COOK'S INSTINCT by @anthonyshock

Norwegian Soured Cream Porridge (Rømmegrøt)

Anthony O'Shaughnessy — Tue, 27 Oct 2026 09:03:33 GMT

In Norway’s fjordlands, women would traditionally take their cattle uphill onto the mountain tops to graze for the summer. They would stay in ‘seter’ cabins for most of the summer months with the main purpose of milking the cattle and preserving the dairy produce as butter, cheeses or soured cream. Once the summer is over, the women and their cattle return downhill with a variety of dairy products to overwinter. This porridge is a celebration of soured cream and is usually enjoyed once or twice a year as a decadent treat. Soured cream is boiled and then thickened with flour, producing a rich, velvety porridge that is excellent with fresh berries or with cinnamon sugar. It’s like a cinnamon bun and cheesecake combined in a bowl; perhaps don’t eat this one every day! Let’s go!

INGREDIENTS (serves 2x)

200g soured cream
4 tablespoons plain flour
150ml milk
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar, or to taste
knob of butter
To serve: demarara sugar, cinnamon, honey, fruit jam

WALKTHROUGH

Add the 200g of soured cream to a saucepan and place it onto a medium heat. Once the mixture begins to boil and spit, add the 4 tablespoons of plain flour and mix to a paste.
Fry this paste for 1-2 minutes on medium heat until it thickens.
Slowly add the 150ml milk in small additions, mixing well between each one. The mixture will seize initially, but will loosen out as you add more of the milk. Allow it to boil for 2-3 minutes, stirring often.
Once all of the milk has been added, remove the pan from the heat. Add 1/4 tsp of salt and 2 tsps sugar, or to taste. Continue stirring for 1-2 minutes and the porridge will thicken as it cools slightly.
Serve the porridge in serving bowls with a knob of butter, a scrunch of sugar and some cinnamon, or fresh berries. Enjoy!

Swedish Pear & Quince Sauce (Päronkvittenmos)

Anthony O'Shaughnessy — Sun, 25 Oct 2026 14:03:48 GMT

Last year I visited the island of ‘Gotland’ off the coast of Sweden. This historic Swedish island was once one of the strongest and wealthiest Viking bastions in Scandinavia and was known for its ease of fruit production. Being entirely surrounded by water, the island benefits from longer, more stable growing seasons thanks to the heat retention effect of the encircling seas. This provides an excellent soil for fruit trees, particularly pears and quinces, which are a lot more challenging to grow on the Swedish mainland. I was amazed to see many residential houses in Gotland grew these fruit trees in their gardens, and pears and quinces find their way into many seasonal products on the island. This is one that I fell in love with. A pear and quince sauce - much like an applesauce - which is cooked down to a sweet, tangy paste. It’s spectacular served with creamy cheeses, sausages, boiled ham or roast pork. You’ll find fresh quinces at larger markets right now, especially Turkish or Middle-Eastern shops. If you oven-process the sauce after jarring, you can keep it for up to a year on the shelf, but I recommend keeping it in the fridge and using it within the month for all of autumn’s tempting treats. Let’s go!

INGREDIENTS (makes 1x 300g jar)

250g quince, peeled and diced (from 1x quince)
200g ripe Conference pears, peeled, cored and diced (approx. 2x pears)
100g caster sugar
50ml water
1/2 tsp salt
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar or bottled lemon juice

WALKTHROUGH

First, let’s cook the quince. Add the 250g diced quince and 200g diced pears into a pot with the 100g caster sugar, 50ml water, 1/2 tsp fine salt and 2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar/bottled lemon juice.
Place the pot onto a medium-high heat and bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce the temperature to medium-low and continue simmering the mixture until it softens considerably, about 10-15 minutes.
Once softened, use a potato masher to mash the fruit to a puree. You can make it as smooth or as coarse as you prefer. Continue simmering the mixture for a further 5 minutes, stirring often.
Transfer the fruit mixture to a clean, warmed jar. Fill the jar leaving an approximately 1/2 inch-size gap at the rim. Add a clean lid and close the jar until finger-tight.
Place the jar into a 120C/250F oven or air fryer and cook for 20 minutes to process it. This will help it form a long-lasting seal and can be stored for up to a year afterwards.
Allow the jar to cool at room temperature until completely cool. You may hear the jar pop as it forms a natural seal. The processed sauce can be stored in a dark, cool cupboard for up to 1 year. Once opened, store it in the fridge and use within 1 month. Enjoy it on cheeseboards, with roast ham or in cheeses.

