses onion, white wine, lots of dried herbs and, of course, lots of garlic (12 cloves!). This is the way Jeremy and I made puttanesca for years, even when we eventually stopped consulting the book and started throwing the sauce together by memory and feel (an amount of garlic, an amount of herbs, an amount of anchovies...).

New pasta recipes have gradually overtaken puttanesca in our house, including a recipe Jeremy rustled up a while back consisting of cherry tomatoes roasted in the oven with lots of garlic and olive oil. It’s a low-maintenance recipe that basically entails turning on the oven and walking away. Then at some point last year I had a glut of cherry tomatoes and a craving for an umami-rich spaghetti sauce, and lo, oven puttanesca was born.

There is no technique involved here: you chuck a bunch of stuff into an oven dish, cook it for about half an hour and then mix it with some pasta (we use spaghetti, but anything would work). You can measure the amounts of ingredients, but you certainly don’t have to. Don’t like anchovies? Leave ”˜em out (but you’ll probably want to add salt). Love fiery foods? Add more chili. Out of oregano? Eh, whatever. Honestly, the key ingredients are fresh tomatoes (small ones work best, and they don’t even have to be top quality) and olive oil. When the oil-coated tomatoes break down in the dry heat of the oven, they become jammy and sticky, turning into a magical, no-effort pasta sauce—the best kind.

For two people you’ll need:

• about 500g/1lb small vine or cherry tomatoes, left whole
• 3 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
• 6 oil-packed anchovies, roughly chopped
• 1 handful of olives (about 10 if we’re being really specific)
• 1 heaping tablespoon of capers
• a generous sprinkle of dried oregano
• a pinch of red chilli flakes
• a pinch of sugar (optional—if your tomatoes aren’t so great)
• a few grinds of black pepper
• a drizzle of balsamic vinegar (also optional, but nice)
• about 6 tablespoons of olive oil (I use a half-and-half mix of regular and extra virgin)

• 250g/half pound spaghetti or your favorite pasta

Heat the oven to 200C/180C(fan)/355F.

Mix everything but the pasta in a baking dish or roasting tin large enough for the tomatoes to sit in one layer. Cook in the oven for about half an hour, stirring once or twice, until the tomatoes have collapsed and everything is sizzly and juicy. When the tomatoes are cooked, you can turn off the oven and let the sauce sit in there until your pasta is ready.

While the tomato sauce is cooking, bring a pot of water the boil for the pasta. Cook the pasta until it’s just slightly underdone, then drain it, return it to the pot and pour the tomato sauce over it. Give it a good stir so that the tomatoes break down even more and the rich juices coat every strand of pasta.

Serve with grated parmesan if you like.

Growing up, I never questioned the fact that my favorite food was something no one else had ever heard of. I never thought to wonder where the strange name might have come from, or whether other people also enjoyed beef stewed in tomato sauce on a regular basis. It was just a thing my Oma made and my family ate, like eggplant parmesan, or zucchini with tons of olive oil and parmesan cheese—the culinary legacy of my Italian(-American) ancestors.

When I grew up and started to take a historical interest in the formative foods of my childhood (red beans and rice, pilau), I quickly ran into a brick wall when it came to researching tookoo. I knew it was a dish stemming from northern Italy or possibly southern France (based on my family’s background), but its precise origins were hazy, and the name was a complete mystery. No one in my family knew where “tookoo” had come from, nor did any of the various Italian people I asked over the years. Even the internet was of no use to me—at least, not initially. In the early days of the web, I would intermittently scour food sites for some hint as to what “tookoo” might mean, and though I did find plenty of recipes for similar tomato-based pot-roast dishes, I didn’t find an explanation for the name.

Until, one day, I did. As I trawled through italianfood.about.com, I came across the recipe for Beef or Veal Tocco—Tocco di Carne, and suddenly everything fell into place: Tocco, with an o so closed it almost sounds like u (tucco)—I actually gasped when I read this. “Tocco is a Ligurian term [my Italian ancestors came from Genoa, the capital of Liguria] that means meat sauce, or ragí¹, and is an example of frugality: The meat is gently stewed. The resulting sauce is used to season pasta, rice, or polenta, while the meat serves as a second course with the vegetable of choice.” There it was, after years of wondering: a culinary and family mystery explained. Even now, I do a little happy dance when I think about it. I like figuring things out.

I also like making—and love eating—tookoo. The dish is very dear to me, tied up as it is with happy memories of my childhood and my beloved Oma, who would patiently let me “help” her make it (and never scolded me for sneaking spoonfuls of the sauce as it bubbled away for hours on the stove). When I was still very young, she would pour two cans of peeled tomatoes into a big pot and let me crush them with an ancient potato masher. She would put her hand over mine and we would chop parsley together with a red-handled mezzaluna in a shallow, scarred wooden bowl. I can still hear the sound of blade knocking against the wood, and to this day the smell of freshly chopped parsley reminds me of my Oma.

