#30minuterecipes

ABOUT ME

During my travels as a Food Buyer for Waitrose I learnt so much from farmers, growers, food producers, chefs and food lovers.

Through them I developed the knowledge and expertise to find the most flavoursome good quality ingredients at the right time of year from the best countries to create the tastiest meals.

Endive (chicory) & avocado salad with a French dressing

Lydia Gerratt

Dec 29, 2014
2 min

Endive (chicory) & avocado salad with a French dressing

This winter salad recipe discovery happened in Paris. I took my brand new shiny husband (we’d only been married a year) to stay with a family I had grown up with; The Douillets have taught me almost everything I know about French food (Elizabeth David, the best food writer ever, filled in the blanks). They made a simple meal of Quiche Lorraine, Tarte tomate à la moutarde and an endive & avocado salad. I knew the salad would be good as I love avocado, but I had no expectatio

Raw fennel salad with lemon juice & extra virgin olive oil

Lydia Gerratt

Dec 17, 2014
2 min

Raw fennel salad with lemon juice & extra virgin olive oil

The first time I visited my Italian friend, Patrizia, at her home on Italy’s Liguria coast, her mother made a beautiful winter meal of prawns, chilli, rosemary and garlic pasta followed by a salad of paper thin raw fennel, lightly dressed with lemon juice, local Ligurian extra virgin olive oil and coarse flakes of sea salt. I have such a vivid picture in my head of that dinner, sitting around the tiny kitchen table with Patrizia and her family, adding the fennel salad to my p

Pork Stroganoff with sour cream and paprika

Lydia Gerratt

Nov 18, 2014
2 min

Pork Stroganoff with sour cream and paprika

Pork Stroganoff is so retro but so good. Crème fraîche, sweet paprika, Dijon mustard, mushrooms and pork fillet make a seriously delicious and more-ish meal. Both pork and mushrooms are in season during autumn and winter. Their flavour and quality are at their peak and the cost should be at its lowest. I love to eat Stroganoff with plain steamed Basmati rice. Tilda is the best quality Basmati you can buy, it is pricey, but worth it for its delectable fragrant strands of ri

Salmon and pea tagliatelle with lemon, garlic, tarragon & parsley butter

Lydia Gerratt

Nov 3, 2014
3 min

Salmon and pea tagliatelle with lemon, garlic, tarragon & parsley butter

Every now and then I crave a light meal with killer flavours. The sharp sourness of lemon (I use a lot in this recipe), pungent garlic, aniseed tarragon and savoury parsley combined with delicate salmon flakes, peas and egg pasta does it for me. I usually double the quantities below to make enough tarragon, parsley and garlic herb butter to last for at least 6 months in the freezer. This butter is brilliant for adding flavour to any fish (I use it in the roast salmon, potat

Cullen Skink (smoked haddock potato leek soup)

Lydia Gerratt

Oct 21, 2014
2 min

Cullen Skink (smoked haddock potato leek soup)

My recipe was featured in the Waitrose Weekend magazine I used to work with a Food Buyer at Waitrose who had a serious passion for Cullen Skink. He would indulge his love for this classic Scottish soup once a year when he made the trip to Moray to visit the Baxter’s soup factory in Fochabers. The small town of Cullen is down the road, so you know you’re getting the real thing. This was the first time I had ever heard of this soup even though I had been working in the food i

Lydia Gerratt

Sep 24, 2014
3 min

Spaghetti alle cozze (mussels)

My recipe featured in the Waitrose Weekend magazine; It’s autumn, there’s an ‘R’ in the month - now is the time to eat shellfish. Mussels are in season, they’re abundant, so delicious and best of all they are cheap. A fresh net, 1kg, is about £3.80 and will feed 2 adults and 2 children easily. I LOVE mussels. And I love that you can only buy fresh mussels during autumn and winter. It makes this dish worth waiting for. The spaghetti is cooked in the mussel liquor which cr

Lydia Gerratt

Sep 8, 2014
2 min

Tender griddled chicken

Italian butchers are brilliant. I love going into these pristine, marble emporiums while on holiday and seeing what delicious morsels they are selling for me to, hopefully, grill to perfection on the barbecue for dinner. One summer’s holiday in Sicily was no different; a roaring fire with hunks of meat marinated in olive oil, garlic and rosemary scorching on the barbecue. But, this time we tried something completely new to me, the butcher filleted the chicken breasts into p

Spaghetti with a fresh baby plum tomatoes and basil sauce

Lydia Gerratt

Aug 29, 2014
3 min

Spaghetti with a fresh baby plum tomatoes and basil sauce

Have you ever come across a recipe that has been a revelation? One that has changed the way you cook and the type of meals you make there after? For me, it’s this uber simple fresh tomato sauce with basil. When I used to work as a Food Buyer for Waitrose, I was sent on a weeklong cooking trip to the South of Italy. The first dish we learnt to cook was the classic Neapolitan fresh tomato sauce for pasta. I remember thinking, really? I know how to do this, but no, I really

Pesto (a classic pasta sauce from Liguria)

Lydia Gerratt

Aug 18, 2014
3 min

Pesto (a classic pasta sauce from Liguria)

I remember the first time I ate pesto - it was in Milan a very long time ago. I was sitting at the kitchen table watching with slight disbelief as my friend was spooning what seemed like a tiny quantity of bright green paste into my spaghetti while trying to convince me that it was going to taste delicious. It tasted so different to anything I had eaten before and yes, I was seriously happy to eat something that good. A few years later I travelled to the home of pesto, Ligu