Irish Tea Loaf (Báirín Breac)

Anthony O'Shaughnessy — Fri, 23 Oct 2026 10:12:33 GMT

Meaning ‘speckled loaf’ in Irish, you will often see this loaf anglicised as ‘barmbrack’. This tea loaf is a traditional autumnal bake in Ireland, particularly after the harvest season and in the run-up to Samhain (Halloween). Traditionally a ‘barmbrack’ was a loaf made with the ‘barm’ yeast left over from ale-making, giving it a malty flavour, though it was often prone to failing as a leavening agent. This recipe here - technically a cake - is loaded with tea-soaked fruits, and you’re at liberty to include any variety of dried fruits that you like including raisins, dates, apricots or glacé cherries. Despite containing no butter or fat, this loaf is incredibly moist and will keep for almost a week when wrapped well, retaining moisture on account of the soaked fruit. It’s best enjoyed a couple of days after baking, buttered severely. Let’s go!

Peanut Butter Bread Pudding

Anthony O'Shaughnessy — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 10:56:33 GMT

Native to the region, peanuts have a long history in the American South. Their ability to adapt even to poor soil led to them being spread across the world as a reliable and calorific crop. Peanuts w…

Virginia-Style Sausage Gravy

Anthony O'Shaughnessy — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 10:36:32 GMT

Sausage milk gravy is part of the traditional Southern-style American breakfast, and is a particular match to American-style biscuits. You can serve sausage gravy with almost any carbs actually, and …

Virginia-Style Sour Milk Biscuits

Anthony O'Shaughnessy — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 09:29:45 GMT

American style biscuits are a world away from their ancestor, the English scone. This rough and rogue scone offers a rich, buttery taste and an irresistible flakiness. Unlike the usual ‘teatime treat’, these can be served as a savoury accompaniment to fried chicken or fried breakfast fixings, or spread with butter and jam or served as a shortcake dessert with whipped cream and strawberries. This recipe uses my favourite tenderiser, soured milk, which is a much lighter than buttermilk and can be prepared easily at home without buying in anything extra. We also don’t rub the butter in quite as thoroughly as you would an English scone, as the butter chunks form exquisite flakes within the dough. We also employ a book-folding technique which will create sheets of crispy, flaky pastry with a heavenly rise. Enjoy the smell wafting from the oven as you bake these, and at the very least enjoy them cloaked in soft butter while they’re still warm. Let’s go!

English Crab Apple Jelly

Anthony O'Shaughnessy — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 16:34:11 GMT

Come October, England’s many hedgerows are flush with all sorts of wild produce. Once of the key treasures of this time of year is the crab apple, a wild cousin of the cultivated dessert apples that …

French Onion Soup (Soupe à l’Oignon Gratinée)

Anthony O'Shaughnessy — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 10:54:39 GMT

French onions soup is one of France’s most classic potages, and despite the usual pretext of French cuisine, this dish is very simple to prepare, almost austere. With just onions and good-quality bee…

Indonesian Chicken Noodle Soup (Soto Ayam)

Anthony O'Shaughnessy — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 10:54:06 GMT

