Recipes By Nigella Lawson
145 recipes found
Easy Pea Soup
One of my regular near-instant meals is pea soup, which I make by tossing sliced scallions in a little garlic-infused oil (or using regular olive oil and mincing a clove of garlic into it) and then by adding peas from the freezer.
Crepes
These delicate pliable crepes can be simply served warm, dusted with confectioners' sugar, or given a little flair by dousing with a buttery orange syrup to make the French dessert, Crêpes Suzette. You can make the crepes in advance; pile them between torn-off sheets of baking parchment then wrap well and store in the refrigerator for a good three days.
All-in-One Chocolate Cake
This is the perfect chocolate cake: beautiful, melting, intense but not heavy. The batter comes together quickly in a food processor, and the cake bakes at 350 degrees for a while, giving the baker time to assemble the frosting, which is given a luscious sheen by a bit of corn syrup. Use the best chocolate you can find for the frosting, and gild it however you like: with a few flowers, some birthday candles or nothing at all.
Molten Chocolate Babycakes
This is a fancy restaurant dessert that's easy to make at home: mix up the little cakes, stash them in a fridge for a day and then take them out as you sit down to your meal, popping them in the oven just 10 minutes or so before serving them with a dollop of vanilla or pistachio ice cream. As each oven varies, it's worth having a practice run of these to see exactly how long the babycakes need to give them this glorious texture.
Ricotta and Pine Nut Salad
Here is a laid-back, unfussy salad that takes no time to prepare and is a great accompaniment to a summer pasta. It’s also good on its own for lunch.
Pumpkin Pancakes With Sticky Maple Pecans
French Lasagne
Nigella Lawson's recipe for savory baked croissant pudding, which goes by the name of French lasagne in her house, uses up stale croissants by having the cook split and stuff them with ham and cheese, sprinkle more cheese over the top and douse them in eggs beaten with garlic-infused milk. Your croissants need not be stale to achieve wonderfully eggy, cheesy results, but if they are fresh, consider leaving them on the counter to dry out first, or even toasting them briefly in the oven.
Soft White Dinner Rolls
Getting supper on the table quickly makes you feel efficient. Baking a batch of soft dinner rolls makes you feel cozily competent. This may be an unfashionable virtue, but it is also a deeply satisfying one.
French Toast With Cinnamon Plums
These plums can also be made in advance (though remember to reheat gently so the fruit doesn't fall apart) and their berried cinnamon-scented syrup drenches the sweet French toast gloriously. If you wish, you can remove the cooked plums and let the syrup reduce for a more intense, stickier sauce.
Monster Cookies
Studded with colored candies (delicious if they are peanut-filled, too), these treats are an amazing way to end a grown-up supper, and a very useful way to keep a roomful of boisterous children happy.
Lemon-Lime Satin Creams
Here is an easy, citrusy dessert that can be made ahead of time for the most part. Mix lemon and lime zest with eggs, sugar and cream, and then refrigerate for up to two days -- the longer the better. Then, bake it in ramekins for about half an hour, and serve. Superfine sugar can be found in the baking aisle or made with regular sugar using a mortar and pestle.
Chocolate Lime Pie
Peaches In Muscat
Customarily in Italy you will find peaches steeped in red wine (to which a little sugar has often been added) and chilled. I love this, but prefer it made with Muscat wine, not least because red wine makes the peaches lose their golden intensity. I also love the honeyed muskiness of the dessert wine with the peaches; it is absolute nectar.
Lemon Gelato
A proper Italian gelato di crema is sort of like vanilla ice cream, only in place of vanilla, you infuse the milk with a modest grating or shaving of lemon zest. This doesn't turn it into lemon ice cream, itself a cool dollop of heaven. What happens, rather, is that the small-volume scent of lemon makes the eggs eggier and the custard creamier. In short, we're talking platonic ideal of ice cream.