My copy of the tookoo recipe—crumpled and stained as it is—was written out for me by Oma many years ago. Most of the recipes I’ve found online for tocco call for several more ingredients than Oma ever used: wine, rosemary, celery, mushrooms, broth... One of the recipes at italianfood.about.com says that tocco is “a hearty sauce, made with the obligatory olive oil and complemented by the ever rarer use of bone marrow or veal fat.”

Now, olive oil was used for a lot things in my house growing up, but one thing it was never used for was tookoo. Oma’s recipe is simple and streamlined, but it is also very specific: the fat to be used for browning the meat is suet (as Oma explains in her notes to me—written when I was still living in Germany—“Germans give suet to birds so you’ll have to ask butcher for it, otherwise use butcher fat cut up small + remove pieces as it melts. Leave enough fat in bottom of pot so you can brown meat well”). In fact, when I first tried to make tookoo myself, I lazily skipped the hard-to-find beef fat and fell back on olive oil instead, and while I suppose I made a perfectly fine tomatoey pot roast, I did not make tookoo as I know it. Ever since then, I’ve stuck firmly to whatever beef fat I could get my hands on (or even, in a pinch, the boxed Atora suet that you find among the baking ingredients in UK supermarkets). It makes all the difference.

My mom says that when she was growing up, Oma would make the tookoo and my Opa would make homemade tagliatelle to go with it; my Uncle Harold remembers visiting their apartment in Brooklyn for Sunday dinners and “the whole bed would be covered with home-made macaroni and it looked like a bedspread.” But when I was growing up, after my Opa had passed away and my Oma was living with us, rigatoni was the pasta of choice, so that’s my canonical pasta shape for this dish. Any pasta shape will do, really—just coat it well with the rich sauce, add a sprinkling of parmesan cheese, and serve the sliced beef on the side, along with a green salad dressed in oil and vinegar.

I realize that for most of the people who see this recipe, tookoo will be nothing more than meat, tomato sauce and pasta—a humble but tasty dish, maybe a nice thing to cook on a lazy Sunday. For me, though, it represents childhood, family dinners, family history, grandmotherly love. It is everything I love about food, and everything that makes cooking and eating so important to me. Even if I had never found out what tocco was, “tookoo” would have remained precious to me.

For two people you’ll need:

• 1 piece beef (1 to 1.5 pounds bottom round in the US / 500 to 800 grams topside, top rump or silverside in the UK, ideally with basting fat)
• 1 small handful finely chopped suet or other beef fat
• salt and pepper
• 1 large carrot, peeled and finely grated
• 1 handful parsley, finely chopped
• 1 large onion, peeled and left whole
• 1 large can whole peeled or crushed tomatoes (28oz/800g)
• About 1/3 cup tomato paste in the US / about 75g tomato puree in the UK
• 1/2 pound/250g pasta of your choice

Use a heavy pot in which the meat and whole onion will fit rather snugly. Heat the suet or other beef fat over medium heat until it starts to melt, then season the meat with salt and pepper and put it in the pot. Put the grated carrot, chopped parsley and onion in the pot alongside the meat and brown the meat slowly on all sides, turning the onion and stirring the parsley and carrot around as the meat browns. When the meat is well browned and the vegetables have softened, add the large can of tomatoes (mash up the tomatoes if they’re whole) and the tomato paste/puree. Season with salt and pepper if necessary, bring to a boil, then partially cover and simmer on low heat for about 2 hours, until the meat is cooked and the sauce is thick and rich. Taste for seasoning again.

When the sauce and meat are ready, cook and drain the pasta, then stir some sauce into the cooked pasta. Serve the pasta with extra sauce, along with the sliced meat and onion on the side.

This recipe can obviously be scaled up infinitely (just use more of everything—exact amounts are not critical here), and like most tomato-based dishes, it tastes even better leftover. The meat and sauce freeze very well, so you could make it in advance if you want. You could also serve the pasta and sauce one night and use the meat for another meal. The sliced meat also makes a delicious sandwich on a baguette, with extra tomato sauce and cheese melted on top.

My go-to baked macaroni and cheese recipe is from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything. It’s a fairly grown-up version of the dish, with bay-infused milk and good, sharp cheese. Bittman’s version is great as it is, so I’ve only tweaked the basic recipe a little to get the chorizo (and some onion) in there. Of course, there’s nothing stopping you from using your own go-to mac and cheese recipe, if you have one—just fry the chorizo a bit so you can use the fat as part of the base for your cheese sauce, and you should be good to go.