‘Soto Ayam’ is the national chicken soup of Indonesia. Being a country formed of many different regions and ethnic groups, naturally this chicken soup comes with a whole portfolio of variations. This recipe leans on the Javanese style, and results in a heavenly bowl of noodles, chicken and toppings with a pristine golden chicken broth flavoured with traditional Islamic spices. Turmeric is a key flavouring in this - it’s not just a food dye - so I urge you to use some fresh turmeric, though dried turmeric could do in its place otherwise. This soup uses chicken legs, poached to make a flavourful chicken broth with a ‘bumbu’ seasoning paste, which we will discover how to make also. The chicken legs provide the broth and ample shredded meat for topping the noodles. Of course, the best part of ‘soto ayam’ is the toppings! Go wild with shredded chicken, crispy onions, fresh leaves, beansprouts, spicy sambal paste and boiled eggs. It’s a bowl of tasty enchantment. Let’s go!

Southern-Style Peach Pie

Anthony O'Shaughnessy — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 09:59:37 GMT

At the end of summer, many of the southern United States brace for a bountiful peach harvest. Peaches were introduced to the Americas by the Spanish who settled in and around Florida. The fruit quickly acclimatised to American soil and as a result, Florida’s next door neighbour Georgia became the ‘Peach State’ and a leading producer of quality peaches. Peaches ripen in the afterglow of summer, and are ripe for the picking, eating and pie-making around September. This particular fruit pie is a creature of its own. Peaches are loaded with flavourful juice which presents a few challenges for making a crispy-crust fruit pie. This recipe uses a few tricks, including macerating the peaches in sugar to extract their juice. We then boil down this juice to make an intensely flavourful peach syrup which is returned to the filling before baking. This pie use a lattice crust lid, which allows any excess moisture from the peaches to vent during baking. Don’t worry if you’re not a whizz at making a perfect, cross-cross lattice, you are welcome to throw on a ‘lazy lattice’ to achieve the exact same job. Let’s go!

Vietnamese Caramel Ginger Chicken (Gà Kho Gừng)

Anthony O'Shaughnessy — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 10:26:32 GMT

This is just one of many ‘kho’ dishes in Vietnamese cuisine. ‘Kho’ involves braising something in a caramel broth, and takes on all sorts of manifestations from pork and fish to tofu and vegetables. …

German Swabia-Style Potato Salad (Schwäbischer Kartoffelsalat)

Anthony O'Shaughnessy — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 09:49:25 GMT

Unlike the usual Germanic potato salad that was carried around the world on the backs of German immigrants, this alternative recipe offers a lighter twist. Originally from Swabia in the south of Germany, this traditional potato salad forgoes the usual mayonnaise or sour cream and replaces it with a golden dressing of chicken stock, melted butter and onions. The key to this salad is using a waxy potato, like a Jersey royal or a Charlotte, and allowing some patience for the potatoes to sit and soak in the hot dressing. This makes a great alternative potato salad that leaves a bit more room for everything else at the barbecue, but is still a sure sleeper hit! Let’s go!

Austrian Schnitzel with Mustard Sauce (Schnitzel mit Senfsoße)

Anthony O'Shaughnessy — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 10:35:58 GMT

Though often attributed to Germany, the true ‘wienerschnitzel’ actually comes from Austria, where the most famous style reigns supreme in its capital city, Vienna. Most traditional restaurants produc…

Nigerian Pounded Plantain (Fufu)

Anthony O'Shaughnessy — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 09:55:52 GMT

One of the most common starchy offerings served with many West African dishes is the ‘fufu’. Various ethnic groups in the region offer their own word for this, but most people will recognise anything called ‘fufu’. There are a variety of starchy vegetables that are used to make it, often plantain, cassava or cocoyam, and whichever version you plump for you’ll find it to be a great gluten-free starch that complements almost any saucy dish or soup. This recipe will use the box of ready-made flour that can be bought in West African stores, of which plaintain is the usually most common [BEST BUY]. This recipe works independent of the box instructions, as many can be very vague and confusing especially if you are new to making fufu. You traditionally make it with water, but if it is your first time making this, its blandness might shock you, so you can use vegetable stock to add a bit more richness to the fufu. This is a good arm workout too, so enlist the strongest arm in your house and you will have a few servings of fufu ready in 10 minutes; you could freeze them too. Some traditions recommend not chewing fufu as you eat it in order to help you feel fuller and satisfied longer, but if you can’t resist that urge, plenty of people in West Africa chew it with great gusto! Let’s go!

