Gordon White

London life skills learnt the hard way. Also recipes for some reason.

Genoese Squid For People Who Never Cook Season

This recipe is Genoese-inspired, from Diana Henry’s life changing book, Food From Plenty. The dish is for people who -like me- actually really like seafood but never really cook it because they’re too chicken shit.

Radish And Olive Salad For A Confusing Detox

In between catching up with business partners, family and friends over the new year there are evenings at home spent crying into my XXXL muumuu about how much weight was gained over Christmas.

A Very European Union Of Sausages

Chorizo, for instance, goes with everything and appears fun and exciting and vivacious like a hot Spaniard you meet at sunset by the beach.

How To Do Burns Night At Home

Of course, if you are going to be racist and turn your nose up at the fine people of Scotland’s proud heritage then I am going to make you work for it. This Highland stew is much more hassle but will begrudgingly serve as a delicious replacement.

Seventies Party Food For People Who Weren’t Alive In The Seventies

Quite a number of this year’s food trends have a seventies feel to them… chopped liver, wines made of things other than grapes…

Japanese Chicken Curry For People Who Have Never Been To Japan

Posted by Gordon White

There really is no other way to describe this as the sum total of my knowledge about Japan comes from two years of language lessons in early high school and that one episode of An Idiot Abroad where Karl eats fermented fish.

Still… this is quite good, not least because it got James to actually eat (some) green beans.

So who cares if it’s only “Japproximate”? Give it a go.

Ingredients

500 grams chicken thighs. You want this skinless and boneless so don’t do what I did and just click “chicken thighs” on ocado.com. Adds a whole other

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2012 Food Trends That Will Look Ridiculous In A Year

Posted by Gordon White

Breakfast will be ready in several months.

The unusual side effect of eating, reviewing, eating, taking clients out for, eating, cooking, reading about and eating so much food in Europe’s only megacity is that you inadvertently develop stringent opinions regarding global food trends.

Stringent opinions that you then foist upon people, willing or unwilling.

You get to see best-in-the-world restaurants open, you get to read best-in-class cookbooks when they’re released, you get to drag long-suffering James around weird European markets, you get to talk food strategy with the very same James because that’s his job, you get free test foods from Marks & Spencer that won’t be …

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How To Measure A Year In Something Other Than Time

Posted by Gordon White

Greetings from London! Where I watched this happen from my front room.

Every year you read the same dreary articles about how new year’s resolutions never work.

Objectively, these are complete bullshit.

It’s nothing to do with a new year. The problem is that almost all resolutions fail.

Low fat dieting, for instance, over the last forty years (since carbohydrate industry-backed government decided fat was evil) has failed in more than 95% of medically supervised cases.

No one likes to hear that they are chemically wired for literally every proclivity -from body shape to salt tolerance to what colour we like to paint our bedrooms to how much we love our kids …

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Grown Ups’ Peanut Butter Fudge

Posted by Gordon White

Nothing quite like the warm, sedentary glow of television to get you in the mood for fudge

Dara O’Briain has this joke that every town in England apparently has the best, “most famous” fudge in England.

Well, they’re all wrong because this is better.

You typically make fudge with plain ol’ brown sugar. Switching that up for dark muscovado sugar gives it a smokier, more molassesy and decidedly more adult taste.

Top that off with a capful of my perennial secret weapon, marsala all’uovo -a decidedly unfashionable marsala wine with a taste reminiscent of cream soda.

It’s cheap, tacky and -a second’s worth of google searching indicates- is even available in Australia.

Ingredients

120 grams butter.

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Rarebit Ciabatta

Posted by Gordon White

Quite the stereotypes lined up in food form, there

Fun fact about Welsh Rarebit: It gets its name from the seventeenth century belief that the Welsh were too poor even to afford rabbit… Hence “Welsh” rabbit is effectively cheese on toast.

But what cheese on toast!

This is pretty much an exact copy of a recipe I found in the Guardian, with a few minor hacks to make it simultaneously more disgusting and delicious.

Whenever I order this in a pub -which I do regularly- it is served on firm white or brown bread, the delicious slick of cheese congealing on the top.

But whilst watching one of …

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Chicory Gratin

Posted by Gordon White

We served this with some pre-release food we were trialling for M&S.

Chicory. Not really a thing we seem to cook with much -although it’s definitely one of those ingredients that tips me in favour of one menu selection over another.

But, according to Eat The Seasons -an extremely helpful website- chicory is at its best so we gave it a whirl.

We opted for red chicory, sometimes called endive or witloof.

Ingredients

500g chicory. Halved lengthwise.
250ml double cream. Yep, another healthy recipe.
1 tablespoon French wholegrain mustard.
50 grams Gruyère cheese. Grated.

Method

1. Preheat the oven. Steam the half heads of chicory for about seven minutes. …

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Moroccan Mushrooms With Apricot Couscous

Posted by Gordon White

Fine, fine… This is about as Moroccan as I am.

But if you’re looking to have a play around with sweet and savoury then, for my money, North Africa -or places such as Andalucia that it has clearly influenced- is where you should turn.

Sidebar: James and I ate a at reasonably good Moroccan restaurant during our most recent trip to Paris where I discovered that North African wine isn’t even remotely shit.

So if you want to dial up the authenticity, serve this with a red from the Atlas mountains or something.

Ingredients

300 grams mushrooms. Quartered. Or

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Tuscan Chickpea Soup And Optimised Garlic Bread

Posted by Gordon White

You really don't need a whole garlic bread each. But they come in packs of two at Waitrose.

Okay so this is probably a recipe that calls for a stick blender… something I have now asked of Santa (Amazon).

You can still achieve good results using your food processor -I certainly did- but there comes a point in the preparation where everything begins to feel vaguely industrial… like you’re working in a garlicky meth lab.

This recipe is inspired by one from this rather wonderful blog. I’m writing it out rather than merely linking to it for two reasons.

The first is to de-Americanise the measurements because my brain doesn’t work in cups. The second is because …