For two hungry people, you’ll need:

• 1/2 pound/250g short pasta (macaroni, penne, etc.)
• 1 1/2 cups/355 ml milk
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 whole cloves of garlic, peeled and slightly squashed
• 1 tablespoon butter
• half an onion, chopped finely
• a handful or two of chopped Spanish chorizo
• 2 tablespoons plain white flour
• 1 cup/about 115g grated cheddar or other sharp cheese (Emmental is good too)
• a few handfuls of dry breadcrumbs (panko is ideal)
• pinch of smoked paprika
• salt and pepper

Heat the oven to 200C/400F and butter a baking dish big enough to hold your pasta and sauce (I generally use a deep 29cm/11in oval dish). Boil a large pot of generously salted water and cook the pasta until it’s almost but not quite done (it should still have a tiny bit of bite). Drain the pasta, reserving a cup of the water, and set it aside.

While the pasta is cooking, warm the milk, bay leaf and garlic in a small pan over medium-low heat until it just starts to bubble at the edges. Turn off the heat and set the milk aside as well. (Note: You could also just heat the milk and aromatics in the microwave to save some stovetop space. No one will judge you.)

In yet another pot (I know, I know), melt the butter over medium-low heat, then gently sauté the onion in it until it starts to soften. Add the chorizo and fry it for a few minutes until its delicious fat is released. Stir in the flour and continue stirring while the flour cooks for another few minutes.

Now comes the exciting bit: Pick the bay and garlic out of the milk, then pour the milk slowly into the flour, onion and chorizo mixture (which should still be on the heat), whisking like a maniac to prevent floury lumps. It may hiss and seize up to begin with, but keep stirring and soon the milk and flour will become smooth. Then sprinkle in the grated cheese and stir until it’s melted. Turn off the heat and check for seasoning—chorizo is salty, but you may want to add a pinch more salt and some black pepper at this point.

Mix the chorizo and cheese sauce into the cooked pasta, adding a bit of the pasta water if the mixture seems too dry (I like creamy mac and cheese, so I tend to err on the side of more liquid rather than less). Check the seasoning again, then pour the mac and cheese into your baking dish, top it with a few handfuls of breadcrumbs, a good sprinkling of smoked paprika, and a dusting of salt and pepper, and then get it in the oven. Bake it for 15 to 20 minutes, until it’s lightly browned and bubbling. Then serve it right away with something green on the side (peas, salad, etc.) to balance out the rich, cheesy, chorizo-y awesomeness.

* * *

[Pictures of chorizo and grated cheese courtesy of Victor Bayon]

And yet, even in Brighton, sometimes when you really want a burrito you just can’t have one—or maybe you could have one, but the time and effort to get one is beyond what you’re willing to invest at that moment. This recipe is a product of one such moment: I had just spent two weeks tacoing my way through Texas, Arizona and southern California, and I wanted to continue that trend back in Brighton. It was lunchtime. There were burritos just a 10-minute walk away from me, but there was also a thunderstorm rolling in. Just as I was preparing to set out on my burrito mission, the deluge hit—and since my mission target was a burrito place with no indoor seating, I called the whole thing off and trudged to my own kitchen to stare listlessly into the cupboards.

A can of black beans. A bag of cornmeal. Hmm. An avocado on the counter, and some ripe tomatoes. Jalapeños in the fridge, and a larder full of staples: onions, garlic, cumin, chili powder. All the elements of a Texish-Mexish meal of some sort. But what sort?

The cornmeal pancake sort!

A quick bit of Googling turned up a cornmeal pancake recipe by the ever-trusty Mark Bittman. His recipe appealed for its simplicity: no flour, no eggs, no fiddling around, just quick-soaked cornmeal loosened with milk and griddled with a bit of oil. Perfect, especially with an added pinch of chili powder and handful of grated cheddar. I zested up the canned black beans with sautéed onion, garlic, jalapeños and spices and spooned them over the warm corncake, topping everything with fresh chopped tomato and avocado, a soft dollop of thick yogurt, and a final dash of chili powder. And I was so surprised by how something so fast and easy could also be so pretty and tasty that I knew I wanted to share it with the world. So here’s the recipe (such as it is), in all its rough-hewn glory:

Serves 2 for lunch

For the corncake:
• 3/4 cup (115 g) fine or medium cornmeal
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• pinch of chili/chipotle power (optional)
• 3/4 cup (180 ml) boiling water
• 1/4 cup (60 ml) milk
• small handful of grated cheddar (optional but delicious)
• vegetable oil

For the beans:
• vegetable oil
• 1/2 small onion, chopped fine
• 1 garlic clove, chopped fine
• a few slices of pickled jalapeños, chopped (optional)
• dash of cumin
• dash of chili/chipotle powder
• dash of salt
• 1/2 can black beans, drained and rinsed

For the other toppings and garnish:
• 1 small chopped tomato
• 1/2 chopped avocado
• sour cream or thick yogurt
• chili powder

Mix the cornmeal, salt, and optional chili powder. Stir in 3/4 cup boiling water and let the cornmeal absorb it for 5 to 10 minutes as you prepare the beans.

