Spring, Autumn, Winter, Summer, main, soup, Russian, Ukranian Antony Spring, Autumn, Winter, Summer, main, soup, Russian, Ukranian Antony

Big beefy borscht

A real meal-in-a-bowl, you can easy scale this recipe up, increasing everything by a half or even doubling it. As the soup freezes well, you can then have plenty to pull out for an easy meal when time runs short to cook dinner. We like roasting our beets separately, adding them to the soup near the end of cooking...

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Spring, Autumn, Winter, Summer, Turkish, vegetarian, main Antony Spring, Autumn, Winter, Summer, Turkish, vegetarian, main Antony

Burghul köfte with garlic yoghurt

Welcome to Fellah Köfte. With roots in Turkish and MIddle Eastern cuisine, it’s a humble kind of a dish using everyday staples that would traditionally have been super-cheap and constantly on hand. Depending on what burghul and semolina cost in your vicino, it’s still pretty cheap to make and if you can get Turkish pepper paste all the better…

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Spring, Autumn, main, Winter, pie, lamb Antony Spring, Autumn, main, Winter, pie, lamb Antony

Left-over lamb pie

Hands up who has memories of their Mum making shepherd’s pie? Us too. Ours minced the cold roast lamb using a hefty metal mincer with a crank handle. It screwed onto the edge of the bench or dining table and made short work of reducing the lamb to teeny tiny bits; yes, kids, there was life before food processors…

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Spring, Autumn, main, Winter, soup Antony Spring, Autumn, main, Winter, soup Antony

Ribollita

Why use the Italian name for this dish? Because when translated, ribollita means ‘reboiled’ and we don’t know about you but a dish with that name would not exactly entice us to the dinner table. “What’s for dinner, Mum?” “Reboiled!!” “Ooh…

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soup, Winter, Spring, Autumn, lamb, main Antony soup, Winter, Spring, Autumn, lamb, main Antony

Harira

Lamb. Soup. North African flavours. I. Am. So. Here. For. These. A soupy-stew with a lot going for it, we’re in love with the lamby, lentil-y, aromatic, nourishing goodness that is harira. Wiki suggests it can be eaten as a ‘light snack’ but this flour-thickened version…

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Winter, Summer, Autumn, Spring, dinner, main Antony Winter, Summer, Autumn, Spring, dinner, main Antony

Eggplant curry with tamarind and coconut

We love the layered flavours you get in an Indian curry, especially when they skew sweet-sour. Which they do here, thanks to jaggery, tomatoes and – yum! – tamarind paste. There are a few steps to making this but none are hard. It’s a perfect Sunday cooking project and you can make extras and freeze them for during the week too…

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Summer, Winter, Autumn, Spring, Middle Eastern, lamb, main Antony Summer, Winter, Autumn, Spring, Middle Eastern, lamb, main Antony

Burghul pilaf with lamb-feta meatballs 

I’m flexing my mince muscles in anticipation of May, which I’m dubbing My Month of Mean. Or of Mince. Or of Misery. Or something. With the cost of everything going bananas and cash reserves shrinking (thanks, Reserve Bank!), I’m pulling my horns in. No more soothing retail, bye bye Binge account and see ya later exxie wine habit…

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Muhammara

This Syrian-Turkish dip-spread is so full of intense flavour, it’s ridiculous. It’s not hard to make but, lest you think charring and peeling capsicums is tedious, it’s their exact sweet, smoky flavours that make this so amazing. So don't be tempted to skip this step. If you have a gas cook-top, just hurl your capsicums straight on the flame whole, then turn them regularly so they char all over…

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Italian, Summer, main Antony Italian, Summer, main Antony

Tomato risotto

Lately, we’ve been making tomato sauce like there is no tomorrow; maybe there is no tomorrow? Existential crisis/neurosis aside, our freezers are full of the stuff. When it’s winter, and fresh tomatoes taste like shite, we’ll be ever so glad of a never-ending supply of sauce for pasta…

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Eggplant- lentil stew with pomegranate molasses

Ah... Paula Wolfert. Or should we say... ah, Musa Dağdeviren. If you don’t know, Wolfert is a legendary American food writer who came to prominence thanks to her extensive knowledge of Moroccan food. Her seminal book, The Food of Morocco, reworked a decade or so ago, is essential for any keen cook; I’m sure Felicity at Cook the Books…

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