The cookbook author scores, salts and stuffs the eggplants with a cheesy and herby breadcrumb mix. The result? A soft and saucy vegetarian midweeker See more of Alice Zaslavsky’s recipes Eggplant is the introverted extrovert of the vegetable kingdom: slow to warm up, sure, but before long it’s the life of the party. Like any I-E, this nightshade needs time and tools to break down its defences, lest it be served up in its naturally bitter, astringent form; if you’ve ever bitten into an eggplant and it bit back, that’s because it’s undercooked. No one likes to risk bitey eggplant, which is why ..read more

Sweet chestnuts make a savoury flour that’s just perfect for this cracking, herby mushroom pasta As anyone who has picked up a winking chestnut and rolled it around the palm of their hand knows, sweet chestnuts are heavy things – too heavy to be spread by animals or birds, meaning the chestnut landscape is largely man-made. Throughout history, chestnuts have been planted to provide food (especially in areas that are not suitable for grains), wood and fuel, or as a gift for future generations. In her charming and informative book On Chestnuts: the Trees and their Seeds, Ria Loohuizen recalls a ..read more

Vivid colours and powerful fresh flavours to welcome the brighter days of early May Sorrel, asparagus, radishes: at last, some strong colours and flavours. After I’ve doused asparagus spears with melted butter at least once I’m up for something new, so we’ve been eating British asparagus with lemon-spiked gnocchi. The mellow of the cream and soft white fish underwrites the pepper of the seared radish in a quick and sustaining supper. Sorrel adds its vivid splash of green to a fresh and bolstering spring soup. This is food for the brighter days of May ..read more

From a maximalist pumpkin soup to a low-and-slow dal, these are the dishes to cook when you seek comfort and flavour Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email Vegetable and bean soup reads so quotidian; ribollita is a far more elegant-sounding name. This thick Tuscan stew is an excellent way to use the odds and ends in your kitchen – that onion rolling around in your fridge crisper, that tin of beans from when you promised you’d eat more legumes, that nub of parmesan rind. Tear up some stale bread, stir it through the soup in the final minutes of cooking then, if you like, pop it under a h ..read more

The head chef of Melbourne’s Hope St Radio looks to her mixed Jewish heritage and Italian travels for meals filled with ‘immigrant grandma energy’ I haven’t had formal training as a chef; rather, my food background lies in my blended Jewish culture, my family’s food heritage and what I have learned on my travels and in past restaurants and kitchens, and continue to learn day to day with my team at Hope St Radio in Melbourne. In my world, the food of home is everything. I was raised in a mixed Jewish family, with immigrant parents and grandparents always hovering about. My father and his family ..read more

A little sweet, a little sour, rather sticky – and irresistible! Two oranges have been sitting in the fruit bowl since 24 January. I can be precise thanks to the boastful photographs of marmalade I took on 25 January, having bought the fruit the day before. Only half the oranges became marmalade (which filled 10 jars and made every surface in the kitchen sticky), so to start with a dozen or so sat in the bowl. They are not bitter oranges, nor are they sweet, which is why they have been consumed so slowly, watching other fruit come, go and succumb to rot (something these last two seem immune to ..read more

A light springtime meal using the freshest spears you can find (which, ideally, means picking them at midnight) In favourable conditions (warm and sunny, but sheltered), asparagus can grow several inches a day. The Canadian Food Focus website claims a fantastic 15cm in 24 hours – which must also be noisy, if you have an ear close enough. Even if the reality is half that, it’s enough for me to consider spending a day in a field of it. I would need to lie down low – on an inflatable lilo, maybe – with a small cushion and a flask of coffee and whisky. I would need to have a penknife, too, so I co ..read more

When you’re hankering after something starchy and satisfying, this soupy spring rice delight will definitely please the tastebuds I don’t know whether I prefer saying risi e bisi or eating this Venetian springtime speciality, which is traditionally made to celebrate the feast of St Mark, the city’s patron saint, on 25 April. That said, this deliciously soupy, starchy dish ticks a lot of boxes for me at this time of year, not least because even I can amuse myself in a terrible Italian accent for only so long. Prep 15 min Cook 1 hrServes 4 ..read more

Celebrate the freshness of a new season with ricotta gnocchi with raw pea pesto, fennel sausage penne and broccoli orecchiette Prep 20 min Cook 1 hr 25 min Serves 4 ..read more

Soups and stews are what the rice-shaped pasta was made for, but it also works in salads and even some sweet dishes What’s the best way to cook orzo?“Orzo reminds me of being a child,” says Jacob Kenedy, chef/owner of Bocca di Lupo in London. “It’s very comforting, and you can eat it with a spoon.” It is perhaps first worth noting that in Italy the word orzo literally means “‘barley”, and the pasta we know as orzo more often goes by the name rosmarino (due to its likeness to a rosemary needle) or risoni (big rice). Here, we’re talking the pasta, which Kenedy uses as a substitute for both barle ..read more