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Change the headcount and the amounts follow. Salt and spice do not scale in a straight line, and we account for that.

A recipe is how you make a thing: the amounts, the order, the timing and where it goes wrong. The dish pages explain what that thing is — where it comes from, the mechanism behind it, and why skipping one step makes it something else. One stays open in the kitchen; the other is read when you wonder.

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Celeriac soup

Celeriac soup

Celeriac starts browning the moment it is cut. Dropping it into acidulated water is a chemical intervention rather than a cosmetic one.

40 min 239 kcal
Vine leaves stuffed with meat

Vine leaves stuffed with meat

Sarma holds together because the pan is packed, not because the roll is tight. Leave gaps and every one of them opens.

115 min 348 kcal
Whole roast chicken

Whole roast chicken

The breast is ready at 65 °C and the leg at 75. Roasting a whole bird is entirely the business of hitting both at once.

115 min 734 kcal
Chicken schnitzel

Chicken schnitzel

Beating the meat thin is a requirement rather than a shortcut: a 1 cm breast cannot cook before the coating burns.

32 min 814 kcal
Spinach with rice

Spinach with rice

A kilo of spinach cooks down to a handful, which is why the size of the pan is part of the recipe.

60 min 317 kcal
Leeks in olive oil

Leeks in olive oil

Leek grit hides between the layers and rinsing does not reach it: it has to be cut first and soaked after.

100 min 328 kcal
Garlic-sautéed broccoli

Garlic-sautéed broccoli

The broccoli is blanched two minutes and dropped into iced water. That shock locks the green in, and the sauté cannot take it back out.

20 min 220 kcal
Borlotti bean pilaki

Borlotti bean pilaki

A pilaki is eaten cold, and that is why there is sugar in it: perception of sweetness drops as food cools, so what tastes right hot tastes flat cold.

255 min 430 kcal
Hummus

Hummus

Smooth hummus is not a question of the blender but of the skins: no machine makes it velvety while they are still on.

65 min 347 kcal
Broad bean purée

Broad bean purée

Broad beans are not boiled in their skins: the skin cooks but never chews, and the purée comes out gritty.

260 min 356 kcal
Red lentil dal

Red lentil dal

Twenty minutes of boiling lentils tastes of very little; almost all of the flavour is made in the last forty-five seconds, in hot fat.

37 min 315 kcal
Spinach with chickpeas

Spinach with chickpeas

Under a lid, spinach turns olive-drab in its own acid. With the lid off, the colour and the taste both stay where they were.

65 min 374 kcal
Black-eyed pea stew

Black-eyed pea stew

The one common dried pulse that needs no soaking: its coat is thin and permeable, so it goes from dry seed to tender in twenty-five minutes.

50 min 416 kcal