How to make the perfect smacked cucumbers – recipe | Felicity Cloake's How to make the perfect …

Though I suspect many of us first find ourselves drawn to this Chinese “cold plate” by the faintly surreal overtones of vegetable-based violence suggested by the name (and before you say it, cucumbers are, of course, botanically speaking a fruit), it’s the flavour that keeps us coming back for more. A salad of cool, crunchy fruit bathed in a deeply savoury, garlicky dressing, according to Wei Guo of the Red House Spice blog, Pāi Huáng Guā is to be found on “family dinner tables, in small street cafes and in upscale restaurants” nationwide.Here in the UK, however, it’s particularly associated with Sichuan restaurants, where the cucumbers act as a bracing contrast to the fiery flavours of chilli and hot and numbing Sichuan peppercorns. In fact, there are many different versions regionally, but what they all have in common is a guarantee to wake up your palate with a good smack after all those turkey sandwiches – though it would pair pretty well with them, too. In fact, smacked cucumbers go with everything from grilled meat to hot pots, but right now I’d recommend starting with a fried egg (or some silken tofu) and a bowl of steamed rice

Ravinder Bhogal’s recipes for cooking with lentils

My pantry is stocked with an abundance of lentils: tiny red ones that take moments to cook, which I throw into soups; buttery yellow ones for khichdi; French green ones to add heft to salads; glossy black beluga; and pebbly puy. They’re cheap, nutritional powerhouses that have a low carbon footprint, require little water to grow and improve the health of depleted soil, making them good for our planet, too. What’s not to love? Dal might be the obvious choice when cooking lentils, but there is so much more you can do with them.I first came across these moreish little fritters in Kerala, where they were served as an afternoon snack with a cup of chai. The batter comes together very quickly in a food processor

Australian supermarket iced milk coffee taste test: ‘It reminds me of the time I tried breast milk’

From bottled beverages that taste like ‘liquefied Fantales’ to others that are ‘the bubblegum vape of the coffee world’, Nicholas Jordan and friends imbibe a heroic amount of caffeine to give you their verdictThere are plenty of things I’m snobby about but coffee isn’t one of them. While I admit I spend every Tuesday at a cafe that charges up to $30 for a coffee, I also have a cupboard full of instant and a long history of making low-quality home-brew iced coffees with anything from ginger beer to cream and sugar.Coffee’s main purpose isn’t being delicious – that’s a secondary concern. Its job is getting us high, so I will take it any way it comes (though during summer I never want a hot milky drink and I’m confused why anyone does). So the idea of adding a few supermarket-stocked bottled drinks to my caffeine repertoire was very appealing to me, even if I had to ingest a dangerous amount of caffeine to make it happen

Vegetarian lunch box ideas for fussy eaters | Kitchen aide

Where there are picky eaters, there needs to be a gameplan. For Alissa Timoshkina, author of Kapusta, that means slipping vegetables into an existing favourite, be that pasta, pancakes or muffins. “You can’t go wrong with a veg-rich pasta sauce or pasta salad with roast vegetables [courgette, peppers and tomatoes, say] and mini mozzarella balls,” she says. Meanwhile, courgette, pea and sweetcorn pancakes, and cheddar and courgette muffins are other firm favourites round at Timoshkina’s: “You could add a few chopped green olives as well.”Failing that, she goes for colour: “Think something that would be appealing and exciting to the eye, and therefore likely to entice children to dig in

Norwich restaurant charges £100 for a pineapple pizza

A pizzeria is asking its customers to put their dough where their mouth is if they want to eat a Hawaiian – charging £100 for a ham and pineapple-topped pizza.The owners and staff of Lupa pizza in Norwich are so revolted by the Hawaiian that they have reluctantly added the topping to their delivery menu but only with the eye-watering price tag.The menu description reads: “Yeah, for £100 you can have it. Order the champagne too! Go on you Monster!”“I absolutely loathe pineapple on a pizza,” said the restaurant’s co-owner Francis Woolf. The head chef, Quin Jianoran, agreed, adding: “I love a pina colada, but pineapple on pizza? Never