An age-old Russian favourite, rich and full of flavour, in nine easy steps

Stroganoff is a richly savoury dish of sautéed beef in soured cream named after a 19th-century count (though no one seems quite sure exactly which one). But it was only as recently as the 20th century that this age-old Russian favourite was gussied up with onions and mushrooms. Here, it has evolved again to eschew the meat altogether – and you may be surprised how little you miss it.

Prep 15 min
Cook 40 min
Serves 4

You cannot fake fabulous by simply buying in cool crockery and a freezer full of someone else’s pastry

In my misspent youth, I’d head to Glasgow to watch the likes of Fields of the Nephilim and Hawkwind at the Barrowland Ballroom, drink snakebite and buy posters from the touts on Gallowgate to Blu-Tack to my bedroom wall and tear holes in my mother’s woodchip wallpaper. Today, however, I’m here to visit Outlier, a bakery/restaurant/art space that serves warm bread, sticky treats and porchetta with beetroot and plum caponata. It’s on London Road just minutes from the Barrowland, and I’ve wound up here thanks only to a complete stranger on Buchanan Street who wrote down its name on the back of an old receipt and pressed it into my hand. She implored me to try the green jasmine rice pudding, the fresh sourdough and the chocolate and hazelnut babka. We used to do this type of inter-human face-to-face contact thing a lot back in the 1980s, before the internet ruined life.

Outlier originally opened back in 2022, after Steven Turner, who had previously run various arts venues, applied to turn the building into a space for artists with a kitchen attached. What we have now is a fairly sparse but charming space, tiled a bit like an old swimming baths in places, in mustards and dark, glossy browns. There are pale, unvarnished wooden tables, speckled stoneware plates, green, pressed-glass tumblers and prices handwritten on scraps of coloured card. When it all comes together, this kind of carefully orchestrated can’t-be-arsedness is really quite magical, and from the outset I found Outlier intensely likable.

We perch in a window seat, perusing an actively dreamy brunch menu: blood peach panzanella with Isle of Wight tomatoes, Toulouse sausage with braised Umbrian lentils, or celery soup with Highland blue cheese. Even so, it is the cake counter that has proper main-character energy here. Just after opening at 11am, it is piled high with those babka buns, apple crumble and custard cakes, and bright, jubilant strawberry pastries. The bakers work behind that counter on long tables, and a queue snakes through the space and back out of the door. Outlier’s playlist is cheery and knowing – classic ska, Squeeze’s back catalogue – and it just can’t fail to keep things buoyant. Thirty-five years may have passed since I last hung out meaningfully in this postcode, but the place still feels vibrantly alive.

The base of this easy roast pumpkin soup is rich, nutty, Halloween heaven – you can go wild with the garnishes

A lot of my early life in professional kitchens was spent making vegetable purees, which I find rather tiresome, not least because they can often lapse into baby food: creamy, bland and flattened by a cosseting blanket of dairy. With a judicious and considered approach, however, they can also be incredibly vivid, explosive and concentrated expressions of the very essence of the vegetable in question. I love this seasonal (not to mention Halloween-appropriate) soup for its simplicity of approach – essentially, you just roast a beautiful pumpkin with caramelised butter – and the remarkable complexity of its result.

Jackson Boxer is chef/owner of Brunswick House, Vesper and Dove, all in London, and culinary director of Cowley Manor near Cheltenham and the Henrietta in London

A lively tequila sour shaken up with an injection of tamarind and star anise

Rich tamarind chutney gives this vibrant tequila sour a sweet-sour depth that pairs brilliantly with crisp apple juice.

Dhononjoy Roy Dip, mixologist, Kokum, London SE22

Tabbouleh, apple, beetroot, minty yoghurt, oyster mushrooms … a riot of colour and autumnal flavours with every forkful

Autumn is a time of year when our meze plate becomes more comforting and generous, with earthy beetroot, sweet squash and woody mushrooms. The cooking is simple, but the flavours and textures are layered and kept lively with sharp vinegars and citrus. Each one of today’s dishes is considered individually, but also in the context of the plate as a whole, and how each element relates to the others to achieve balance and harmony. And, of course, always serve with pitta or flatbread to scoop up every last morsel.

Served together, this meze selection should feed four generously.

Whip winter squash puree into a creamy filling and pipe direct into the heart of a cracking seasonal pudding

At this time of year, I aim to get as much pumpkin as I can into my meals, including desserts. If I’ve been organised, I’ll roast and puree some from scratch, but I seem always to have at least one tin of pumpkin puree to hand, which I can use quickly in anything from pumpkin pies to cookies and muffins. Here, it’s whipped into cream with some spices, then piped into crackly puffs of choux for a chic, autumnal dessert.

Increasingly full-bodied and flavourful, low-strength British pale ales are growing in popularity, especially on the dinner table

There is nothing like discovering something for yourself to engender a fierce sense of loyalty, and that’s exactly what happened a decade ago when I fell upon the Kernel Brewery’s Table Beer, a pale ale of roughly 3% ABV. This is a brew that never fails to meet me where I am as a working parent with multiple identities but one brain, who often craves a delicious little buzz without loss of function.

Kernel brewer Evin O’Riordain tells me that sales have steadily increased over the past decade, and that 2026 has seen a tipping point. “For the first time ever, Table Beer became the thing we made the most,” he says. This is entirely consistent with the population’s collective interest in no-lo drinks, although, when it comes to beer, zero-alcohol examples are much better represented than low-alcohol ones (in the major retailers, at least). There are only a handful of the latter available in supermarkets, including Small Beer’s 2.3% IPA, Jiddler’s Tipple’s 3.8% Everyday Pale Ale (both Ocado), and Beavertown Satellite (2.8%) and Dark Star’s Hophead (3.4%), both at Waitrose.

