The 20 best one-pot recipes: part 2 (2024)

Nigella Lawson’s eggs in purgatory

… Or what to eat when you’re feeling like hell. After any evening of carousing, this dish of eggs cooked in a fiery tomato sauce can feel like heaven.

I feel I should address this recipe’s name, but I have nothing conclusive to offer you. The heat of the chilli and the red of the tomato might more plausibly have led this to be called uova in inferno rather than in Purgatorio. Purgatory is the place where those who die in a state of grace but are not ready for ascension into Heaven must wait, in a long-suffering limbo.

This, I do appreciate, is a simplistic categorisation, but please: I’m writing an introduction to an egg recipe, here, not a work of doctrinal history. Besides, not being Catholic, all I know about Purgatory I learned from reading Dante. So I particularly liked the hopeful literary attribution which suggests that said dish of golden egg yolks rising out of parmesan-hazy tomatoes might be a reference to Dante’s having reached Purgatory at dawn, and later hailing the advancing sun as the “cheeks of beautiful Aurora … changing into orange”. Yes, I know, I wouldn’t push it too far either, but you can’t blame a person for trying.

Let’s put questions of attribution and whimsical theories aside, for we have the pure and pleasurable physicality of the dish to consider. Now, normally I have an almost hysterically inflexible no-red-with-egg rule: I can’t bear to see so much as a blob of ketchup or grilled tomato near (let alone mixed with) an egg on someone’s plate. But these heavenly eggs in Purgatory utterly challenge and overturn my previously rigid prejudice.

To the cooking itself: if I use my little cast-iron skillet, only 16cm diameter, there is really only room for 1 egg; but generally, a small frying pan tends to come in at about 20cm diameter, in which case you can easily fit 2 eggs in. Or you could always do 1 egg and drop the yolk of the second on the white of the first… Either way, this is so easy and speedy to make, I can find time to rustle it up for breakfast, brunch, lunch, supper or late-night snack, whatever state I’m in.

If solo salvation turns into brunch for a roomful of people, obviously use a bigger pan and I would think 2 cans of tomatoes could provide enough liquid – if there’s room in the pan – for up to 8 eggs.

Serves 1
olive oil 1 x 15ml tbsp
garlic 1 small clove, peeled
dried chilli flakes ¼ tsp
chopped tomatoes 1 x 400g can
sea salt flakes ½ tsp, or ¼ tsp pouring salt, or to taste
eggs 1-2
parmesan 2-3 tsp, grated

To serve
grated parmesan (optional)
chilli oil (optional)
bread (mandatory)

Pour the olive oil into a frying pan, then grate in (or mince and add) the garlic, scatter in the chilli flakes and put the pan over a medium heat, stirring, for 1 minute.

Tip in the tomatoes, stir in the salt, and let it come to a bubble. It’s got to be hot enough to poach an egg in.

Crack in the egg (or eggs), sprinkle the parmesan over it, leaving some of the yellow yolk still exposed, and partially cover with a lid. Let it bubble for 5 minutes, by which time the white should be set and the yolk still runny, but keep an eye on it.

Olia Hercules’s chicken broth with dumplings

This is Ukrainian penicillin. My mum would always use an old boiling chicken, which can be a little tough, yes, but the flavour is incomparable. She would always make this if we were ill. Even though there is no scientific proof that chicken soup actually helps you get better, the love that comes with it definitely has a positive impact.

The dumplings are simple, and it’s all a little stark, but the flavour is so pure. Give this a go, especially when your loved one is ill or when it’s cold and drizzly outside.

Serves 4
boiling chicken 1, jointed into 8 pieces
cold water 2.5 litres
bay leaf 1
onion 1, peeled but kept whole
sea salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper
carrot 1, peeled and thinly sliced

For the dumplings
egg 1 large
cold water 50ml
fine sea salt ½ tsp
plain flour 125g

To serve
spring onion 1, thinly sliced
chopped dill 2 tbsp
crusty sourdough bread

Place the chicken pieces in a large saucepan and cover with the water. Add the bay leaf, whole onion and seasoning, and bring to the boil. Skim off the scum and leave to simmer over a very low heat for 1 hour, or 1½ hours if using a boiling chicken, until cooked through.

To make the dumpling mixture, beat the egg lightly in a bowl, then add the water and salt and gradually sift in the flour. Work into a paste.

Add the carrot to the stock, then drop in separate teaspoonfuls of the dumpling paste and boil for 5 minutes.

Serve with the spring onion, dill and a big hunk of crusty sourdough bread.

