This is a meatless riff on one of my all-time favorite sheet pan dinners: a spicy harissa-slathered chicken loaded with lemony leeks, crispy potatoes, and a salty, garlicky yogurt topping. Here, roasted cauliflower stands in for the poultry, and almonds are tossed in for crunch. Added bonus: without the chicken, this lively, highly festive meal comes together in a flash.
This salad is my riff on kasha, the name given to toasted buckwheat groats cooked (in water or milk) throughout Russia and Ukraine. The word kasha basically translates as ‘porridge’ but although in the west we think of porridge as a breakfast food, kasha is commonly a comforting, hearty, savoury dish or side at lunch or dinner – often far less liquid and overcooked than oat porridge. By all means you can serve this salad hot, but I especially like it served at room temperature. The key really is toasting the buckwheat first – it brings out an extra nutty flavour and also stops it all from being too mushy.
Think of this as a sort of hot caprese salad —by cooking the tomatoes in a foil packet on the barbecue with their vines, aromatic herbs, oil, and salt, the flavors concentrate and intensify. They work beautifully with the mozzarella, as you would expect, with added interest from the crushed coriander seeds —simple yet luxurious
One of the most popular recipes in The Green Roasting Tin is the Indonesian gado-gado: crunchy potatoes with an addictive peanut, coconut, and chili sauce. It occurred to me that the dressing, slightly adapted, would work beautifully with grilled corn on the cob —and joy, it did! This is now a summer staple.
Could I write a book without featuring crispy gnocchi? Of course not. So I give you my proudest barbecue creation. Forget about threading just plain old vegetables on a stick —here, you intersperse veggies of your choice (I’ve done bell peppers here, but see the note below) on skewers with just-blanched gnocchi. The result is crisp perfection like you wouldn’t believe.
This chocolate and hazelnut toffee is one of my favorite treats to gift during the holidays. Crack the toffee into shards and package it in small paper boxes. As with most candy-making, be sure to use a calibrated candy thermometer to cook the sugar to the right temperature—not too soft and not too hard.
Andrea DeMaio, our marketing director, inherited this recipe from her maman, Phyllis. It really shines in the fall, especially when made with local apples, but Andrea’s family asks Phyllis to make it year-round, every time they gather together. And Andrea brings it to all our staff potlucks—everyone loves the unique curry vinaigrette, and the salad is vegan, so no one is ever left out.
Crispy around the edges, chewy in the middle, and delicious all over -- it's virtually impossible not to fall in love with these tahini cookies. As their name suggests, the star of the show is the sesame paste that you may know as the crucial component of hummus, but it also works wonders in sweet treats. In this recipe, tahini gives an incredible depth of flavor, and a coating of sesame seeds makes the cookies as pretty as they are delicious.
Serves 4