A Vittles Recipes Special
A look back at the first twenty weeks of Vittles Recipes, which is available to all readers until Monday.
Since November, Vittles Recipes has featured weekly recipes from a rotation of six different writers whose food we love. When we started the column, we were interested in how recipe writing could push beyond the merely instructive to be a format in which chefs and cooks could consider wider concepts and ideas outside the usual limitations of generic palatability. We wanted to expand the repertoire of writers featured in such columns, and to reach beyond the typical audience that recipes are aimed at.
For our twentieth Vittles Recipes newsletter, we’re celebrating the incredible work our writers have published so far. From explorations of the inter-relations between food and language in resistance movements, to playful-yet-painstaking guides to perfecting classical European dishes, our contributors have tried to refuse the formulaic constraints of the recipe genre. In this round-up, we wanted to re-introduce you to our six Vittles Recipes columnists to showcase their unique approaches to what cookery writing can be. And, as a bonus, so you can make these recipes over the bank holiday weekend, we’ve made all recipe content free until Monday.
Key: (v) vegetarian, (vg) vegan, or vegan option, (m) whole meal
Melek Erdal
Melek writes about how language and food are intertwined and how they are kept alive through one another. In her recipes, which take form through meditations on a single Turkish or Kurdish word (like ‘bihar’, which means spring), she retraces the cultural and personal histories of the dishes she cooks, which have often survived through oral transmission, poetry, song, and folklore. These recipes, Melek writes, have ‘taken on a more potent, politically symbolic meaning in the pursuit of freedom from oppression, and the expression of identity’. We’re also very proud that Melek has recently been nominated for the cookery writer of the year award at the 2024 Fortnum & Mason Food and Drink Awards, partially for her work in this column.
Xıyar (cucumber): yayla çorbası with cucumber cooler (v) (m)
Terbiye (decency): terbiyeli soup with lamb and rice meatballs (m)
Newroz (new day): spring greens, herbs, and eggs with garlic yogurt and chilli butter (v) (m)
Archana Pidathala
Archana’s recipes grapple with questions of home, belonging, and gendered labour. Cooking from her kitchen in Barcelona, Archana anchors new ingredients, techniques, and culinary revelations in the familiar flavours of her upbringing in Andhra Pradesh, exploring how familiar memories, recipes, and ingredients morph as they change context in an ever-moving, globalised world. All her recipes are vegetarian (and some are incidentally vegan), and are suited to a variety of mealtimes – from quick dinners to nourishing breakfasts and fun snacks.
Vankaya bajji (bashed aubergine chutney) (vg) (m)
Gochujang egg fried rice with corn and peas, crispy spiced tofu, and cardamom-scented paanakam (v) (m)
Buckwheat panjiri and spiced chai cake (v)
Huli avalakki (tangy flattened rice with tamarind and coconut) and nuchinunde (steamed lentil dumplings) (vg) (m)
Nick Bramham
As head chef at Quality Wines in Farringdon, Nick’s column concerns the never-ending search for perfection, drawing from his archive of recipes dating back almost fifteen years. Nick dissects seemingly simple recipes, such as leeks vinaigrette or caponata, questioning the received wisdom of classical training and attempting to reach the purest expression of each dish. Central to his recipes is a focus on cooking and preparing each ingredient with careful consideration, introducing deliciousness and care in every step.
Leeks vinaigrette (or how to boil a leek) (vg)
Caponata from first principles (vg)
Crab tagliatelle with butter, pepper, and garlic (m)
Chloe-Rose Crabtree
As the pastry chef at the near-legendary Bake Street in East London, Chloe-Rose Crabtree knows good baking. In her meticulously researched and rigorously tested recipes – many of which are easily veganisable – she seamlessly adapts her inventive professional bakes to home kitchens, even offering tips on how to deal with the inevitably useless ovens of the UK rental market.
Jalapeño sourdough cornbread
Egg white cookie with chocolate chunks (vg)
Infinity scones (vg)
Songsoo Kim
Songsoo’s recipes centre on the concept of hosting. Through the framework of cooking for her housemates and her friends, she explores wider ideas of improvisation, identity, and seasonality, as well as her life both inside and outside the kitchen. All Songsoo’s recipes involve fresh and fermented vegetables, inspired by her Korean heritage, her role as Head of Sourcing and Development for Super8 Restaurants, and her love for seeking out new ingredients. Each set of recipes can be cooked as an entire meal for two, or as separate dishes.
Marinated aubergines with perilla leaves, steamed chard in argan oil, edamame and yubu salsify chan, and boletus mushroom miso soup (vg) (m)
Recipes for kimchi (vg)
Oyster jook with soy-cured egg, fishcakes with daikon in broth, and crispy jeon (pancake) (v) (m)
Fozia Ismail
Fozia’s recipes are all experiments with yam or sweet potato, inspired by bell hooks’ pivotal book Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery. These experiments emerged from ‘dinner dinner joy joy’, a series of dinner parties she held for Black women, with the aim of bringing some collective joy, healing, and nourishment to their lives in an increasingly hostile Britain. Fozia’s recipes are a way to give thanks to the transformative nature of hooks’ work and, of course, to the yam, which hooks has described as ‘a life-sustaining symbol of black kinship and community.
Roasted sweet potato with Puy lentils, coriander and coconut sambusa (v)
Maraq cad (Somali lamb broth) with yam dumplings (m)
Sweet potato rösti with tamarind bisbas (v)
If you have any questions on Vittles Recipes, or if you have made any of them so far, then do leave a comment below!