Yes, a curry paste from scratch, but hear us out. This curry is delicious, but not if you shortcut things. It’s our take on a Nonya curry; the Nonyas (also called the Peranakans) are communities descended from Chinese immigrants who settled in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia, intermarried with locals, and blended their heritage with Malay influences. Their food is a true fusion cuisine…

Have you got a bunch of egg whites sloshing around after dutifully making hollandaise sauce or creme anglaise? Or is it just us that ends up with an accumulation of whites from time to time? Given the price of eggs, we don’t like to waste any part of a single one, but we don’t always want to bake meringue or pavlova, either…

While nothing says ‘I care’ or ‘look at me go’ like homemade dumplings, sometimes frozen ones are a total lifesaver when we’re running out of time. And when we make a dinner out of frozen dumplings, normally we just boil them, steam a pile of Asian greens…

Right. It’s roll-your-sleeves-up time. This dish has a few (very easy) components, so set yourself some time to create an Indian-inspired feast that will fully knock socks off. Fans of rice, spice, lamb and spuds will be in heaven...

Can’t get enough of coconut? Same here. We love it in this cake which has slightly retro vibes, and where coconut is represented in creamy, desiccated and extract form. With an amazingly fluffy texture and a ridiculously rich, lime-spiked, creamy frosting, it’s special enough to bring out for an occasion, but without the fuss of a layer cake...

Are leeks underrated? We think so. They don’t have the sexy wow-factor of, say, asparagus or sugar snaps or watermelon radish. But they can be incredible, especially when you braise them and make them the hero of a dish – as we have here. Braising really brings out their gentler, sweeter side, and their texture becomes meltingly tender too. The key to these leeks is in the preparation...

The Cobb salad is the ultimate American summer classic – a hearty, throw-it-together kind of dish that’s become an icon. Legend has it that this salad was first whipped up back in the 1930’s at the famed Brown Derby restaurant in Hollywood by owner Bob Cobb. And can we just take a moment to appreciate the poetic rhythm of this dude's name? Fabulous. The story goes...

We love good pork, as opposed to bland, boring pork. Which intensively-raised piggy meat can be. It’s worth stumping up for decent quality pork, preferably pasture-raised, as it will have way better flavour and texture – the colour of the flesh should be...

Need an afternoon tea treat? Something to take to a family gathering? A cake/slice/dessert hybrid to serve with ice-cream for pudding? Taa-daa. Buttery, crumbly and fruity, this strawberry-rhubarb tray bake is exactly the simple pleasure you’re craving...

Need a holiday on a plate? Here you go! This salad is nothing short of an utterly delicious serve of sunshine that will go great with your next barbecue or chillaxed, Med-themed dinner party. And look, maybe it’s too early for tomatoes? We couldn’t wait for when they are at their sun-ripened best, but if you’re more restrained than we are...

We love salami, big time, and if we ever need any justification to gorge on it (we don’t), we only have to look to the Italians. Anecdotally, they really seem to eat a ton of the stuff in Italy, along with other cured meats like mortadella, coppa, pancetta, bresaola, nduja, guanciale, lardo, and so on. The entire cured meat category, including salami, is referred to as salume...

We’re getting our Austria on with these buns; one of us is contemplating a visit and the wish-list itinerary is quickly filling up with Schloss Schönbrunn, sausage, strudel, Strauss, the Christmas Markets at Spittelberg, sachertorte, the Secession Building, and everything to do with Sisi. And schnitzel. All the ’S’ things, basically...

Welcome to our pasta party in a cake tin! (Or frying pan, if you prefer… we did). This is SO easy to whip up and makes a change from the usual pasta dinner. Plus, it’s a bit of a blank slate: you can throw some sun-dried tomatoes, chopped olives, chopped salami, capers, anchovies or fresh basil through the mixture before baking...

Dammit, we’re not waiting any longer! We’re dusting off the barbie, firing it up, and cooking pork neck if it rains, sleets, snows, or kills us. And what better meat than pork for kicking off the barbecue season in tasty style? And what better cut than neck? It’s juicy, thanks to all the lovely marbling of fat, which slowly renders...

Why, hello Javanese-inspired recipe! What are you doing hanging around here? Indonesian cuisine is nowhere near as vaunted as Thai or Vietnamese, so what makes you think we’d be at all interested in your fried tofu yumminess and your saucey, peanutty goodness...

We’re on a bit of a mezze kick this week, if you hadn’t noted. Full disclosure; we were hopeful of nicer weather to be able to take a light dinner outside but we should have known better. We’ve only lived here for most of our lives. Sigh. But when things do perk up in the warmth and sunshine department...

Vietnam, bless it, has some unique ingredients and techniques that we go nuts for. Having been lucky enough to visit the country numerous times over the last 20 years, we can say, hand on heart, it has one of our all time favourite cuisines on the planet. The food is next level; it’s fresh, zingy and so incredibly varied, we never get sick of eating it...

Everyone with a brownie recipe in the known world and beyond claims theirs is The Best Ever. We’ve been making this version for decades now and stake our reputations on it actually being the best. The exact origins are a bit sketchy, long lost in the sands of time and dogged-eared cookbooks...

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...

If you’ve been playing along with the LSC so far, you’ll be bracing yourself for the expected “this isn’t a hard recipe” and true to form, we’re saying “this recipe isn’t hard.” Cooking is all about timing and keeping a tidy bench most of the time, and this recipe has a third factor - breaking things down into manageable sub-tasks...