Olivia Potts

I’m pretty easygoing when it comes to most aspects of cooking. I don’t think there’s much to be gained from being dogmatic or dictatorial. It’s just supper, at the end of the day. There are, as they say, many ways to skin a rabbit. And cooking is supposed to be about joy; it’s not an exam. But the exception is measuring ingredients for baking. Oh boy, do I get on my high horse about this. I can be very boring indeed about the need to measure accurately. The American system of cups and tablespoons drives me mad. Cups are inexact and inaccurate, they rely on scooping and sweeping, they don’t account for the varying density of dry ingredients. Scales, I will declaim – with only the slightest impetus – are inexpensive and an essential piece of kitchen equipment.

Of all the myriad ways of preserving, confit always strikes me as wonderfully improbable. The ability to preserve meat just through cooking it slowly in its own fat feels particularly wild. And the fact that this simple, unlikely process makes the meat more tender, more flavoursome than any other way of handling it only adds to the magic. Of course, if I pause for a moment and engage my brain, it’s very obvious why it’s such a successful method: most preservation relies on salting to reduce water levels, or excluding oxygen from the preserved food, both of which prevent bacteria from growing. Duck confit takes a belt and braces approach. The duck is salted (and sometimes spiced) for 24 hours – and once cooked, it is entirely submerged in fat, which protects it from air.

My mother, a Yorkshire woman, would occasionally take shortcuts in the kitchen, but not when it came to a roast, and certainly not when it concerned a Yorkshire pudding. She even owned a specific Tupperware shaker for the job: like a plastic cocktail shaker, in 1970s orange colour, with a propellor insert, and a lidded pouring spout. The batter would be prepared in this shaker and handed to anyone foolish enough to pass through the kitchen, and woe betide anyone who stopped shaking before they were so instructed. There are few things more satisfying than filling a perfect Yorkshire pudding with gravy I didn’t inherit my mother’s Yorkshire pudding shaker, but I make do with a vigorous whisk and then a short rest.

Chess pie was, in one sense, new to me when I started learning about it a few months ago. I’d never heard of this favourite of the American South until I came across it in a pie-centric cookery book. But in another sense, it’s extremely familiar – both to me and to anyone who’s ever eaten a pie or a tart before. Chess pie is a bit like an ur-pie, made with the most simple, most essential of pie ingredients. That’s possibly where its name comes from: the story goes that in the 1800s in Alabama, where nuts and other common pie fillings were expensive, a freed slave made a pie with the most basic of ingredients – eggs, sugar, butter, cream. When asked about it, she replied: ‘Oh it’s jes’ pie.’ And, lo, thanks to a mishearing, chess pie was born.

For a while now, we’ve been living through a renaissance of classical British cooking: a whole host of restaurants have been embracing the joy of the old school, the pies and puddings, the traditional and the retro. But there’s something missing. Bring back the savoury! An Edwardian favourite, a ‘savoury’ was an extra course that came towards the end of the meal, either just before or after pudding, or as an alternative to it. A savoury should be small – a ‘morsel’ – and strongly flavoured. To this end, the main ingredients are usually cheese, smoked or salted fish, bacon, or spice in the form of devilling. It is often served on toast or with a small pastry croute, and with something creamy as a foil.

Yeast scares even some of the most proficient cooks. I know home cooks and professionals alike, food writers and fanatics, who wouldn’t think twice about deboning a duck or rustling up a feast for 14, who quail the moment they hear the word ‘yeast’. I understand the trepidation: yeast is a living thing and, as such, capricious and unpredictable. Its behaviour is influenced by the season, the warmth, the humidity and how it is handled. Put like that, it sounds quite relatable, doesn’t it? Despite its intimidating reputation, yeast is actually pretty good at showing us what’s going on: it visibly inflates the dough or batter before cooking. And if the mixture hasn’t yet grown, it often just needs more time. This is an exercise in patience and trust.

Chicken tikka masala has become something of a joke. When, in the late 2000s, it was topping lists of the nation’s favourite dishes, its popularity was seen as an indictment of British cuisine: we nick stuff from other cultures, strip out its character and call it our own. This is all deeply unfair: chicken tikka masala is a fantastic, aromatic dish that has earned its place in British culinary history. But there is an element of truth to some of the accusations. Chicken tikka masala is indeed a curry which probably was invented in the UK to appeal to British palates. It is mild and creamy, much more so than most authentically Indian curries.