Heat a dash of vegetable oil in a frying pan and sauté the onion for a few minutes, until it begins to soften. Add the garlic, jalapeños, cumin, chili powder and salt and stir until they’re fragrant, then add the black beans and cook everything together for a few minutes. Taste for seasoning and set aside in a bowl.

Now get back to your corncakes. When the cornmeal has softened, thin it somewhat with about 1/4 cup milk, pouring the milk in a bit at a time until the mixture turns into a thick batter. Stir in the cheese if you’re using it. Wipe out your bean frying pan and heat it again over medium heat with a splash of vegetable oil. When it’s hot, spoon in the batter to make two pancakes (American-style pancakes, not crepes). Cook the cakes on one side until the edges and bottom start to brown, about 5 minutes, then flip and cook another few minutes until they’re cooked through. It’s okay if they’re a little soft and crumbly.

When the cakes are cooked, slide them onto a plate, top them with the beans, tomato, avocado, sour cream and a dusting of chili powder for prettiness. Sit, eat, and enjoy.

P.S. I made these strictly with what I had sitting around in my kitchen, which is probably different from what you have sitting around in your kitchen. If you’re vegan, or you can’t eat spicy food, or you hate avocados, or you have fresh corn or peppers that you need to use up, then you can easily adjust the recipe accordingly. The super-simple cornmeal cakes would make a great base for any number of toppings.

P.P.S. I was so excited with my lunch that I wrote this post as I was eating the corncake in question (take a bite, type, take a bite, type). Just as I was finishing it, the storm passed and the sun came out. If I had waited about half an hour, I could have gone out and gotten my burrito after all.

I’m glad I didn’t wait.

The minute I learned of Etxebarri’s existence, this small restaurant in an obscure Basque village shot to the top of my list of dream destinations. It sat there alongside Dubrovnik and Patagonia and Hong Kong, places that tug insistently at the strings of my imagination, Wanderlust-induced itches that demand to be scratched. I blatantly romanticize these locations, allowing them to take mythic proportions in my mind, while at the same time reminding myself that most places on my dream list probably can’t live up to my expectations of them.

But some can.

The first thing to say about Etxebarri is that it takes some effort to get there. It’s located in the minuscule mountain village of Axpe, roughly 50 kilometers from Bilbao or 75 from San Sebastian (the two places you’re most likely to be if you’re visiting the Basque Country). It’s not on the way to anywhere, so if you want to dine at Etxebarri, you have to make a special trip to reach it. Most folks rent a car and drive themselves, and stories abound of people getting lost on the twisty mountain roads in the dark while attempting to find the place. Basically, eating at Etxebarri takes time and planning.

That said, it’s not quite the epic journey it’s often made out to be. Tip number one: Go for lunch instead of dinner. That way you get to see the beautiful countryside and, if you’re driving, you’re less likely to get lost on a dark road. Tip number two: Don’t drive. Though it takes a bit longer, it’s easy enough to reach Etxebarri by train and taxi (details at the end of this post). That way you get to see the beautiful countryside and enjoy some great wines with your lunch (and take a nap on your way back to San Sebastian or Bilbao—because after all the food and wine, you are going to want a nap).

The other thing to say is that while you could justifiably call Etxebarri the best grill restaurant in the world, that descriptor doesn’t fully express what makes the place so special. Yes, the restaurant makes it own charcoal with different varieties of wood, and yes, absolutely everything is cooked either on a grill (designed by the chef, Victor Arguinzoniz ) or in a wood-fired oven, and yes, the tasting menu culminates in a tremendous, charred, bone-in rib steak that is pretty much the epitome of Grilled Meat. But there is something in the confluence of location and ethos and ingredients and preparation that lends Etxebarri a sense of timelessness and enchantment.

It was the grilling that drew me there, though. I have a primal affinity for all things smoked or charred, and the prospect of enjoying 10+ courses of barbecued food in a rustic Basque setting was too much for me to resist. Dining at Etxebarri appears to be something of a Goldilocks situation: Some reviewers feel that because absolutely everything is touched by smoke there’s a “samey-ness” to the food, while others have complained that the smoke effect is too subtle in some courses. As for me, I was the happy little girl presented with the perfect bowl of porridge, since I thought the degree of smokiness (which ranged from the merest hint to a full-on woodsmoke infusion) varied appropriately for each ingredient.

