Caroline O’Donoghue

The London-based Cork author on her undeniably unique sausage stew, and the absolute gift that is the delicious fried jam sandwich

What did your mother make you?

My mum is a great cook. She’s the queen of leftovers; everything she does tastes better the next day. For some reason, her re-fried spaghetti bolognese is one of the things I always find myself craving. However, her passion for leftovers means the fridge is always half-full with bits of green cheese wrapped in tinfoil, or cling-filmed weeks-old cream. We call them UFOs: Unidentified Foil Objects.

The meal you’ll always remember?

A few years ago, my best friends and I had our first Christmas dinner sans parents. There were five of us in a tiny flat in East London. I can’t remember a single thing we ate, but I remember it being one of the happiest nights of my life.

What is your comfort food?

I have a big orange casserole dish, and my favourite thing to cook in it is sausage stew. It’s mad easy: buy a packet of the cheapest sausages you can find, some tinned tomatoes, butter beans, and breadcrumbs. Cook until it’s mushy, sausagey slop; eat it with bread.

What do you drink?

I love dark drinks: stouts, red wines, whiskey, black coffees.

You can only eat three things for the rest of your life, what are they?

Butter, ham, bread. Toast and butter for breakfast; the ham for lunch; and then a toasted ham sandwich for dinner.

What’s the nicest smell in the world?

Onions and garlic frying, surely.

How important is food to you?

Oh, hugely. I’m not great at making it, but I can eat all day long. My favourite treat is to go to a restaurant with someone fun in the middle of the day, and order every starter and get very, very drunk.

What’s always in your kitchen?

My boyfriend.

You can go anywhere and have anything to eat with any one person. Where, what and who?

I’d have a long lunch with Nora Ephron in her New York. I can picture her taking me to this nothingy-looking deli and saying ‘Order the cold roast-lamb sandwich, it’s the best lamb you’ll ever have in your life’. And I would, and she’d be right.

What’s your sweet treat?

My friend Ella is a cook, and she showed me how to make a fried jam sandwich. A deeply dangerous thing for her to do. First, make the jam sandwich, buttering both sides of the bread, then put it on a hot frying pan, and press another frying pan on top. Cook it for a minute on both sides, then sprinkle it with icing sugar. It’s like a jam doughnut. If you’re hung-over, it has enough carbs and sugar to get you on your feet.

“I like to ‘help’ by offering to grate the Parmesan, then eat all the Parmesan”

What is your guilty pleasure?

I like to ‘help’ Ella by offering to grate the Parmesan, and then eat all of the Parmesan.

Are you careful about what you eat?

Did you read the bit about the fried jam sandwich?

Any foods you have had to cut out or cut down on that you miss?

I went through a phase of eating almost a tub of hummus a night, along with a packet of cream crackers. It was a real addiction. I had to stop because my skin was breaking out, so now I eat a comparatively normal amount of hummus.

What’s your perfect family meal?

One where everyone’s talking to each other. Caroline O’Donoghue’s ‘Promising Young Women’ is available now, see czaroline.com In conversation with Sophie White