Tom Kerridge’s lamb and pearl barley broth

This is a bowl of rustic, winter warming loveliness. It is my version of Scotch broth, and it’s lifted a little with the acidity that comes from the lemon zest, capers and yogurt.

This will keep for three to four days in the fridge, and tastes all the better for being left to mature for at least a day before serving.

Serves 4-6
rapeseed oil 4 tbsp
boneless lamb neck fillets 600g, diced into 4cm cubes
celery sticks 4, finely chopped
garlic 3 cloves, crushed
carrots 2, peeled and diced
onion 1, finely chopped
salted anchovy fillets 8, chopped
thyme leaves 2 tbsp
lamb stock 1.5 litres
pearl barley 100g
lemon 1
small capers in brine 2 tbsp, drained
mint leaves 2 tbsp, chopped
flat-leaf parsley leaves 2 tbsp, chopped
plain yogurt 1 tbsp per serving
salt and pepper to taste

Heat the rapeseed oil in a large saucepan over a medium-high heat. Add the lamb and fry, stirring, for about 10 minutes until caramelised and browned. Remove the meat from the pan but leave the fat.

Add the celery, garlic, carrots and onion and stir around to take on the flavour of the lamb. Add the anchovies and thyme to the pan, then return the lamb and stir everything together. Pour in the stock and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat to low and leave the soup to simmer, uncovered, for about 1½ hours until the lamb is tender.

Stir in the pearl barley and continue simmering for a further 35-40 minutes until the barley is tender and the lamb is so tender it is starting to fall apart.

You can carry on with the final flavouring and serve the soup now, but it really is best if you leave it to cool and chill it until the following day.

Reheat the soup, if necessary. Finely grate the lemon zest into the broth and stir in the capers, mint and parsley. Ladle the soup into bowls and drop a dollop of yogurt on top of each portion. Check for seasoning, but there are a lot of powerful flavours in here so you might not need any.

Serve immediately.

From Tom Kerridge’s Proper Pub Food by Tom Kerridge (Bloomsbury, £20). To order a copy for £17 go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99

Simon Hopkinson’s Jansson’s temptation

Serves 4
butter 50g, softened
onions 2, peeled and finely chopped
Swedish anchovies 2 x 125g tins, including the juice from only one of the tins
red-skinned potatoes (Desiree) 6 medium-sized, peeled, cut into thick matchsticks, briefly rinsed, well drained and dried
whipping cream 400ml
fresh white breadcrumbs 2 tbsp
a little salt and some freshly ground white pepper

Preheat the oven to 190C/gas mark 5.

Grease a shallow, ovenproof dish (handsome enough to transfer from oven to table) with half the softened butter. Fill the base of it with the onions. Using a pair of scissors, snip the anchovies into small pieces and distribute them over the onions. Pour over the juice from one of the tins.

Cover with the prepared potatoes, press them down lightly and season. Pour over the cream and then quietly tap the dish a couple of times on a wooden surface to settle the assembly. Sprinkle the breadcrumbs evenly over the surface and dot with the remaining softened butter. Bake in the oven for anything between 45 minutes and 1 hour, or until the surface of the dish is nicely gilded, crusted and bubbling around the edges. Serve as is, all on its own.

From Simon Hopkinson Cooks by Simon Hopkinson (Ebury Press, £26). To order a copy for £21.25 go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99

Ann & Franco Taruschio’s pasta e fa*gioli

Serves 4
fresh borlotti beans 300g, or 200g dried borlotti beans, presoaked
ham hock 1
onion 1
garlic 2 cloves
celery 2 stalks
rosemary 1 sprig
parsley 2 sprigs
extra virgin olive oil 125ml
freshly ground pepper
salt (if necessary)
small tubular pasta 200g
dried chilli flakes

Put 2 litres of water in a heavy saucepan which has a well fitting lid, add the borlotti beans, ham hock, onion, garlic, celery, rosemary (wrapped in muslin), parsley and olive oil. Bring to the boil, lower the heat and gently cook the beans for 1½ hours.

Discard the ham hock and rosemary, remove the vegetables and blend them. Put half of the beans through a food mill or liquidiser and return the puree to the soup of beans and vegetables. Do not replace the lid. Season with freshly ground black pepper and check the seasoning; salt may not be necessary.

Bring back to the boil. Add the pasta and cook until al dente.

Serve with a dash of extra virgin olive oil and a pinch of chilli pepper to taste

From Leaves from The Walnut Tree by Ann & Franco Taruschio (Pavilion Books, out of print).