My secret with kale is to add lots of sweet or sharp flavours to offset some of that grassy intensity.
— Yotam Ottolenghi
Tiny quails may not seem as impressive as a mammoth turkey, but there is something refreshing about a spread of individual birds on the Christmas table.
A food processor, or even one of those small bowls that fit on a stick blender, is a real treasure. No, that's not an overstatement.
Though not a true cereal but a fruit, buckwheat seeds resemble cereal grains and are often used in a similar way to rice, barley, bulgar or quinoa, usually as a side dish.
Long-, medium- and short-grain rices differ in the amount and type of starch they have.
Going out for a meal, especially for young urbanites, is less about socialising over enjoyable food than about enjoying food as a way to socialise.
What makes maftoul worth celebrating is that it's so easy and forgiving to cook.
Most fish require a short cooking time, but cephalopods are the exception to this fishy rule. As with some cuts of larger land beasts, the longer they're cooked, the more tender they get.
Some breakfast cereals only come into their own as children's party treats: what are cornflakes and Coco Pops for, if not to clump together with melted chocolate and spoon into a cupcake holder?
One of the troubles with food is that people take themselves too seriously. This is why I'm very happy for people to change my recipes, alter them, replace one ingredient for another.
People don't know how good cauliflower is, because they always have this image of cauliflower cheese - awful, sticky, creamy and rich.
I don't do guilt. Whatever I do, I do it happily.
The range of ingredients available to home cooks has expanded dramatically. People are incorporating herbs and spices like lemongrass, smoked Mexican chile, sumac, and za'atar mix.
There are tons of wonderful places to eat in London.
In vast parts of the world, people don't eat meat.
There used to be a time - it isn't so much the case now - that vegetarianism was some kind of religion, and either you belong or you don't belong.
The most important thing for me is to walk the little alleys of the city, to find the little alcove where someone is cooking something, and just watch them do it. That's my idea of fun.
Sea spaghetti looks like dark fettuccine and has a similar texture - you can get it in health food stores or online.
It's well worth making your own harissa, but there are some very good commercial varieties.
I have yet to meet a carnivore who doesn't love a sausage roll.
Buckwheat, like Marmite and durian, is a seriously divisive foodstuff, so it needs a seriously capable defence team if it's ever going to make it on to most people's dinner tables.
I now understand how varied the world of cultivated rice is; that rice can play the lead or be a sidekick; that brown rice is as valuable as white; and that short-grain rice is the bee's knees.
As for pineapple, it's far more versatile than you might think, and certainly merits wider use than in Hawaiian pizzas and pina coladas and on cheesy cocktail sticks.
I have had to come to terms with the fact that I am hooked on Twitter. Not good.
When it comes to the battle of the molluscs, cephalopods win tentacles down.
Fusion food as a concept is kind of trying to quite consciously fuse things that are sometimes quite contradictory, sometimes quite far apart, to see if they'd work.
Most men say they can cook pasta, but I think you should find a little bit of an unusual angle on your pasta and make that your signature dish.
When I cook a meal, I like to serve things one by one and keep them separate. I get that from my father - he's such a purist. Some people even put their desserts on the main plate. It's just wrong.
When I was a kid, there was always food to be had on the street in Jerusalem, but anything above a falafel stand was mediocre or worse.
The moment to tell my barber I was gay just never came up.
Food was always important in my family, but I didn't think of it as a vocation until a later point in life.
I'm a firm believer that the world should be your oyster when you're cooking. People should open themselves to other cuisines - there are a lot of hidden secrets all over the world.
If you can't taste an ingredient, you have to ask yourself why it is there.
TV chefs are not responsible for people's consumption of fibre; this is not our job.
Jerusalem artichokes have a great affinity with nuts. I love them with chopped walnuts or almonds, lemon juice, garlic, herbs and plenty of olive oil.
Many ingredients are called 'earthy,' but none comes as close to fitting the bill as buckwheat. I'm mildly obsessed with the stuff.
Verjuice may not be the easiest thing in the world to find, but you should be able to track some down in good delis and online.
The difference between brown and white rice is that the former is not milled. With the outer bran and germ intact, the rice is therefore chewier and nuttier.
Lebanese mezze, Cantonese dim sum and Basque pinchos have all evolved over years and are designed to make sense together.
There are many reasons I feel at home in the U.K., but if I were asked to pinpoint the moment I knew I'd arrived, it might well be when I realised the British shared my love of fritters.
As with lemon juice, the more sorrel you use, the more it has to be balanced with something sweet, starchy or creamy - it's a yin-yang approach to cooking that I find rather calming.
Way back when I was a junior pastry chef, I'd bake loads of muffins every morning, as many as 120 or so, while operating on autopilot.
The Guardian's 'Word of Mouth' blog bridges the gap between blogging and serious food journalism.
I used to love fine dining, but I lost my appetite for it to a degree because sometimes it is too much about the effort and too little about the result.
Pasta with melted cheese is the one thing I could eat over and over again.
These days, meals are more open to personal preferences. People like to serve themselves.
Some days, just occasionally, when I've had just one too many chickpeas, drizzles of olive oil or chunks of feta, I crave a return to the sushi-filled joints of Tokyo.
Conflict is very much a state of mind. If you're not in that state of mind, it doesn't bother you.
Stereotypical vegetarian food looks gray and brown.
The teaching thing, the one where I have to impart my knowledge, is probably what comes the least naturally to me because I'm an absorber of things.
