Whole roasted cauliflower with harissa and yoghurt
For vegetarian roast inspiration, this whole roasted cauliflower with harrissa and yoghurt is the showstopper you’ve been searching for.
Prep 10 mins
Cook 1 ¾ hrs
Serve 6-8 as a side
Harissa
Tunisia’s spicy condiment is even better when made from scratch, so get ready to dollop it on everything.
Prep 15 mins
Cook 5 mins
Makes about ½ cup
Okayu
Okayu, Japan’s sibling to congee, is regarded as the ultimate comfort food. In its simplest form it’s just rice and water, but quality stock or dashi and condiments are key to the success of this very soothing breakfast bowl.
Prep 20 mins
Cook 1.5 hours
Serves 4-6
Annette’s tomatoes and peaches with honey vinegar and burrata curds
There’s tomato salad, and then there’s tomato salad to the power of ten. Analiese Gregory’s version is exponentially more tomato-tasting than any you’ve grown up with. Bonus: ripe peaches and creamy curds!
Prep 30 mins
Cook 5 mins (plus setting, marinating)
Serves 4
Cold Sichuan-style chicken
Hot chillies, chilled chicken and mouth-tingling Sichuan peppercorns are a potent combination, a multi-sensory experience. Serve some cooling cucumber and plain steamed rice alongside to soothe the palate.
Prep 30 mins
Cook 40 mins (plus cooling, chilling)
Serves 6-8 as a shared dish
XO sauce
Once you’ve made your own XO sauce from scratch, you might never buy another condiment in a jar. Louis Tikaram’s version is the real deal: umami-rich, salty, spicy, complex, a gorgeous colour, and incredibly more-ish.
Prep 30 mins
Cook 1 hr
Makes about 1 cup
Smoky eggplant for everything
With a stash of charred eggplant in the refrigerator, you can whip up a luxe meal at a moment’s notice – it enhances almost anything made with pulses, grains, lamb, beef, seafood or tomatoes.
Prep 5 mins
Cook 25 mins
Serves 4-6
Smoky eggplant with tahini and yoghurt
Vegetables have star billing on our tables these days, and this dish is a great example – it’s so flavoursome that you could serve some barbecued lamb as a side rather than the other way around.
Prep 5 mins
Cook 25 mins
Serves 4-6
Pickled honeydew
A simple pickle elevates whatever you serve it with, whether that’s a whole barbecued duck or a platter of cured meats. This honeydew version, though, is so gorgeous that it just might steal the whole show.
Prep 15 mins
Cook 15 mins
Makes 1 litre
Satsuma plum and berry sorbet
Blood plums and berries are a match made in summer-fruit heaven. Note the liquid glucose in this recipe – it’s the secret ingredient that helps keep the sorbet creamy even after a few days in the freezer.
Prep 15 mins
Cook 15 mins
Makes 1 litre
Plum and buttermilk panna cotta
There’s an easy way to make a gorgeous panna cotta even prettier, and that’s to layer it with jelly. With plums in season, make the most of their rich colour and flavour in this do-ahead dessert.
Prep 20 mins
Cook 20 mins
Serves 8
Tadka Dal
Dal is synonymous with India, but its appeal is universal. If you’re looking for a comforting dish to nourish your body, ease your mind and soothe your soul, look no further than this perfectly seasoned version.
Prep 25 mins
Cook 1 hr
Serves 6
Peach and haloumi salad
Make the most of summer’s fragrant white peaches with this super-easy salad. When crisp-edged warm haloumi meets cold juicy fruit, expect an explosion in your mouth – it’s a flavour bomb.
Prep 10 mins
Cook 5 mins
Serves 2-4
Chilled corn soup with crab meat
At the height of summer we crave cool, light, liquid refreshment, and this chilled soup fits the bill. Simple enough for a family meal, it’s easily luxed up for entertaining with the addition of sweet crab meat.
Prep 10 mins
Cook 30 mins
Serves 4
Egg + eggs
Dress to impress – and that applies equally to your canapés. This recipe places eggs on centre stage and adorns them with a beautiful mayonnaise, delicate pearls of roe, and a scattering of pretty flowers.
Prep 20 mins (plus pickling overnight)
Cook 10 mins
Serves 6
A really buttery croque monsieur
Sometimes the leftovers taste even better than the original, and this is a case in point. You’ll need Christmas ham, sliced white bread, butter, and the best melting cheese your money can buy.
Prep 10 mins
Cook 10 mins
Serves 4 (2 if you’re hungry)
Pickled eggs
Planning a new year’s eve party? These simple, elegant canapés can be made up to a week ahead of time, leaving you more time to enjoy yourself on the night.
Prep 20 mins (plus pickling overnight)
Cook 10 mins
Serves 4-6
Yellow curry of mud crab
We could cook a South East Asian-style seafood curry a thousand times and never tire of its complex flavours. With hot, sour, sweet and salty notes in perfect balance, this luxurious mud crab version is a winner.
Prep 30 mins
Cook 20 mins
Serves 2 to 4
Watermelon and apple cucumber salad with Thai basil
Beat the heat with salad this summer. Watermelon and cucumber – crisp, thirst-quenching and refreshing – are natural allies in the fight to stay cool, and a Vietnamese-style dressing rounds out the collaboration.
Prep 10 mins
Cook 1 min
Serves 6 as a side
Heirloom tomato salad with sumac-spiced pickled shallots
Tomatoes are available all year round, but only summer tomatoes are truly worthy of the name – fragrant, juicy, popping with acidity and sweetness. This salad, accented with quick pickled shallots, highlights their seasonal perfection.
