Recipes

Scaled to however many of you there are.

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.

Main ingredient

With chicken 11 With red meat 27 With fish and seafood 9 With aubergine 8 With yoghurt 13 With cheese 9 With lentils 7 With chickpeas 8 With beans 10 With bulgur 11 With rice 10 With pasta 6 With tomato 51 With spinach 3 With mushrooms 6 With potato 17 With egg 22 With courgette or pumpkin 6

Character

Sweet 5 Hot 15 Sour 35

Method

In the oven 24 Grilled 4 Fried 30 No cooking 5

What it is

Under 30 minutes 28 One pot 56 Vegetarian 61 Vegan 31 Gluten free 50 Freezes 62

18 of 116 recipes. Clear the filter

Vegetable soup

Throwing everything in at once is easy and wrong. These vegetables differ twofold in cooking time, and knowing the order is the only skill involved.

45 min 213 kcal

Pumpkin soup

Boiled pumpkin gives a watery, flat soup. Roasted pumpkin is the same vegetable and a completely different soup.

60 min 207 kcal

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

İmam bayıldı

Karnıyarık’s sibling: no meat, olive oil, eaten cold. The quantity of onion is not excessive — this is a dish about onion.

200 min 483 kcal

Tray-roasted vegetables

A vegetable that does not fit on the tray does not roast, it steams. Using two trays instead of one is the only trick in this recipe.

60 min 340 kcal

Okra in olive oil

Okra goes slimy for one reason: it was cut. Cooked without breaching the pod, it does not go slimy at all.

115 min 257 kcal

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

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

Oven potato wedges

The secret of a crisp wedge is not in the oven but before it: a boil and a shake. Without roughening the surface there is no crust.

60 min 323 kcal

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

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

260 min 356 kcal

Black-eyed pea salad

The one dried pulse that needs no soak: its skin is thin and it softens in twenty-five minutes.

60 min 417 kcal

Roasted chickpeas

The crunch is drying, not browning: while there is free water on the surface the chickpea stays soft. The spices wait until the end, because at 200 °C they burn.

105 min 292 kcal

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

Green lentil salad

A lentil goes on cooking in its own heat for three or four minutes after the pan comes off. The eighteen minutes in this recipe already has those minutes counted in.

53 min 451 kcal