Author: Jawdah Hannad Basara

Most home cooks are familiar with this moment. You realize that Christmas dinner is still three weeks away after peeling what feels like half a bag of potatoes, boiling them until the edges become soft and raggy, and shaking them around in the pan until steam fills the kitchen. It used to seem a bit compulsive to plan like that. It appears to be common sense now. The short answer to the question of whether cooked roast potatoes and parsnips can be frozen is “yes,” but the longer answer is more intriguing. It turns out that the method you select…

A Victoria sponge sitting on a kitchen counter on a Sunday afternoon has a subtly satisfying quality; the jam is visible through the layers, and a small amount of cream is on the verge of escaping from the sides. It seems like it ought to go on forever. It won’t. It might not even survive past Tuesday if there is fresh cream in the middle. The truth is that a Victoria sponge’s shelf life is largely dependent on its contents. From the time it is put together, a version with whipped cream and strawberry jam is working against the clock.…

When you look at a container of Friday’s prawn curry in the refrigerator on a Sunday afternoon, a certain kind of optimism takes over. It has a pleasant scent. It appears to be fine. You survived just fine after eating half of it on Saturday. It wouldn’t be any different to reheat it today. Even though that reasoning is comfortable, it is precisely at this point that things start to go wrong. Unlike, say, a vegetable soup or a beef stew, prawns are not forgiving. They have a high moisture content, a delicate protein structure, and move remarkably quickly through…

A warm dish of bread and butter pudding with cream-soaked bread puffed up at the edges and the top turning a pale golden color in the oven, has a very reassuring quality. It’s the type of dessert that gives a kitchen a welcoming scent. The obvious question is whether the freezer can save you if you’ve made too much, which happens more frequently than most people realize. In a nutshell, the answer is yes, but only under very specific circumstances, particularly when cream is involved. Cream makes a difference. A custard enriched with double or single cream behaves differently in…

At every summer cookout, there is a persistent myth that is passed around like the potato salad itself: coleslaw goes bad because of the mayo. After a few days, take that bowl out of the refrigerator and begin to sniff the creamy dressing suspiciously. That seems natural. It’s also largely incorrect. The cabbage is the true offender. Although food scientists have known this for years, it hasn’t quite permeated everyday kitchen thinking. As a low-acid food, cabbage provides very little resistance to bacteria on its own. When you shred it, the surface area is greatly increased, and each cut edge…

Usually, it begins in the same manner. A kitchen counter full of foil trays that no one had finished, a Friday night, and an overly ambitious order. By Saturday morning, the question—half hopeful, half guilty—arises: is that leftover chow mein secretly working against you, or can you really reheat a Chinese takeaway the following day? The short answer is that you can, and millions of people in Britain do it every weekend without any problems. However, the truthful response has requirements, and those requirements are more important than most of us would like to acknowledge. The framework is widely accepted…

When a half-tray of toad in the hole sits cooling on the counter after Sunday dinner, the question of what to do with it always arises. It seems wasteful to throw it away. It is depressing to eat it cold at midnight. To be honest, most people don’t even think freezing something with Yorkshire pudding batter at its core is a good idea. Perhaps surprisingly, the answer is in the affirmative. Cooked toads can be frozen in the hole. The puffed, golden batter with its crisp edges will always be at its best in the first ten minutes, so it…

Mostly ice, pale pink, and slightly sweet. Watermelon is a cunning fruit, which is why it occurs. When you bite into a cold wedge, it tastes amazing, but texture and water are primarily responsible for this impression. Remove the crunch, and the juice quickly becomes thinner, especially when it comes into contact with an ice-filled shaker. A weak watermelon syrup is an almost embarrassingly simple solution that bartenders discovered years ago. Fresh watermelon juice mixed with half its volume in sugar until it dissolves, rather than a thick, cloying reduction. No simmering, no stove, and no waiting for anything to…

Everyone believes that gaining weight is a simple issue. Eat more—done. However, anyone who has actually attempted to gain ten pounds understands the peculiar frustration of it—forcing yourself to eat a third meal you don’t want, seeing the scale stay still, and wondering if your metabolism is subtly making fun of you. Powders and shakes, the majority of which are tooth-achingly sweet, have typically been the fitness industry’s response. It turns out that the superior solution has always been in the kitchen cabinet. The single-pan method is effective because of friction. Lack of appetite is not the reason why most…

Most diners never consider this particular moment. You gesture for additional napkins from your server. A lemon wedge after five minutes. Next, additional dressing. Then another spoon, almost apologetically. Every request takes a few seconds. They all seem innocuous. One-timing is what servers call it, and it turns out that they detest it more than practically anything else you can do at a table. In the summer of 2025, waitstaff started speaking candidly about how these piecemeal requests cause a shift, which led to the habit’s moment of public reckoning. Early in her career, a server at a chain restaurant…