Nibbles #50

All about dried pasta, how to stop soggy bottoms on fruit tarts, and what exactly happens to all our food waste.

Welcome to Nibbles where once a month I share everything brilliant I’ve been reading on the web as well as some general updates from my kitchen, my vegetable garden during the growing season, the books I’ve been reading, and other miscellaneous ‘you really need to know about’ updates.

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A dreamy piece of just-so poached trout with saffron cherry tomato sauce and creamed cavelo nero I can’t stop thinking about at The Goods Shed in Canterbury. Go for the food, but stay for the jugs of homemade lemonade and heatwave-beating breeze up on the mezzanine.

• BBC Good Food takes a look at how we cook and eat now, with data to back it all up:

  The joy, or not, of cooking

• Luke goes on a hunt for the original, elusive McDonald’s french fry recipe which also serves as an interesting prism through which to view changing eating habits and the influence of pressure groups on big food business.

• Meryl has put together a brilliant guide to dried pasta: how it is made, how to choose the best, and her favourite brands to buy:

  a pasta maker's guide to dried pasta

• David shares a genius preparation from when he worked at Chez Panisse to stop summer pies and tarts from getting soggy bottoms:

Moon Dust

• Marianne’s observations about how differently Americans and Brits treat their downstairs toilets was as enjoyable and amusing as it was informative:

  The Downstairs Loo

• Imogen joins a team of London bin men for the day on a journey highlighting what exactly happens to all our food waste:

  How to make Bin Soup

Just two brand new recipes from me over on my website this month, these slightly spicy, very sticky Gochujang Ribs, and my method for Sweet and Sour Herring Rollmops. For my Macknade residency, we’re lighting the barbecue for my Lemon and Herb Piri Piri Chicken recipe - I love it because it’s a (sort of) classic piri piri you douse in a lemon herb dressing as you lift the chicken off the grill, adding an extra layer of flavour and ensuring you get super juicy and flavorful chicken every time!

As for other people’s recipes I’ve been cooking and loving, Rosanna’s Easy Bearnaise Sauce is a simply genius recipe in both flavour and simplicity that transformed otherwise sad steaks (the new M&S ones with the green label are terrible, by the way!), and at my friends Sherin and Martin’s for lunch last weekend Martin made this Rosemary Garlic Chicken and Vegetable Gnocchi for lunch and it was fantastic - perfect weeknight fodder!