Photo: Nigella Lawson with her recipes for Butterflied Chicken with Miso and Sesame Seeds,
Tomato and Horseradish Salad, and Queen of Puddings.
Recently, we had the lovely Nigella Lawson on the show for an entire episode of conversation with Francis Lam. Nigella has been on the road, traveling the world for weeks, to promote her new cookbook, At My Table. Francis asked Nigella what she most looked forward to cooking when she finally returned to her home kitchen. Her answer: butterflied chicken with miso and sesame seeds. She also said when she's on the road during spring and summer months, she longs for fresh vegetables. With our appetites primed for summer meals, Nigella was kind enough to share with us this summer meal menu along with her notes on each course from her new book, At My Table. Enjoy!
You can easily ask a butcher to butterfly the chicken for you, but it isn’t difficult to do at home and can be curiously pleasurable. The marinade infuses the chicken overnight with a deep and musky saltiness, but not spikily so; intense though miso most definitely is, it works subtly, bringing its caramelly saltiness to the meat. See full recipe. See full recipe.
One of the most gratifying things for a home cook is to scrimmage a meal together out of leftovers. I t’s enormously satisfying to ransack the fridge and use up what lies under plastic wrap or is lounging about in the vegetable drawer; it always provides a relaxed, unforced creativity. I certainly would never have thought of using horseradish as a dressing for a tomato salad if I hadn’t wanted to find a way to use up a horseradish root staring beseechingly at me every time I opened the fridge.To eat this at its best, leave time for the tomatoes to steep in the piquant dressing before serving. See full recipe.
Nigella Lawson: This one of those traditional old school British desserts - which we call puddings - that really deserves to find favor on this side of the Atlantic too: with its rich breadcrumby custard base and meringue topping, a layer of jam between the two, this is a very aptly named dessert. See full recipe.
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