All articles - Food and Drink

Growing your own tomatoes is easy and rewarding. Follow our step-by-step guide to growing tomatoes. Growing tomatoes from seed You can start in January or February onwards in...

Want to know how to make perfect pancakes for pancake day - or just because you fancy them? Making perfect pancakes isn't always easy. So we're sharing some top tips for pancake...

Wine of the Week: Lanson Rose Label Brut Rosé (special edition) Champagne Alc. 12.5% from £32.99 - Tesco/Waitrose This week we're going sparkly. The champagne on...

They invite themselves into our kitchens and flavour our dishes like nothing else, bringing freshness and subtle scents. Herbs go with absolutely everything: meat, fish, vegetables...

How do you get your charlottes, pannacottas and cheesecakes to stay firm? Either by using classic gelatine or agar agar, which is all the rage at the moment. Here’s some useful info...

Round and juicy, reminiscent of summer and bright dishes. This essential ingredient of Italian cooking is one of the most popular vegetables - although it is in fact a fruit! A...

Another sorry, deflated soufflé attempt, even when you follow the recipe to the letter and beat your egg white into perfectly firm peaks? Don't despair - soufflé isn't impossible...

Eaten in many countries throughout the world, lamb is particularly popular in the Mediterranean and eaten at Easter traditionally. It's very versatile, goes well with many spices...

Stock flavours your dishes and but is a great low-fat way of while keeping them light. And as we prefer natural stock to shop-bought cubes, here are our recipes and advice to...

Salad comes in all shapes and colours, from green to purple and even red, and sizes too, from big leaves to small shoots. The flavours also differ, from sweet to bitter, but you...

We want our bread to rise, our muffins to come out of the oven full and our cakes to be light, but what kind or yeast should you use and how much do you need? Can you use making...

Delicious and healthy, here are 7 smoothies you have to try, one for each day of the week. Smoothie maker at the ready... whizz, pour and enjoy. Kale Ginger Detox Smoothie This tasty...

What better than marinade to give meat or fish with incomparable flavour. Marinades are ideal for barbecues and you can experiment with all kinds of sweet, spicy and exotic flavours...

Green, black, crimson, natural, stoned, crushed, tinned, preserved, fresh from the market or the tree, olives are a delicacy, especially in Southern Europe. The olive is a very...

Freezing food is something everyone should know how to do, whether you're a novice in the kitchen or a domestic goddess. However, it’s not always easy to know how to freeze food...

The day after a New Year’s celebration, a weekend with friends or a birthday party, you often end up with leftovers in your fridge. Here's our advice on using your leftover food...

Perfect for dessert, a snack or a treat at any time of day, waffles can be spread with anything sweet, savoury and even alcoholic. Warning: they're hard to resist! Waffle history The...

Love strawberries? Join the club! Indulge your cravings with our delicious strawberry recipes, and check out our guide to the varieties of strawberries and cooking with them. Elsa...

In Ancient Greece, Tartare was hell, where the ungodly and wicked were sent. What's the link between hell and a raw French delicacy? None. The origins of the word go back to the...

A vegetable, a root vegetable or a fruit? Raw or cooked, savoury or sweet, the carrot is a staple ingredient in many dishes (not forgetting carrot cake!). Why not be a little...

We don't always give that much thought to celery and celeriac, yet they crop up everywhere. It's not always obvious what to cook them with...let us give you some insight. Check...

Citrus fruits originate from South East Asia and were introduced to Europe in the Middle Ages (except for the citron, traces of which were found in BC Europe). Here's our guide...

Known for its strong taste and smell, cabbage is a much-maligned vegetable, but cabbage and its Brassicaceae or crucifer relatives have so many good qualities it's a shame to...

Beef is a staple of British cuisine. We all know our roast beef, steak and kebabs, but there's much more than that to beef and a huge range of ways of cooking it, from fancy dishes...

Fish can be so simple - and so difficult. It is a mystery to many, and while fishfingers are easy to cook, it's a shame not to treat your tastebuds to the many delicate, delicious...

Packed with vitamins, soup fills you up and tastes great, especially when it’s homemade. Complicated? Not at all: it’s incredibly simple, and easy on your wallet too. Follow our...

A classic of French cuisine, béchamel is a key ingredient of dishes including lasagne, gratin and soufflé. If yours ends up lumpy, too runny, not salty enough, or you haven't...

Carpaccio is a particular preparation of raw foods such as meat, fish, scallops, fruit and vegetables. The word carpaccio came from the Italian painter Vittore Scarpaccia (pronounced...

There are so many out there we don't even know what some of them are, let alone how to tell when they're ripe and how to cook with them! Here's a panorama of our favourite exotic...

Champagne is for special moments: parties, celebrations of love, success and big achievements in life. We often crack open the bubbly with dessert, but is this really the best...

Prawns are high in protein, very low in fat and filling, containing just 98 kcal per 100g, plus lots of Vitamins B12, B3 and zinc. Take care what you serve them with (they often...

Potatoes may look similar, but there's a huge variety out there! It can be difficult to know which potato to choose for which recipe; they have different textures, cooking times...

There are over 700 cheeses produced in Britain! Soft and hard cheese, blue cheese and goat’s cheese… what are the differences? And which wine are they best served with? Soft chees...

Flour is an essential ingredient in cakes, bread, shortcrust, choux or puff pastry. Read up about the different types of flour and their uses. Flour is basically ground wheat...

Fried, boiled, scrambled, poached, baked or in omelette…there are many different ways of cooking eggs. What are the different methods? Fried eggIn a frying pan, heat up a knob...

Which type of oil should you use for frying, heating, cold dishes and cakes? Follow our cooking oil guide! Definitions: Virgin olive oil: extracted by crushing the fruit without...