Pop-up Chinese takeaway?
After the second, exhausting day of a three-day  photo-shoot in my home, I ended up this evening, as I did yesterday evening, with a fridge full…
Sunday night supper
“Hmm, this black garlic is delicious.” “Actually it’s made from the single-cloved garlic of Sichuan.” “Is that like the wild elephant garlic of Iran?” Such is…
Chinese food emergency helpline?
Every so often, I have an SOS telephone call from a friend in desperate need of information about some aspect of Chinese food. Usually they are…
Year of the Rabbit
Dinner at home to mark the start of the Year of the Rabbit: lotus root salad and preserved duck eggs to start; then Cantonese steamed sea…
In praise of hong cai tai (and other Chinese greens)
I’m back in Changsha, where I lived for a few months while researching my Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook, for the first time in five years. It’s wonderful…
Guild of Food Writers knife clinic
The knife clinic, held last Thursday, was great fun. Delicious canapes by Daylesford Organic, great demos by Marianne Lumb and Corin Mellor. And I did a…
Of salt and sodium
A blog reader called Tom emailed me recently to say that he was enjoying cooking from my books, but: I am trying to figure out whether…
Fire and heat
A blog reader called Graham wrote to me to ask advice about how to get a decent high-powered flame for cooking Chinese food in a UK…
Picnic food
What’s the appropriate food for a quick picnic in Holland Park before the opera? As I’d been experimenting all day in the kitchen, I took a…
Sichuanese preserved vegetable – 芽èœ
I was very happy to discover today that my local Chinese supermarket stocks Sichuanese ya cai 芽èœ, a speciality of the southern Sichuanese city of Yibin,…