I really struggle pinch cooking for one, truthful what tin I make successful January that’s absorbing but easy and, astir importantly, warming?
Jane, via email
“There’s an creation to nan cleanable solo meal,” says Bonnie Chung, writer of Miso: From Japanese Classics to Everyday Umami, “and that’s balancing decadence pinch ease.” For Chung, that intends good-quality ingredients (“tinned anchovies, jarred beans”), a crockery that tin beryllium cooked successful 1 cookware (“a nighttime unsocial must beryllium maximised pinch minimal washing-up”) and eaten pinch a azygous portion of cutlery, “preferably successful beforehand of nan telly and retired of a vessel nestling successful your lap”. Happily, she says, each of those requirements are met by miso udon carbonara: “It has each nan rich | and creamy nirvana of a cheesy pasta, but pinch a delicious, mochi-like chew that is incredibly satisfying.” Not only that, but you tin sound it up successful little than 10 minutes. “Melt cheese, beverage and miso successful a cookware to make nan condiment base, past adhd stiff udon that person been soaked successful basking water.” Coat nan noodles successful nan sauce, past service pinch crisp bacon aliases possibly a fewer anchovies for “pops of salty fat”. Crown pinch a aureate ovum yolk (preferably duck, but hen “will suffice”), which should past beryllium broken: “Add a ace of achromatic pepper, and your cosy nighttime successful has begun.”
“January feels for illustration a clip for fresh, agleam flavours,” says the Guardian’s ain Felicity Cloake, which for her often intends pasta con le sarde made pinch tinned fish, fennel seeds and tons of citrus juice; “or pinch purple sprouting broccoli and a generous helping of ail and chilli”. A jar of chickpeas, meanwhile, mixed, perhaps, pinch harissa, chopped herbs and crumbled feta, brings nan anticipation of a speedy stew, Cloake adds, while it’s ever a bully outcry to braise immoderate beans, because cook-once, eat-all-week recipes are a godsend – truthful agelong arsenic they’re versatile, that is.
James Freeman, caput cook astatine Thomas Straker’s caller Acre edifice successful westbound London wholeheartedly concurs: “One of my favourite things is to roast delica pumpkin pinch aleppo chilli, ail and ginger, and past eat that pinch braised achromatic beans and a bully salsa verde to trim done nan richness.” Not only that, he says, but “you could besides blend nan roast pumpkin to operation done nan beans and, connected different day, move nan beans and pumpkin into crockery and garnish pinch immoderate leftover salsa verde. That would beryllium banging, and you won’t beryllium wasting a thing.” Of course, akin strategies could beryllium applied to roast chicken, if you person clip of a weekend: “Save nan bones to make a broth, past shred immoderate leftover nutrient into that, aliases usage it successful a crockery aliases moreover eat pinch those beans and pumpkin.”
Above all, though, Cloake refuses to recognise “the thought that cooking wholly selfishly, and according to one’s ain whims and eccentricities of taste, is not inherently as, if not more, satisfying than cooking to please others”. The “quickest of all” ways to execute this, she insists, is simply a three-egg omelette filled pinch immoderate veg, herbs, cured nutrient aliases food you hap to person successful nan fridge: “It’s severely underrated arsenic a meal.” On nan array successful specified minutes, positive “the only personification who’ll beryllium transverse if you overcook it is yourself”. Win-win.
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3 weeks ago
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