Getting To Know… Nigella Lawson
The TV chef loves the classics, but isn’t afraid to be a bit more adventurous in the kitchen – all that matters is the taste!
◆ It is always essential to me to be able to share the food I love. I like to show how it is cooked, say what it means to me, and just speak from the heart. I’m not scripted and I’m not a presenter any more than I’m a chef: I cook in the way I cook, and I talk the way I talk. I have no other way of doing it!
◆ Bringing the flavours and ingredients of other food cultures brings new life into the kitchen. So often, it helps me find shortcuts to deeper flavour. Most of all, it inspires me. And it’s very liberating. For me, the basic essentials are olive oil, lemons – I use the zest as well as the juice in my cooking all the time, in sweet and savoury dishes – and good sea salt flakes, which again I use in sweet as well as savoury cooking. Over-salting can be catastrophic in cooking, I know, but under-salting is not the answer!
◆ I love the variety in British cuisine, and the wide scope of the influences that have fed into it. I do have a particular fondness, it’s true, for traditional baking but I also love the spicier end of the spectrum. And what’s important to me is that British cuisine is very much the story of home cooking: it’s not a classical cuisine emanating from men in toques!
◆ Roast chicken with roast or mashed potatoes, peas, leeks and a big salad is always a favourite on my table. But for friends who are vegan or vegetarian I’m always ready with an aromatic vegetable curry.