Rachel's Kitchen

Making sea buckthorn juice ❤️

Cracked it. Bubble tea 😍

It’s gyoza time 🥟 These have a shiitake mushroom filling, and I love cooking them in a pan so that they have a golden, crispy base.

What’s your favourite gyoza filling?

Today’s Japanese class at Rachel’s Kitchen with sushi to start.

Great food, sunshine and handmade ceramics. What’s not to love?!

My sister-in-law can’t eat dairy, so for special occasions I make sure she has something delicious to eat, and on her birthday we made this beautiful dairy-free tea party. You wouldn’t have guessed that any of it was ‘free-from’ and most of it was vegan too.

And it got me thinking - would you be interested in learning how to make all these lovely dairy-free cheesecake, cookies, meringues and chocolate mousse? And with a few tweaks they can all be made vegan too.

If you’re dairy-free or vegan, or just interested in knowing more, please do drop me a line. At the moment this would be a private class, and one I’m so excited to share. There’s also very little refined sugar and much more goodness that regular cakes/treats, although calling these healthy might be misleading!

I hope we can cook together soon 👩🏻‍🍳

                           

So do you want to join my squad? Looks fun, right?!

I’m so excited to share that cookery classes are now open! I’m taking bookings for private classes in-person so come along with your friends or family and let’s cook together!
There’s also a lovely online class where we’ll make handmade Pici Pasta with a delicious Mushroom and Truffle Sauce, so we can cook together wherever you are in the world. Links in bio.

Get in touch. Let’s cook together soon!

I was back in London Bridge yesterday judging for the ’s Great Taste Awards and it was SO wonderful to be back in person, meeting amazing people and tasting great food.

and I tasted incredible chorizo and pastel de nada, lots of ice cream, a good number of steaks, olive oil, quiches, pies, sausage rolls, granola, drinks, cookies and bread, and that was just the morning.

I’m feeling so grateful for some ‘normality’ and meeting lovely people. And is as wonderful as ever

             

Earth Day 2021

Thinking about sustainability and our planet in the kitchen is important for many reasons, including that the biggest culprits destroying the rainforest, using pesticides and packing everything in unnecessary amounts of plastic are within the food industry.

Did you know that most UK fridges are too warm so that food spoils faster than it should? Over the years I have found that small changes add up, having a fridge thermometer and cooling food before it goes into the fridge, using beeswax wraps to replace in clingfilm and reusable mats to line baking trays, and understanding how to waste less food are some examples. I also buy the best quality food I can for my cookery classes and for my family.

I’ve put together two posts, one on how to reduce food waste and another about using less plastic in the kitchen. Links are in bio and I hope you find the tips useful.

How do you limit plastic use and food waste? I’d love to hear.

This is one of my go to dishes that’s recently been into my head when I’ve been deciding what vegetables to buy (at obv).

I’m not quite sure how it started, but I have a vague memory of reading my mum‘s copy of ’s ‘How to eat’ long before I could cook, and a description of how she roasted peppers and let them steam before removing the skins. I have a very distant memory of Nigella’s description about anointing them with some grassy Ligurian olive oil, but that could be completely made up.

I roast the peppers in a hot oven until charred and soft, and cover them with a plate in a bowl until cool. Then I remove the skin, seeds and stalk, tear the flesh into strips and let them sit in a jar in the fridge with a little crushed garlic, salt, chopped anchovies and a little olive oil. Ligurian variety optional.

The peppers can be added to dishes, are lovely on toast, perhaps with a little goat’s cheese and thyme, and make a nice salad with green leaves and balsamic, and maybe chopped walnuts.

What are your recipes that you keep coming back to?

This is my dream salad, and it’s just occurred to me that there’s a possible connection with my Caesar Salad obsession from the 90’s - the cheese, the crunch, all those good things. I spent a whole summer backpacking around the US and eating Caesar salad from buffets where you paid for your weighed plate (mostly dressing and cheese in my case). 

If I’ve not put you off making the salad of my dreams, all you need is:
Sliced crisp pear, Parmesan (shavings using a peeler or chopped into small pieces), toasted walnuts, a bitter leaf (endive, rocket, radicchio).
Dress with a tiny drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, lots of lemon juice, salt and pepper.
Mix, taste, adjust and enjoy.

What’s your favourite lunch?

In-person lessons will start again soon, but remote classes will continue for a while longer so here are some lovely menu options and all the details. 

I’d love it if you join me with your friends, family or colleagues - birthdays, team building or just because it’s a fun way to get together! 

Cooking together remotely is always a lovely and satisfying way of spending a few hours. It’s MUCH better than a Zoom call with a drink in your hand, you make something, learn something PLUS you get to eat all the amazing food you make afterwards. Win win!!

There’s also no limit to the number of people who can join (within reason!) so bring your crew and we’ll cook up a storm!!

Get in touch if you’d like to book 👍

So here it is - vegetable and lentil soup. Tasty and vegan until the Parmesan went on!

There aren’t many rules when making soup. This was a throw everything in one, which meant onion, carrot, celery, leeks all sautéed until soft. Then I added sweet potato and red and green lentils and they were boiled until soft with added water. It needed lots of seasoning, so salt and pepper, and then something extra so I added chopped sun dried tomatoes, a bit of white wine vinegar and some chopped preserved lemons and their juice. Some herbs would have been nice but I didn’t have any.

I always make a massive stockpot of soup, have it for dinner and a few lunches and freeze the rest as a gift of a future meal!

Do you like soup? What’s your favourite?