And what ingredients they were. The meal was a tour around the coastal waters and countryside of Spain: Cantabrian tuna and Mediterranean prawns, Salamancan pork and Galician beef, mushrooms and milk and berries right from Etxebarri’s doorstep. The menu at Etxebarri is famously to-the-point—no inscrutable descriptions of overwrought concoctions, just one or two words of explanation: Butter. Oyster. Beef Chop.—and this perfectly reflects the food that’s served. Each ingredient is plucked from the land or sea, kissed by woodsmoke and then placed on your plate, where it is allowed to speak for itself. Boundary-pushing culinary experiments and “molecular gastronomy” certainly have their place, but that place is not Etxebarri.

So, the details: We arrived a good 45 minutes early for our 2:00 p.m. reservation but were seated immediately in the comfortable, spacious dining room. Several years ago, there was no set tasting menu at Etxebarri and the only person who spoke English was the Australian sous chef. That’s all changed now that Etxebarri is has become a destination. We were presented with English menus straight away (tasting menu and à la carte), and everyone we encountered (save the chef himself) spoke English to some extent. There was also an English- (and French-)speaking sommelier who was happy to pair wines with the courses for us. We went for the tasting menu, naturally, so we could try as many different things as possible. We didn’t make any changes to the menu, but the restaurant is open to swapping things out, or even adding things from the à la carte menu if you so desire.

The meal started with big hunks of warm, crusty spelt bread and a quartet of appetizers:

Butter of goat’s milk with black salt. It tasted like smoked cheese but had a light, unctuous texture - perfect for that crusty bread.

Crackers with thinly sliced mushrooms, homemade chorizo, and house-cured anchovies on toasted bread. For all of their delicacy, the mushrooms were packed with earthy flavor (like all of the mushrooms we ate in Spain ). The chorizo was spicy, sweet and tender, with the perfect ratio of meat to fat; it melted in the mouth. The anchovies were plump and salty, with just a hint of smokiness amplified by the bread, which had been toasted on the grill. After these morsels, my appetite was thoroughly whetted.

Then we moved on to the main courses:

Tomato and white tuna. The only way to express how much I loved this dish is to say that just looking at this picture makes me want to cry and lick the computer screen at the same time. From the moment the plate was set in front of me and I caught a gentle whiff of woodsmoke and olive oil, I was smitten. And when I took my first bite, I did actually moan. The fatty tuna was soft and pink inside, infused with a whisper of smoke, and set off by the crunch of the pink salt and the fruity olive oil. The fish rested on a hemisphere of salted tomato which provided a welcome hit of light acidity. Maybe because it was first “proper” dish of the meal, or because I adore tuna/tomato/salt/smoke/olive oil anyway, or because both the ingredients and the preparation were impeccable—for whatever reason, I remember this as being one of the best things I’ve ever eaten.

Oyster and seaweed. Don’t let the appearance of foam deceive you—we haven’t entered molecular territory here. This dish consisted of a single fat oyster served in its shell on a small bed of seaweed with foam which, as I understand it, was simply the oyster juice which had been whipped by hand. The oyster had been just warmed through, and the seaweed accentuated its natural brininess. After managing to spear the oyster with my fork, I picked up the shell and (quietly) slurped out the rest of its contents, basking in the flavors of the sea.

Prawns from Palamos. Oh, these prawns. They arrive peacefully nestled together, glistening pink on the plate—and you pick them up, rip them apart and suck their brains out. You’re encouraged to get down and dirty with them; sure, you can try to daintily disassemble them with a knife and fork, but you’d be missing out on some of the visceral pleasure of eating—and anyway, you get a warm cloth soaked in ginger water for cleaning up afterwards. It’s tedious to harp on about everything being “perfectly cooked”, but honestly, a truly perfectly cooked prawn is a rare thing of beauty, and these prawns were faultless. The shells were licked by fire and dusted with salt, and the meat inside was sweet, succulent and not at all mushy. I was sorely tempted to lick the shells myself because that salty, smoky flavor was so addictive. Jeremy declared these to be the best prawns he’d ever had, and I’m not inclined to disagree.

Sea cucumber and white beans. Having never had sea cucumber before, I had nothing to compare this dish to—but if all sea cucumber is like this, then I’m a fan. It had a springy/chewy/crunchy texture with ribbons of charring along the edges (my favorite bit) and was served with a scattering of firm white beans dressed with olive oil and salt. Cooked white beans are a staple in our household, so despite the unfamiliarity of the sea cucumber, this dish had a comforting, homely feel.