Nigerian Groundnut Chicken (Miyan Gyada)

Sat, 19 Sep 2026 13:28:39 GMT

West African food is a complex creature and styles of food are distinguished by more than just country borders. West Africa is made of up various ethnic groups, each with their own food traditions an…

Swedish 'Flying Jacob' Chicken (Flygande Jakob)

Anthony O'Shaughnessy — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 10:28:08 GMT

One of Sweden’s most controversial dishes, the ‘Flying Jacob’ was first created in the 1970’s by an air-freight porter called Ove Jacobsson. Having contact with various exotic ingredients during his …

French Crème Fraîche Ice Cream (Glace à la Crème Fraîche)

Anthony O'Shaughnessy — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 09:19:50 GMT

A traditional product of northern France, ‘crème fraîche’ is widely considered a last-minute creaminess booster for soups and sauces due to its resistance to curdling over heat. However, it has far more to say for itself as a dairy product. Created by the same method as yoghurt, crème fraîche was simple a way of preserving fresh cream by combining it with lactic cultures. The fermentation unlocks a host of new flavours and aromas as well as a refreshing tang. In this recipe, we replace the usual cream in a plain dairy ice cream base with crème fraîche so you can appreciate it’s magic uninterrupted. It’s only a few ingredients, and though an ice cream churner will give you the best texture, you can still enjoy it via a wooden spoon and some elbow grease! Let’s go!

Greek Lamb Yiovetsi (γιουβέτσι)

Anthony O'Shaughnessy — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 09:07:33 GMT

Like many Greek dishes, this dish is named after the pot it’s traditionally cooked in: the ‘yiovetsi’ claypot. With the pot being the canvas of this dish, there are many regional and family variations in how this is prepared, and true to Greece’s diverse portfolio of hunting, all types of meat, seafood (or vegetables) can be worked into this dish, from beef or rabbit, or octopus to squid. The main bulk of this dish is orzo - rice-shaped pasta - which binds a rich sauce of meat/fish, vegetables and tomatoes along with red wine and traditional Greek stewing spices. It works especially well with strong flavours like lamb or beef, though chicken or seafood wouldn’t be out of place, or even aubergines if you’re not too keen on the hunting! Let’s go!

Tamil Beach-Style Chickpeas (சுண்டல்)

Anthony O'Shaughnessy — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 09:51:34 GMT

Known as ‘sundal’ in South India, this legume dish can use all sorts of beans and peas with varying degrees of sauce. Along Marina Beach in Chennai, a particular style of ‘sundal’ was born among visi…

Sicilian Tuna Steak with Marsala-Tomato Sauce (Tonno Ammuttunato)

Anthony O'Shaughnessy — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 09:53:27 GMT

In terms of seafood, the isle of Sicily sits at a highly advantageous part of the Mediterranean as it watches over a lush, blue strait with the mainland of Italy. This strait acts as a bottleneck for various prized seafood including tuna and swordfish, both of which feature prominently in Sicilian cuisine. The name ‘ammuttunato’ essentially means ‘stuffed’, as the piece of fish - tuna or swordfish - is pricked with a knife and stuffed with fresh mint and garlic before cooking. Having a rich history of sugar production, Sicilian cuisine - particularly its sauces - is punctuated with the magic of the ‘agrodolce’, a sweet-sour combination of sugar and wine vinegar which cooks out to a powerfully delicious edge. We will enhance this with one of Sicily’s exports: marsala wine. This fortified wine adds a sweet, bronzed depth to the sauce, though feel free to replace it with dry sherry or white wine or nothing if you prefer. This dish makes the most of tuna steak, though you can adapt it to any other meaty fish for a thunder-crack quick dinner. Let’s go!