Coronavirus self-isolation recipes: London chefs give their tips for cooking with long-lasting ingredients

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Life in the time of corona means gorging on good food. No bitter almonds here: instead, if you’re holed up in isolation, keep your spirits up with decent doses of home-cooking. That needn’t mean hours stressing over a hot stove; quick and easy fixes can be utterly delicious when they’re done right.

Below, we’ve some of our favourite chefs to share the recipes they’d cook when cooped up. They’re all simple to do, and use the ingredients you’d find hidden in the kitchen. We’ve tested them ourselves, so you’ll find a little verdict with them, too.

We should add that this is just a start; expect to see more recipes in the coming weeks. And if you whip through these before then, start exploring. Italian food is obviously a winner here, but so is Portuguese – tinned fish, for instance, isn’t a compromise, it’s part of the culture. Time to raid the cupboard and get creative; here’s a helping hand to get things going.

Lamb Orzo pasta bake

Not afraid: orzo may be an unpopular pasta, but Elizabeth Haigh makes smart use of it
Gareth Sambidge

Elizabeth Haigh, chef founded Kaizen House and Mei Mei, meimei.uk

Serves: 4

Ingredients

2 tbsp rapeseed oil, 600g diced lamb shoulder/leg, 1 large onion (diced), 2 garlic cloves (minced), 500g orzo pasta, 2 tbsp vegetable bouillon, 2 tbsp tomato paste

Method

Start by heating the rapeseed oil to medium and browning the lamb. Once that’s done, set it aside on absorbent paper to soak up any excess oil. In the remaining oil, turn the heat down, add diced onion and garlic and sweat it until soft. Next, add the lamb back and stir, seasoning well, then spoon the mix into a small baking dish. Whisk the bouillon and tomato paste with 500ml of boiling hot water, before pouring it over the lamb and onion mix.

Tip the orzo pasta over it all, covering evenly but gently poking the pasta underneath the lamb. We’re almosty there: just cover it tightly with foil and bake for 30 minutes at 180C, then to serve, garnish with grated parmesan and pop a salad on the side.

Verdict

If this situation teaches us anything, it’s that everyone is a bit scared of orzo. Heading to the raided pasta shelves a little late in the day, it was the only shape left behind. The panic buyer’s loss is your gain however, for Haigh’s easy to execute lamb pasta bake. The result is a Nonna-worthy bowl of carb-fuelled comfort. Can’t get fresh lamb? In desperate situations and with a little less salt, you could probably sub it in for a tin of tuna.

Beans, Basil and Sauce

Beautifully rich: our take on Tish's dish

Ben Tish, Culinary Director, Norma, normalondon.com

Serves: 4

Ingredients

1 400g tin borlotti beans (rinsed and washed), 1 400g tin chopped tomatoes, 100g thick cut bacon cut into lardons, 1 thick slice of stale bread (cut into rough pieces), 1 chopped clove garlic, olive oil, basil leaves, salt and pepper

Method

Heat a medium saucepan over medium heat and add a lug of olive oil, followed by the garlic and pancetta. Cook both together to release the fat, without colouring. Then add the tomatoes and simmer until they’re reduced by half. While simmering, in a separate pan heat a lug of oil and add the bread, season it and toss through until crispy, then set to one side. When the tomato has reduced, stir in the beans and then add some basil leaves. Cook for two minutes, divide out into bowls, and top with the crispy crouton to serve.

Verdict

Norma's Tish has this one down to a tee – it’s as easy as anything, but the smell of the tomatoes and garlic cooking together is an easy way to convince yourself that something more sophisticated is going on. Here, the borlotti beans can easily be substituted; cannellini or butter beans work just as nicely.

Carnaroli Risotto

Bubbling nicely: our version of Mazzei's risotto

Francesco Mazzei, Chef/Patron Sartoria and Radici, sartoria-restaurant.co.uk, radici.uk

Serves: 4

Ingredients

350g carnaroli rice, 50g shallots, 2lt vegetable stock, 150g grana Padano, 100g butter, 50ml white wine, 100g dried mushroom

Method

Put the dried mushrooms in a bowl, cover them with lukewarm water and leave for about half an hour. In a shallow saucepan, sweat the finely chopped shallots with 20g of the butter, then add the rice, season, then toast for a couple of minutes before pouring in the wine. Let the wine evaporate, then add a ladle of hot vegetable stock – you don’t need to drown it. Stir continuously, reducing the stock almost completely before adding another ladle. Then drain the mushrooms through a fine sieve, keeping aside some of the water. Give them a rough chop.

Halfway through cooking, add the mushrooms to the rice along with some of the water and keep going with the ladles of stock for about 12 minutes, or to taste. Finish up by removing the pan from the heat and adding the rest of the butter and the parmesan, until it becomes creamy.

Verdict

Mazzei is a master, so it’s little surprise this one turns out so well. Chef says he likes it because it’s a fun one for everyone to join in with – people can take turns stirring, adding the stock, pouring the wine. He’s right; it’s a small thing, but it helps, and when you’re stuck inside, taking fun where you can get it makes all the difference. Dried mushrooms, once found everywhere, are now a little tricky to source, though: still, Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s do all stock them on their website, and Waitrose and Whole Foods tend to have some lurking around too. Given they last almost forever, this is a lovely recipe to keep handy.

