Chef Nigella Lawson reveals exclusive recipes from her BBC series “Cook, Eat & Repeat”

How would you describe the new series?

What does the series have in store for viewers?

It’s full of recipes that celebrate my favorite ingredients and tell the story of what I’m cooking at the time: from a flavorful broth with noodles, a chicken sandwich with plenty of crunch, brown butter colcannon and meatballs with a difference, a lemony whole chicken with carrots, leeks and orzo pasta, my new favorite fish stick dish, crab mac’n’cheese, a worry-free fish stew and so many recipes that will make cooking a pleasure and eating a delight! And of course, those with a sweet tooth aren’t left out either! I can’t wait to share with you my chocolate peanut butter cake, my Basque burnt cheesecake, my rice pudding cake and a delicious crème caramel for one.

Why not try some of Nigella Lawson’s best recipes that you can recreate in your own kitchen.

Nigella Lawson’s recipe for pomegranate fizz

Ingredients:

• 4–5 limes, for 100 ml juice, or more as needed
• 1–1½ pomegranates, yields 100ml juice
• 1 x 75 cl bottle of sweet fizzy muscat wine, chilled

1. Squeeze the juice from the limes and pour it little by little into a small measuring cup. Stop when you reach 100 ml. Cover and place in the fridge.
2. Now squeeze the juice out of the pomegranate, pressing down on the top and sides of the halved pomegranate so that the seeds actually come into contact with the press. After each half is ready, squeeze the juiced half with your hands to get as many drops out as possible.
3. When you have 100 ml, strain it into a cup, glass or small jug and put that in the fridge too. If you have space, put the serving jug in the fridge at the same time.
4. When it’s time to drink, open the sparkling nutmeg and pour it slowly into your serving jug so it doesn’t foam up too much.
5. Once the bubbles have subsided, add the pomegranate juice and stir very gently. Then add half the lime juice, stir gently again and spoon a little into a shot glass if you like. Then slowly – taking a sip after each addition, but now steadily – add as much of the remaining lime juice as you need to make it exactly to your taste.

Nigella Lawson’s recipe for Crab Mac ‘N’ Cheese Nachos

Ingredients for Mac and Cheese:

Instructions for Mac and Cheese:

1. Grate the Gruyère into a bowl and add the 2 tablespoons of grated Parmesan. Mix the flour with the spices in a small cup.
2. Pour the milk into a measuring cup and stir in the tablespoon of tomato paste. Bring a pot of water to the boil for the pasta.
3. Find a small, heavy saucepan; I use a 7-inch one. Melt the butter over low heat, peel and chop or grate the garlic into it and quickly stir it around the pan. Increase the heat to medium and add the flour and spices.
4. Whisk over the heat until everything sticks together to form an orange, fragrant, loose paste; this will take no more than a minute. Soon it will look like a foaming, tangerine-colored honeycomb. Remove from the heat and very slowly whisk in the tomato milk until completely smooth. Using a spatula, scrape up any sauce that sticks to the sides of the pan.
5. Return to the heat, increase to medium, and cook, stirring, until the mixture has thickened and lost its floury flavor, about 3 to 5 minutes. Stir in the Worcestershire sauce.
6. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the grated cheese. It will now look pretty fabulous like Velveeta. Put a lid on the pot or cover it tightly with foil and leave it on the stove but off the heat while you continue with the pasta. If you have an electric or ceramic hob, it may be better to remove the pan from the heat altogether.
7. So add salt to the boiling water in the pasta pot, then add the pasta and cook according to the instructions on the package, but start checking a few minutes beforehand.
8. When the pasta is almost al dente, add the crabmeat to the smoky cheese sauce. Then, when you’re happy the pasta shells are done, lift them into the sauce with a slotted spoon or drain, reserving some of the pasta cooking liquid, and add the shells. Stir over a low heat until the crabmeat is hot. If you want to make the sauce runnier (which is entirely possible), add as much pasta cooking water as you need. Taste to see if you want to add salt—the crabmeat you get in tubs is usually quite salty already, but if you get yours from your fishmonger, it could use it.
9. Divide between two small shallow bowls and sprinkle with Aleppo pepper or hot smoked paprika.

Ingredients for Mac and Cheese Nachos:

• Mac ‘n’ Cheese Sauce OR Crab Mac ‘n’ Cheese Sauce
• 300 ml whole milk
• Unsalted tortilla chips
• 1 red chilli
• 1 radish
• Spring onions

Instructions for Mac and Cheese Nachos:

1. Add milk to the remaining mac and cheese sauce, stirring to thin the mixture. Place good, unsalted tortilla chips on a plate and warm them in a low-heat oven at around 150°C (fan 130°C) while you prepare the sauce.
2. Cover the chips with this and then return them to the oven while you slice a red chilli into rings and finely slice radishes. I like to use a mandolin for the radishes so they get almost transparently thin, but if you prefer to use finely sliced ​​spring onions, you can do that too, in which case you only need a knife.
3. Sprinkle it happily over reheated nachos and watch them disappear almost instantly.

Nigella offers another tip: “You can sprinkle whatever you like on top, but I would caution against adding avocado or anything else that will enhance the richness of the sauce rather than counteract it. And I have a hunch that it might taste quite lovely as a warm, queso-like dip, with chips on the side rather than underneath, but you would need to increase the amount to fill a bowl.”