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I have been cooking with preserved lemon for years, using it left, right and centre, but I am still far from reaching my limit.
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Sweet potatoes are ideal for lazy days: just bake, then mash and mix with yogurt, butter or olive oil.
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Sea spaghetti looks like dark fettuccine and has a similar texture - you can get it in health food stores or online.
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Most of my recipes start life in the domestic kitchen, and even those that start out in the restaurant kitchen have to go through the domestic kitchen.
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Apart from its famous healing properties, manuka has a strong, woody flavour.
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Stereotypical vegetarian food looks gray and brown.
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Having grown up in the Middle East, eating beans for breakfast always seemed like a bizarre British eccentricity.
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I have a terrible tendency to lick my fingers when I cook. So much so that I got a telling off from my pastry teacher years ago, who said it would hinder my prospects.
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Rice and vermicelli is a common combination in Arab and Turkish cooking - it has a lighter texture than rice on its own.
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These days, meals are more open to personal preferences. People like to serve themselves.
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The only way reliably to gauge the heat of any particular chilli is to cut it in half, so exposing the core and membranes, and to dab the cut surface on your tongue.
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Yogurt sauce, as you may have noticed by now, is a regular presence in my recipes - that's because it has the ability to round up so many flavours and textures like no other component does.
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There is a unique freshness when eating buckwheat noodles cold with plenty of herbs and citrus acidity. I can't think of any better use of chopsticks on a hot and sweaty evening.
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I am sure that in the story of Adam and Eve, the forbidden fruit was a fig and not an apple, pear or anything else.
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A great ratatouille is one in which the vegetables interact with each other but are still discernible from each other. The trick is to cook them just right: not over, not under.
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Mackerel is sustainable and healthy.
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Kirmizi biber has a sweet aroma and can vary in spiciness.
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A great fig should look like it's just about to burst its skin. When squeezed lightly it should give a little and not spring back. It must be almost unctuously sweet, soft and wet.
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The main distinction for fresh chillies is whether they are red or green, the difference being one of ripeness.
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Taleggio is the perfect cheese to melt over a warm dish.
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Seasonality in winter doesn't have to mean sleep-inducing, stew-like, starchy casseroles.
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Celery leaves are an underused ingredient, most likely because supermarkets sell mostly leafless stalks.
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Salbitxada is a sharp and lightly sweet Catalan sauce that's traditionally served with calcots - spring or salad onions, grilled whole, make a good substitute.
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Buckwheat, like Marmite and durian, is a seriously divisive foodstuff, so it needs a seriously capable defence team if it's ever going to make it on to most people's dinner tables.