Baby squid with caramelized onion and its ink. Here we go with the “perfectly cooked” again. Squid can be a tricky customer, as anyone who’s suffered through a bowl of rubber bands disguised as calamari will tell you. This squid was firm but not chewy at all, and its mild flavor was complemented by the sweet caramelized onion and the swirl of squid ink that offered a dark taste of the sea. Though I like squid well enough and this dish was prepared beautifully, it was probably the least memorable course for me.

Mushrooms and eggplant. Nothing about either the look or the description of this dish can do justice to how it tasted. It tasted…elemental. It was earthy and ethereal at the same time, deeply smoky and juicy, with intensely savory mushrooms and fire-roasted eggplant so soft it dissolved on your tongue. Jeremy said this dish had something Japanese about it, and he’s right; in its (apparent) simplicity and its respect for the essence of each ingredient, it reminded me of the extraordinary food we had in Kyoto. It was just a few beautiful bites and then it was gone. Another one of my favorite courses.

Red sea bream and vegetables. Just as the six preceding courses are starting to hit bottom—a whole fish shows up! This was a grilled red sea bream carved at the table, drizzled in oil speckled with fried garlic and herbs, and served with teeny-tiny fresh vegetables from the garden. The fish was meaty, flaky and remarkably moist, and I sopped up every last bit of that garlicky oil. When we got a quick view of the kitchen after the meal, I was pleased to see that Chef Arguinzoniz uses “fish baskets” for the grill that are similar to the ones we use on our BBQ. And if I am ever able to cook a fish this well on our BBQ—well, I suppose then I can open my own restaurant.

Beef chop. Is there any more stunning way to round off a multi-course tasting menu that with an entire rib of beef for two? No, there is not. This is what everyone talks about: the txuleta, the chop of Galician beef that arrives on the bone, charred on the outside, rare on the inside (you’re not asked how you want it cooked—because how else could you possibly want it cooked?), seasoned with nothing but salt and the smoke that enveloped it on the grill. I think it’s fair to say that Jeremy and I have become something of beef rib aficionados over the past few years; we cook them a lot (way more often than is healthy, I’m sure), so we know what we like—and boy, did we ever like this. Ruby meat and golden marbling, with the iron tang and firm bite of properly aged, grass-fed beef, the richness cut by a simple lettuce and onion salad served on the side. We ate every last scrap of meat, and I valiantly resisted the urge to pick up the bone and gnaw on it (not long after, a guy at the next table did just that and I kicked myself for my misplaced decorum). I think I’ve actually eaten too many steaks in my life to be able to say which is “the best steak I’ve ever eaten”, but I will say that in this context, on this day, this beef chop was flawless.

Refreshing watermelon. “Cut” blueberries. I was ready to take a nap on the table at this point, but the thirst-quenching watermelon juice and the zingy blueberry ice cream between light, crunchy wafers revived me; they were a welcome refreshment after so many deeply savory courses. Blueberries are a favorite fruit of mine, and ice cream sandwiches are a happy childhood memory, so I was delighted with this first sweet course.

Reduced milk ice cream with red fruit infusion. The milk for this ice cream was reduced over a wood grill, I believe, which gave it a smokiness comparable to that of the smoked butter at the start of the meal. It had a caramelized savoriness about it, too, which was cut nicely by the accompanying tart berry sauce. While not as “challenging” as the Gorgonzola ice cream I had at Akelarre the next day, this was still a very rich and unusual dish—but an addictive one, too: I would take bite, think “whoa, that’s intense”, take a little sip of sweet sherry, then think “I need another bite of that ice cream”…and so on, until I had scraped my bowl clean.

Mignardise. And just in case we weren’t entirely stuffed by the time we finished our 10+ courses, we were given one final plate bearing two types of chocolate bon bon (bourbon and praline) and a sweet, dense almond muffin—the perfect accompaniment to the short, strong coffees we desperately needed by that point.

And finally, a good three hours after it started, our epic meal came to an end. While we waited for a cab to take us back to Durango, we were given a glimpse of the remarkably tiny kitchen and a chance meet the kindly chef himself. I wanted to tell him how long I had been looking forward to eating in his restaurant and how much I had enjoyed it and how the experience was everything I had hoped it would be, but I lacked the Spanish or the Basque to do so. In the end, I had to content myself with nothing more than a smile and a bashful eskerrik asko. I’ll have to learn a bit more for the next time I go—because there has to be a next time.