Intense Chocolate Mousse Cake
There is very little that needs to be said about a chocolate mousse cake. This one lives up to its name. It is gloriously intense. But the whisked egg whites ensure that it has a balancing lightness. A slice of it, with a smattering of fresh raspberries and a dollop of cream, or better still, sour cream, is the perfect finale. It may also invite a certain inelegant gluttony at the end. I have noticed that even those who claim not to go in for desserts come back for more.
Strawberry Pavlova
The particular joy of this dreamy dessert, which was named in honor of the Russian ballerina, is that the meringue base can be made in advance. Then to serve it, drizzle the strawberries with a little balsamic vinegar and vanilla (a combination that brings out the fullest essential flavor of the fruit), whip some cream and arrange it all on a plate. It’s magnificent, and deliriously easy.
Cinnamon Squares
You could think of these cinnamon squares as the wintry brother of tangy, summery lemon bars, but what they really are is shortbread topped with a cinnamon-infused glaze, perfect with a cup of tea or a mug of coffee. And it is a reassuringly straightforward recipe. Make the crust and press it into a pan, bake it and let it cool. Drizzle a warm cinnamon glaze over it, cut and serve. Inhaling is wonderful; eating is even better.
Pasta With Meatballs
Carbohydrate avoidance be damned: pasta with meatballs is the perfect culinary counter to the cruel world. Just looking at a slippery, tomato-sauced tangle of spaghetti topped with juicy toothsome meatballs makes you feel better; eating it is the instant antidote to whatever ails you. The recipe here makes more sauce, perhaps, than you'd normally want to use to dress a pound of pasta, but when I sit down to eat with the children I want to make sure I'm not going to have to get up and make them anything else to eat before they go to bed. (Of course you can freeze a portion of little meatballs in sauce for easy access in meals ahead. They need not accompany a bowl of pasta. My children like them just as much with a mound of plain white rice. Who wouldn't?)
Spinach Salad With Lemon and Mint
This salad is a snip, but then one would hardly expect a salad to cause trouble. Using a lemon rather than just lemon juice as an ingredient makes for the most fabulous salad regardless of leaves. And by all means, serve it as a starter rather than a follow-up on the main course. It is fresh, sharp, vegan and delicious.
Light Potato Salad
I know the potato salad I suggest is in culinary terms very un-American. I resolutely believe, however, that potatoes are so much better dressed in oil and vinegar (but it must be good wine vinegar) than blanketed in mayonnaise.
Italian Roast Potatoes
These potatoes are beloved by children and adults alike, and they are very easy to make. Just cube the potatoes (don't bother to peel) and tumble them into a pan. Pour on the olive oil, sprinkle the oregano, peel the garlic cloves (you don't even have to do that if you're pushed for time), mix everything together and stick the dish in the oven. Serve alongside some lamb chops and a simple salad, or just the salad.
Masoor Dal (Spiced Red Lentils)
What I have come to understand is that how food looks as you prepare it can make as much difference to the cook as it does, on the plate, to the person who gets to eat it. When the skies are drab and life feels a little gray, I am absurdly cheered by the fresh brightness of a vibrantly orange dal, a red lentil stew spiced with turmeric, chili and ginger, and colored with sweet potatoes and tomatoes. Just seeing that mixture in the pan lifts my spirits. It helps that a dal is simple to make: a bit of chopping and the stew all but cooks itself. And it can be made in advance and then reheated, always a bonus. This dal makes a wonderful, exuberant partner to broiled salmon, but I love it without meat, too, when I partner it with my “bright rice.”
Cucumber and Cilantro Raita
When the season permits, you can change this dish into a jewel-studded pomegranate raita: simply substitute pomegranate seeds for the cucumber and cilantro. In either case remember to add a good pinch of salt to the yogurt.
French Lentils With Garlic and Thyme
This is a classic French way to cook lentils, and it’s very easy. Aromatics are sautéed and then simmered with French lentils, also known as Le Puy lentils, for 20 to 25 minutes. It is an easy side dish (shown here with cod baked with prosciutto), redolent of a Provencal feast.