Lydia Gerratt

Jul 1, 2014
2 min

Ray wings with capers, lemon and butter

I remember the first time I ate this dish; I was sitting in the garden of country pub in a tiny rural village somewhere in deepest Essex. I think I was near Ongar? It was the first time I’d been to Essex and I remember being overwhelmed by the beauty of the country side which is so different to the West Country where I grew up. I had seen recipes for ray wings (skate was the breed used back then) fried in brown butter and capers but had never tried it. And, what a dish it

Lydia Gerratt

Jun 5, 2014
3 min

Pilaf rice

A family friend taught me how to make a middle eastern pilaf rice (they were originally from Bagdad) while I was a student. Over the years I’ve slightly adapted the ingredients and added turmeric to the mix (for colour and it’s amazing health properties) to give you the best tasting rice you’ll ever eat. Green cardamom pods, a sprinkling of cinnamon and bright yellow turmeric add fragrance and colour. The chicken stock creates the right amount of savouriness and the fried o

Lydia Gerratt

Jun 3, 2014
2 min

Fusilli with courgettes and mint

I do think that courgettes need some help from other ingredients to bring out their own distinctive taste. Creating a dish that brings out the delicate courgette flavour by enhancing it with fresh mint, a little butter for creaminess, savouriness from the Parmigiano Reggiano and mild tasting pasta to hold all the flavours together is the way to eat them. My one caveat for this recipe, only make it when courgettes are in season. BRITISH grown courgettes during the summer tas

Penne with creamy pesto, chicken and broccoli

Lydia Gerratt

May 13, 2014
2 min

Penne with creamy pesto, chicken and broccoli

This is not an Italian recipe – an Australian friend cooked this pasta dish for me about 15 years ago as a tasty tummy filler before a big night out. I loved the whopping flavours from the pesto, broccoli and lots of garlic. I’ve been making this recipe ever since and I’ve used it for weaning both my little boys. I don’t usually cook with readymade pesto as I find it too acidic, but it’s perfect for this dish. The single cream dampens down any sharpness and brings out the bas

Spaghetti with chestnut mushrooms, cream & parsley

Lydia Gerratt

May 7, 2014
2 min

Spaghetti with chestnut mushrooms, cream & parsley

This recipe is a variation on the traditional Italian mushroom pasta - I've added a little single cream. Not so much that you feel weighed down by the richness of the dish, but just enough or comfort..... Mushrooms are a strangely more-ish ingredient full of the savoury glutamate flavour. Once you've eaten good mushroom pasta, the memory of its flavour will stay with you and every now and again, you'll crave more. I use chestnut mushrooms as they always seem denser than whi

Lydia Gerratt

Apr 23, 2014
3 min

Spaghetti alla Carbonara

Roman food is different to all other dishes in Italy; it’s robust and satisfying, the flavours linger on in the memory. A weekend trip to Rome with my sisters a few years ago and we spent almost four hours over a lunch at Carbonara in the Campo dei Fiori piazza (the medieval quarter of Rome). One classic dish after another came to our table and was devoured by the three of us. Milk fed roast baby lamb and suckling pig were so tender that the mild meat and thick layers of w

Lydia Gerratt

Apr 15, 2014
2 min

Roast rack of lamb

Early season French trimmed rack of lamb seared in a very hot cast iron pan on the hob and then roasted in a hot oven for 15 minutes until just done is the best way to cook these delicate cutlets - be brutal with them!! Dorset lamb is an early season’s breed and produce beautiful tender little racks Miraculous ingredient: Dorset or salt marsh rack of lamb Roast rack of lamb Ingredients Rack of lamb 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil Coarse sea salt for the adults cutlets M

Lydia Gerratt

Apr 8, 2014
2 min

Chicken, pasta and tomato soup

This is one of those super quick, unbelievably easy recipes that uses mostly store cupboard ingredients. My Italian friend gave me this recipe about 20 years ago. It’s a recipe that Italian mamas give their children and they grow up eating it as comfort food and oh my goodness, it is comforting. It’s savoury, more-ish and seriously nutritious. It’s my fail safe meal for when I’m properly hungry and need to eat now. My little boys love it. I think it must the flavour that

Lydia Gerratt

Mar 26, 2014
3 min

Schnitzel

My recipe featured in the Waitrose Weekend magazine; Eating schnitzel reminds me of the noisy family dinners at my parent’s house. My sisters, brother and I would crowd into our small kitchen, elbow each other to the table and literally grab a piece of schnitzel to throw onto our plates for dinner. Growing up in a family of four children teaches you to get what you can at dinner. There’s no fussy eating when your little brother is about to swipe food off your plate! I usua

Lydia Gerratt

Mar 18, 2014
2 min

Chestnut mushroom and Porcini risotto

My recipe featured in the Waitrose Weekend magazine; This dish induces serious contentment. The mushrooms, stock and parmesan are heaving with umami savouriness for a full hit of flavour and there is nothing like a bowl of rice for comfort. I love to eat this risotto with a simple green lettuce salad with a French dressing. This is the recipe my youngest son (now 5 years old!) requests for dinner all the time.....he loves it so much! Miraculous ingredients: dried porcini mu

Penne with sausage, fennel, tomatoes and ricotta

Lydia Gerratt

Feb 11, 2014
2 min

Penne with sausage, fennel, tomatoes and ricotta

I love this recipe; it’s just what you need to get through a cold winter day. The crushed fennel seeds add the right amount of aniseed flavour to balance the richness of pork sausages and the sharpness of the tomatoes is subdued by creamy soft ricotta. You can use Italian sausages for this recipe and as they are already flavoured with fennel you don’t need to add the fennel seeds. It can be laborious to source good quality Italian sausages so I use the best pork sausages I

LYDIA GERRATT

Inspiring you to transform your food from bland to miraculous

ABOUT ME