Public transportation from San Sebastian:

From the Amara train station in San Sebastian (aka Donostia), take the Euskotren commuter line in the direction of Bilbao, which leaves once an hour. Get off in Durango, which is two hours from San Sebastian. When you leave the station in Durango, you’ll see a playground and a taxi rank beyond it. We walked up to a taxi driver who said something to us in Basque, and when we responded with bewildered stares, he said, “Restaurant? Etxebarri?”—so, yeah, they know the score. The taxi ride to Etxebarri took about 15 minutes and cost roughly 20 euros. When we finished lunch, the restaurant called a cab to take us back to Durango, where we hopped on the train back to San Sebastian. We arrived in the city just in time to take a quick nap and then hit the pintxos bars (yes, even after a mammoth 10-course lunch, we managed to continue eating until after midnight).

I read a lot of blog posts and reviews about Etxebarri online, but it was on the Global Gastronomette’s site that I found the most encouraging and detailed information about getting to Etxebarri by train and taxi—so, thank you, Global Gastronomette!

“As it was originally written” was also bit of a conundrum for me because I’ve had this recipe for as long as I can remember. It’s scribbled on one side of a ripped, wrinkled, stained sheet of notebook paper. There are Latin exercises on the other side of the paper, and since I haven’t studied Latin since, oh, the 1990s, we’re talking a good decade’s worth of Moroccan bean stew in my house. I must have found the recipe on the nascent Information Superhighway—and a bit of recent Googling uncovered it again on Allrecipes, where it goes by the name of “Moroccan lentil soup” but is otherwise exactly the recipe I have written on my scrap of old paper.

Of course, the recipe on the scrap of paper isn’t the recipe I actually make anymore, though the bare bones of it are the same: red lentils, white beans, chickpeas, tomatoes, spices. Those ingredients alone will give you a decent soup, and anything you add beyond that will give you a really good soup. If onions are the only other vegetable you have on hand, then just use onions. If you’ve got carrots and celery, throw them in. Diced bell peppers or fresh chilies work too. Vegetable broth adds good flavor, but water will work in a pinch. And the garlic and ginger are nice but not essential.

What is essential is the seasoning—and this brings us back to garam masala and the other spices. Garam masala is an Indian spice mixture which includes things like cumin, cardamom, black pepper and cloves, though its composition varies from place to place and from cook to cook. Other regions of the world have comparable blends: in some parts of the Middle East you find baharat, in other parts you find advieh, and in North Africa you find ras al hanout (not to be confused with this guy). I always used garam masala in this recipe until I ran out of garam masala one day and substituted baharat instead—and it tasted almost exactly the same. I actually like baharat more now because the blend I use has a lot of paprika in it which gives the stew an appealing terra cotta hue.

It is perhaps odd that the original recipe calls for both the spice blend as well as many of the spices you would find in that spice blend, but honestly I never really questioned it until I started documenting the soup for this site. I imagine that instead of the extra cumin and cardamom you could just use more of your chosen spice blend—or, if you’re really serious about things, you could make your own spice blend just the way you like it. This tends to be a “whip it up fast and leave it alone” kind of dish for me, so I use whatever I have on hand and add more spices to taste as needed.

For one big pot of soup, you’ll need:

• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• 2 medium onions, chopped
• a chopped carrot, stick of celery, pepper or chile (all optional)
• 2 teaspoons fresh grated ginger (optional)
• 3 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 2 teaspoons garam masala/baharat/ras al hanout or a similar spice blend
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 6 green cardamom pods, lightly cracked
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 can chopped tomatoes (roughly 400g/14oz)
• 1 can chickpeas (same size can as tomatoes - don’t bother draining)
• 1 can cannellini beans (same size can as tomatoes - don’t bother draining)
• 1 cup/200g dried red lentils, rinsed
• 5 cups/1.25 liters vegetable broth or water
• salt and pepper to taste

Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a large, heavy pot and sauté the onions (and carrot/celery/pepper if you’re using them) for about 10 minutes, until they’re starting to get soft. Add the garlic (and optional ginger) and stir for a minute, then add the spice blend, cumin, cayenne and cardamom pods and stir until they’re fragrant (only a minute or two).

Mix in the tomato paste, then tip in the tomatoes, chickpeas, beans and lentils. Douse everything with the broth, bring the stew to a boil, then lower the heat, partially cover the pot and let the stew simmer until the lentils are tender, adding more liquid if necessary; you can add considerably more liquid to make it more soupy or leave it as it is to make it more stewy. It should only take about half an hour for the red lentils to cook, but the stew can continue to simmer beyond that if you like—or you can turn off the heat and let it sit for a bit, then reheat it when you’re ready to eat (it just gets better).

You can puree some of the soup if you like to get a creamier texture, but I find that the red lentils usually thicken it up nicely all on their own. Also, the stew itself is vegan, but if you yourself are not, I recommend serving it with a dollop of tangy yogurt on top, and maybe some warm pita breads on the side.