Curried Noodles

Keeping it simple: Ryan RIley (Clare Winfield )
Clare Winfield

Ryan Riley, Founder, Life Kitchen, lifekitchen.co.uk

Serves: 2

Ingredients

2 125g tins of mackerel in oil (drained, oil reserved), 1 finely chopped large onion, 3 finely chopped large garlic cloves, 1 finely chopped red chilli, 1 tsp ground cumin, 1 tsp garam masala, 1 tsp ground turmeric, 375g dried egg noodles, 1 tbsp unsalted butter, a handful of mint leaves, 1 tbsp chilli oil, salt, pepper

Method

Place a large frying pan over a medium heat and add a little of the mackerel oil, and then discard the rest. When it’s hot, add the onion and sauté for 8–10 minutes, until lightly caramelised. Then add the garlic and chilli, reduce the heat to low, and fry for about five minutes, until the garlic is softened. Now add the cumin, garam masala, turmeric and a little salt and pepper, gently stir to combine. After about a minute, add a splash of water and roughly flake in the mackerel. Then put the noodles in the boiling water and stir once. Cook according to the packet instructions, then drain and stir them into the pan with the mackerel. Stir in the butter and scatter over the mint. Finally, spoon over the chilli oil and serve immediately.

Verdict

No surprise Ryan gets it right here: his wonderful Life Kitchen enterprise, which encourages those living with cancer to cook, is built on the idea of simple, quick-to-do dishes. In fact, his Life Kitchen cookbook, which dropped earlier this month, is full of these sorts of things. Mackerel might not be my favourite, but a tin is reliably £1 or less everywhere, and can easily be found at even the smallest supermarkets, making this an ideal recipe to have on the books. Also, with all that spice, it makes for a genuinely interesting lunch or light supper, despite how little effort is involved.

Cauliflower Cheese

Good, proper cooking: Tom Booton in the kitchen at the Dorchester
Alex Lentati

Tom Booton, Head Chef, The Grill at the Dorchester, dorchestercollection.com

Serves: 8

Ingredients

4 cauliflowers, prepped into florets (but save the stems), 2 sliced banana shallots, 1 sliced bulb of garlic, 500ml milk, 200g double cream, 350g cheddar cheese, 75g flour, 75g butter, salt

Method

Start by sweating the sliced stems in a pan with the head low enough that they don’t colour. Then add the shallots and carry on sweating, before adding the garlic for a couple of minutes. Once the garlic is cooked, add in the milk and bring to the boil; once it’s boiling, take it off the heat before adding in the double cream, and leave it to cool for 30 minutes.

Once the half hour is up, remove the stems but save the liquid for your béchamel sauce. In a fresh pan, start to slowly heat the butter until it’s melted. Then add in the flour and cook for five minutes over a medium heat - make sure the raw flour is cooked out. Now start adding in the cauliflower milk slowly, a little at a time. Once all the milk is added, boil everything for 30mins until it’s nice and creamy, then take it off the heat and whisk in the grated cheddar cheese. Pop this in the fridge.

Bring a pan of seasoned water to the boil to blanch the cauliflower florets for four minutes, but check to see if they’re cooked well – no-one likes a raw cauliflower cheese. Once they’re done, either pop them in the fridge or, if you’re short on time, use iced water.

Once you’re ready, it’s time to build everything. Mix the cauliflower florets with the béchamel sauce, then add in the 100g grated cheese, season well and place into an oven proof dish. If you aren’t ready to eat, it’ll last a day in the fridge. To get it ready to serve, pop it in the oven at 190C for 15-25 minutes – the colour will let you know when it’s done.

Verdict

Blimey, I wasn’t expecting such a lot of effort for a side dish, and this recipe certainly looked somewhat daunting on a first glance. That said, once you’re into it, it’s much simpler than it seems. Cauliflower cheese is rightly a classic and this one feels a treat; it is gooey and rich and warming, just as it should be. It’s just good, proper cooking – exactly as Tom does in the Dorchester. Though it took a little time, the results certainly soothe. If you're really into it, it would make a lovely main, too.

Back Of The Cupboard Pie

Give it time: our take on Anna Haugh's pie 

Anna Haugh, chef proprietor of Myrtle, myrtlerestaurant.com

Serves: 2

Ingredients

1 400g tin, Irish stew 1 tbsp of marmite A handful of frozen peas 2 potatoes, thinly sliced, then fried or boiled

Method

Mix your stew, marmite and peas in a suitable pie dish. Cover with cooked sliced potatoes and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake in an oven for 20 mins at 185C.

Verdict

The potatoes make a nice touch, but this one is as simple as it gets – or at least in theory. While Irish Stew – a traditional mix of mutton, potatoes and more – does often come in a tin, supplies hadn’t survived Wapping’s recent supermarket sweep. Instead, I made two pies with what I thought would be substitutes: one with Scotch broth, another with a chunky beef and potato stew. A mistake; both were far too liquidy. The marmite is a top tip, but my boiled potato tops were reluctant to brown – even an emergency whack under the grill couldn’t save their pallid complexion. Give your potatoes some fat to play with, and get online shopping for this one.

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