So many 10/10 recipes

Excellent pasta, fried rice, veggie stew & cake

The first month of winter is done and it was really nice. I cooked my way through a long list of new recipes, sampled the cinnamon roll focaccia in town, and watched movies at the cinema.

There are at least three standout recipes in this month’s edition, including my new favourite pasta (with preserved lemon), plus a double citrus cake that I need to make again.

The best fried rice… ever!

I was such a fan of fried rice as a kid that I would happily eat it for breakfast. This version tastes like restaurant fried rice and it comes from Rob Li, a Hamptons/New York private chef I’d seen on TikTok. It’s a chilli crisp fried rice with prawns and using sweet soy is a game changer, as is the tablespoon of stock powder at the end. You can watch him make it, the egg tip is great. I’ve also made a vegetarian version with fried mushrooms. I don’t have MSG in my pantry but can confirm it’s delicious and addictive without. Also, did I wuss out on the

Double citrus syrup cake

This buttery cake takes me straight back to childhood because my mum made a very similar orange cake and I loved helping with the step at the end, where you poke holes into the still-warm cake and pour citrus syrup over the top. This version is by Julia Busuttil Nishimura and includes orange and lemon in both the cake and the syrup. I used a Cara Cara orange because they’re back in season. It is so lovely with whipped cream or Greek yoghurt.

Potato and pea stew

One of my favourite meals from last month was Ottolenghi’s spiced pea and potato stew (NYT Cooking gift link). It’s made with a bunch of pantry ingredients and I put off trying it for ages thinking it would be complicated and/or time consuming. It’s actually a very simple dish to prepare and while the cook time is around an hour, you can prep as the dish cooks and likely wash up too. It’s so flavourful and has a hint of preserved lemons, even though the recipe only uses lemon zest and juice.

My favourite pasta/meal of the month!

Four things I loved eating but didn’t make (otherwise known as Tony’s corner):

I couldn’t get enough of this creamy tomato spaghetti with preserved lemon (NYT Cooking gift link). The preserved lemon adds just the right amount of tang. It was easily the best thing I ate all month and thankfully Tony made it twice in a matter of weeks. It sounds like an unusual pairing but it works. Bonus: you’ll have preserved lemon on hand to make Alison Roman’s salted lemon shortbread, pictured at the start of the newsletter.

Pasta al limone by Odette Williams via Jenny Rosenstrach’s newsletter. So simple and always delicious.

Hetty Lui McKinnon’s cabbage parm (NYT Cooking gift link) was phenomenal and seemed easy from a cooking and cleaning up pov. I loved the garlic croutons.

Also Eric Kim’s pasta with green been ragu (NYT Cooking gift link) has a decent amount of greens and magically only uses two Italian pork sausages.

Pear and maple syrup crumble

A terrible photo but you get the idea!

I will try pretty much any crumble or crisp recipe that crosses my path, especially in winter when the nights are dark and long. Belinda Jeffrey’s pear and maple syrup crumble is lovely and I made it specially one night to watch the final episode of Overcompensating 🥲. It’s not overly sugary because the fruit mixture is sweetened with maple syrup rather than sugar.

Weekday porridge

I’ve finally found a way to make porridge on weekdays and show up to work on time. For a single serve, I soak 1/3 cup of rolled oats in an equal amount of water while I make my tea/coffee, which speeds up the cook time. Then I cook it on low-to-medium heat with 1/3 cup of milk and then top with fruit, nuts, golden syrup and salted butter. I used to live next door to a cafe in Sydney that served excellent porridge, and it turns out the oats were soaked in cream overnight!

I’ve also been making cocoa oatmeal with oat milk, which smells like Coco pops as it cooks.

Sunny pickle lemonade

The perfect pick-me-up for a freezing, grey Monday is… a glass of icy pickle lemonade (NYT Cooking gift link). I had it with toasted wrap filled with chickpea and pumpkin smash and jalapeño cheddar and it was the perfect use of a bag of homegrown lemons.

One-pot quinoa with sweet potato and beans

Finally, I’ve been making Heidi Sze’s one-pot quinoa with sweet potato, ginger and beans for work lunches. It’s food that genuinely makes me feel good, with plenty of garlic and ginger and crunchy greens.

Catch you next month!

Sonya