Finally, an odd side story: Not long after I had my wisdom teeth out, Jeremy and I were invited to a barbecue by German friends of ours. I still wasn’t in any condition to eat solid food, so I brought a tub of Moroccan bean stew—pureed to within an inch of its life—and sat at the picnic table slurping soup while everyone around me tucked into grilled sausages in crusty German rolls. I’m not saying I wouldn’t have liked a sausage, but even in those less-than-ideal conditions, this soup tasted good.

Within a few weeks of returning home from Shanghai, my kitchen cupboards were filled with Sichuan peppercorns, chili-garlic paste, fermented black beans and pickled vegetables, and my head was filled with memories of meltingly soft red-cooked pork, crunchy lamb and cumin kebabs, blistering Sichuan hotpots and ethereal soup dumplings. Shanghai changed my concept of Chinese food and it changed my cooking.

The first thing I wanted to make when we got home was red-cooked pork, and my quest for a recipe for this sticky, unctuous dish led me to Diana Kuan’s Appetite for China blog, which immediately became my go-to source for Chinese cooking inspiration. So when I was recently struck by a craving for that numbingly spicy Sichuan peppercorn heat to fend off the cold, damp misery of England in February, I swung by Appetite for China and found not only the perfect recipe but also a very exciting competition.

To participate in the competition—or the “Chinese New Year Virtual Potluck”—you just have to cook one of seven recipes from Diana’s new Chinese Takeout Cookbook and blog about it by February 24, 2013. All participants (with a US address) get a copy of the book—and since I was planning to make one of Diana’s recipes anyway and buy the book anyway, I jumped at the opportunity and started gathering ingredients.

I went a bit crazy, as usual, and cooked not one but two recipes from the competition list: dan dan noodles and Chinese marbled tea eggs. I also put together a Sichuan cucumber salad (because I could eat that all day long) and a vegetarian mapo tofu to use up some dried mushrooms I had sitting around. Oh, and I made some stir-fried broccoli in oyster sauce, too. Yes, this was all just for two people. Yes, we were very full after dinner.

I had made the cucumber salad and mapo tofu several times before, so I knew those dishes would be great (one cool and spicy, one hot and spicy, both terribly addictive). The tea eggs and noodles were new to me, however, so it was with excitement and a bit of trepidation that I embarked on those recipes.

For my first attempt at tea eggs, I was really pleased with the result. I let the eggs simmer for two hours (filling the house with a wonderful aroma) and then they sat in their broth for a bit while I prepared the rest of dinner. When I peeled the first egg at the table, I was delighted to see lovely marbling all over (particularly since I had kind of haphazardly bashed the shells and wasn’t sure I’d get the right effect).

The taste was surprisingly mild—just a hint of star anise and soy—and it was a refreshing counterpart to the other rich and spicy dishes we were eating. One of the chilled leftover eggs made a tasty on-the-go snack the next day, and I chopped up another one to throw into some fried rice the day after that. You get a lot of bang for your buck with these eggs.

The dan dan noodles were the star of the show at dinner, however: springy Chinese noodles topped with lightly crisped ground meat in a vinegary sauce infused with the floral heat of Sichuan pepper. I though there was no way we would make it through the whole bowl of noodles considering how many other dishes I had made—but by the end of the meal we were scraping the bowl clean.

I did make a few adjustments to Diana’s recipe: I couldn’t get a hold of the Sichuan preserved vegetable, so I tossed in some chili pickled bamboo shoots instead; they didn’t have the same crunch as pickled mustard stem, but they added a nice briny hit of flavor to the noodles. I also used a baby leek instead of the scallions, so the garnish was slightly more oniony than it would have been otherwise.

But the most dramatic change was that I used ground lamb instead of beef or pork. I substituted the lamb because that’s what I had languishing in the freezer, but in retrospect I like the lamb aspect for three other reasons: 1) “lamb dan dan” is nicely alliterative, 2) the lamb dishes I had in China were some of the most exciting and surprising to me, so I enjoyed being able to use lamb in yet another interesting way, and 3) the lamb actually works really well in this dish because it stands up beautifully to the spicy chili, the deep umami of the soy sauce and the tang of the black vinegar and pickles. Lamb dan dan doesn’t really seem to be a “thing”, but I think I’m going to make it a “thing” because it tastes great.

So, our Chinese New Year dinner was a terrific success, and my exploration of Chinese cuisine continues thanks to Appetite for China. If you’re a newcomer to making Chinese food at home, like I am, or you’re looking to recreate some of the dishes you know from Chinese restaurants or takeaways, I recommend checking out Diana’s blog and her Chinese Takeout Cookbook. You might surprise yourself with the delights you’ll soon be producing in your kitchen.