The short answer: raw chicken lasts 1 to 2 days in the fridge. That’s the guidance from the UK Food Standards Agency, and it’s the number every food-safety professional will give you. Not three days. Not “it smells fine, it’ll be alright.” One to two days from the moment you buy it — and if you’re unsure how long it’s been sitting in the shop’s chiller before you got it home, treat it as one. Now, I know what you’re thinking, because I’ve thought it too: that seems conservative. You’veRead More

I’ll let you in on a secret: most bottled BBQ sauces are, at heart, the same handful of cheap ingredients — tomato, sugar, vinegar, smoke flavouring — dressed up in different labels and sold back to us at a handsome markup. Once you realise that, making your own stops feeling like a faff and starts feeling like common sense. Twenty minutes, one saucepan, and you’ll have a sauce that tastes better than anything in the condiment aisle, tuned exactly to how you like it: sweeter, smokier, spicier, tangier — yourRead More

Beetroots have an image problem in Britain. For too many of us, the word conjures up those vinegary purple discs from a jar, slid apologetically next to a limp salad in a motorway service station. It’s a shame, because a freshly cooked beetroot — roasted until sweet and earthy, or boiled and dressed while still warm — is one of the great vegetables. Deep, sweet, almost meaty, with that unmistakable ruby colour that makes everything on the plate look better. The good news is that beets are one of theRead More

There’s something almost unfair about the smell of an apple pie baking. It drifts down the hallway, creeps under doors, and before you know it the whole house has gathered in the kitchen asking “how much longer?” — a full forty minutes before it’s ready. I’ve been making apple pies for the better part of fifteen years, and I still get that little flutter of anticipation when I pull one out of the oven, golden and bubbling, the lattice just starting to catch at the edges. If you’ve only everRead More