Prep 10 mins
Cook 20 mins
Serves 4 as a side
Strawberry and fennel seed trifle with almond-vanilla sponge
If your Christmas crew demands trifle because ‘it’s tradition’, wow them with this strawberries-and-cream version, which elevates sponge, berries and cream to a whole new level. Fresh, juicy, boozy fun – it’s a party in your mouth!
Prep 15 mins
Cook 5 mins
Serves 8
Tarte tropézienne
Travelling to France for Christmas is out, so bring a little of France to your festive table in the form of this beautiful brioche sweet, filled with creamy orange-blossom and vanilla custard.
Prep 20 mins (plus chilling, proving)
Cook 25 mins
Serves 8-10
Buttermilk panna cotta with mangoes and caramelised white chocolate crumble
The do-ahead features of this panna cotta with our favourite tropical fruit are one of its biggest selling points, but do you know what seals the deal? Caramelised white chocolate shortbread crumble. Enough said!
Prep 30 mins (plus chilling)
Cook 15 mins (plus cooling)
Serve 8-10
Cured ocean trout
The vibrant colour and prep-ahead features of home-cured ocean trout make for easy festive entertaining. Garnish it with something bright and beautiful to set the scene for Christmas lunch – redcurrants perhaps, or a jumble of edible flowers. This recipe is from Eatable's food and drinks director, Lisa Featherby.
Prep 10 mins
3 days curing
Serves 10
Cannellini beans, mint, feta and blistered tomatoes
Sure, legume-based salads are a thing of virtue, packed with protein. But that’s not why we love them. Think of the cannellini beans in this recipe as a creamy blank canvas for daubs of big, big flavour.
Prep 20 mins (plus overnight soaking)
Cook 40 mins
Serves 4 as a light meal or side
Braised scapes and asparagus
This recipe is based on the classic reduction method: most of the stock evaporates during cooking, leaving behind tender garlic scapes and asparagus in a deeply flavoured buttery glaze.
Prep 5 mins
Cook 10 mins
Serves 4-6 as a side
Slow-roasted lamb shoulder with white beans and harissa
This entire main can be prepared a day ahead, leaving you only one thing to do before your guests arrive: simply turn on the oven and let it do the rest of the work for you.
Prep 30 mins (plus soaking, resting, seasoning)
Cook 9 hrs
Serves 6
Baba ghanoush with roasted spring onions, beetroot and green olive
Take your next barbecue to the next level with this easy platter. Danielle Alvarez’s colourful jumble of vegetables, flatbreads, and eggplant dip “kissed by smoke” makes a relaxed starter for vegans and meat-eaters alike.
Prep 20 mins (plus draining, cooling)
Cook 1 hr
Serves 6
Warm duck, lychee and banana blossom salad
Not all recipes from Michelin-starred restaurants translate easily to Australian home kitchens, but this one’s a cinch. At Paste, chef Bee Satongun roasts her own duck; to save time, start with one from Chinatown.
Prep 40 mins
Cook 5 mins (plus roasting duck)
Serves 6-8
Freekah and charred broccoli salad with tahini-yoghurt
Who said anything about health benefits? The superfood factor might be one reason to love this salad of grains and greens, but we’d make it again and again for its snappy flavours and textures.
Prep 20 mins
Cook 45 mins
Serves 4
Mulberry and apple cider vinegar jam
In southern Australia, late spring sees mulberries ripening to purple-black perfection. Celebrate their season by making them into a gorgeous runny jam. This recipe from Lillie O’Brien of London Borough of Jam captures their flavour and colour intact.
Prep 15 mins (plus cooling, setting)
Cooking 25 mins
Makes 4 x 220g jars
Egg yolk and ricotta ravioli with sage butter
There’s something both comforting and sophisticated about egg yolk ravioli. This recipe elevates a few simple ingredients into a starter that’s greater than the sum of its parts.
Prep 40 mins (plus resting the dough)
Cook 5 mins
Serves 8 as a starter
Maritozzi
Rome’s cult-status cream buns are sold on the streets in their home city, but now you can make maritozzi at home, thanks to Marta’s Flavio Carnevale.
Prep 25 mins (plus proving)
Cook 20 mins
Makes 8
Green beans with black bean sauce
This easy recipe from Hetty McKinnon’s To Asia, With Love punches well above its weight in flavour terms. Stir-fry a few handfuls of green beans, add the sauce mix and you’re done. Mmm, umami.
Prep 20 mins
Cook 10 mins
Serves 4
Sago pudding with passionfruit caramel
Sago pudding based on coconut cream makes an easy midweek dessert with a tropical twist. In her book To Asia, With Love, Hetty McKinnon describes the accompanying passionfruit caramel as “dazzling” and “a revelation”. Encore!
Prep 20 mins
Cook 20 mins
Serves 4
Challaw (Afghan rice)
A two-stage cooking method gives this Afghan rice staple its unique texture and leaves it primed to complement sauce-based meat and vegetable dishes. From Parwana, by Durkhanai Ayubi.
Prep 15 mins (plus soaking rice)
Cook 30 mins
Serves 4-6
Swordfish salmoriglio
Four ingredients are all it takes to transform swordfish into a simple main that will virtually transport you to a clifftop restaurant on the Italian coast.
Prep 5 minutes
Cook 5 minutes
Serves 4
Roast beetroot, fior di latte and fennel salad
Almost too pretty to eat, this little arrangement of vibrant beetroot, delicate fennel and fresh fior di latte makes a perfect starter. Adding some thick spears of white asparagus would not be gilding the lily.
Prep 15 mins
Cook 1 hr 15 mins
Serves 4
Papadums with smashed peas
Crisp, salty and nutty-tasting, Emma McCaskill’s homemade papadums are a sure-fire hit. Add peas and fried curry leaves for a thoroughly original snack or starter. Got gluten-free guests? This ticks all the boxes.
Prep 30 mins
Cook 30 mins
Serves 4 as snack