​Before you throw away that jar with only a bit left inside, turn it into a dressing, sauce, glaze or even a drink instead

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It has been almost three months now, and we still haven’t replaced the cupboards that fell off the kitchen wall. It is also disturbing how well we have adapted to the chaos and having half the room covered with plastic crates that once contained vegetables and that now contain the hundreds of items that used to fit in the three cupboards, the collective weight of said items explaining the incident. The lack of cupboards has put pressure on the fridge, too, which has become a depository. That’s why, when I finally looked inside it properly, I found three jars of honey, each with between 2mm and 2cm at the bottom, as well as two jars of peanut butter, and a pretty much scraped-out jar of chocolate spread. At least all of those jars provided inspiration for today’s newsletter.

Making a dressing with the last inch of honey is perhaps the most efficient and satisfying way to deal with a near-empty jar. Pour in a bit of boiling water and some lemon juice, orange juice or red-wine vinegar, screw on the lid, then shake aggressively so the honey dislodges and dissolves into a syrup. Now add everything else – olive oil, a bit of mustard and whatever else you fancy – and shake again to emulsify. This dressing is great with one of the most useful, speedy and cheap salads in existence, namely shredded red and white cabbage, grated carrot, possibly with grated apple. Alternatively, use the same dressing on a seasonal salad of radicchio, hazelnuts and gorgonzola. And if the remnants in a jar happen to be mustard, do exactly the same as above, just inverting the order and adding honey later.

This dish of chicken in a lipsmacking citrus and oregano sauce has been handed down through many generations of Roman restaurateurs

If you look through the window of Piatto Romano between 10am and midday, there will almost certainly be two, maybe three people at the round table trimming vegetables: chicory, artichokes, poppy greens, amaranth. After midday, the crates and trimmings will have been cleared away and the table will now be home to trays of bright-green boiled vegetables and, maybe, baked salt cod. By 12.30pm, everything will have been moved into the small kitchen in time for service, which starts at 12.45pm.

When I first moved to Rome in 2005, Via Bodoni 62 was home to a restaurant called Da Rafaelle, which had white plastic chairs (inside as well) and served traditional Roman food with plenty of offal. We went to Da Rafaelle a few times before it closed in 2009. But, mostly, we went to La Torricella, which is on the other side of Testaccio and serves mainly fish. The owner is Augusto D’Alfonsi and, during lunch one day, he mentioned that he was taking over via Bodoni 62, and that his daughter Francesca would run it. They’d serve traditional Roman food with plenty of offal and it would be called Piatto Romano. This was 2011. My son was born later that year and my memories are not unpleasantly foggy; of the vegetable trolley in the corner, of chicken with red peppers and of Francesca and her father negotiating strongly. I also remember Francesca’s brother, Andrea, starting to be around more, before he eventually took over in late 2013.

A tangy mushroom stew with potato pancakes for dipping, and a rustic but versatile cabbage and mushroom soup

A thick, creamy and tangy wild mushroom stew, inspired by Belarusian mačanka and traditionally served with thick buckwheat pancakes for dipping. My version, however, features another Slovak dish in the form of lokše, which are crepes or flatbreads made with mashed potato dough. The result is so good. Then, a simple, seasonal soup made with just a handful of ingredients that captures the heart and soul of eastern European soup making. While it doesn’t belong to any single location, I hope it will taste like “home” to readers connected to the region.

In 2014, 13% of the population of this Belgian city described themselves as flexitarian. This year, 83% did. Here is how everyone was convinced to eat their greens – and love them

Sixty bowls of slime-green soup sit waiting for the children to arrive. Pupils rush in from their morning lessons, grab the bowls by the handles and start slurping. No complaints, no refusals. (OK, maybe a few “bleurgh” faces.) Chicory soup dispatched, they get stuck into the main course: falafel, Mediterranean vegetable tagine and couscous. Some ask for seconds; most grab a piece of fruit for dessert and run out to play.

This is a typical Thursday lunchtime in BS De Stadspoort primary school in Ghent, Belgium. Similar meat-free menus are being eaten in other schools and nurseries across the city, plus community centres, care homes and assisted living facilities, not to mention many work canteens and restaurants. Thursday in Ghent is officially “Veggie Day”, with residents encouraged to eschew any meat or fish. So how did a city get its children – and everyone else – to eat their greens?

In Perth’s nightlife precinct in the 1990s, I made a lot of sandwiches – but the sandwiches also made me

• Read more in the a job that changed me series

Delivering pizzas, with all due respect, was a cruisy gig that fit in with my uni commitments. It was 1998, for Pizza Hut at Como, a well-established suburb 15 minutes from Perth’s city centre. I blasted hip-hop through my car stereo and brought home cash tips and – if I was rostered until close – any pizzas that were unclaimed or undelivered that night. Between deliveries, drivers sat in the alley behind the shop and shot the breeze while folding pizza boxes.

The job’s biggest downside was that it didn’t pay much, especially once you factored in the costs of fuel and vehicle maintenance. So I applied for a job as a “sandwich artist” at Subway in Northbridge, Perth’s nightlife district. I figured that switching to a job where I was on my feet instead of on the road would significantly extend the life expectancy of my hand-me-down Mitsubishi Magna.

Tasty, spicy fritters to dip into coconut sambol as a snack or treat, or serve with avocado or egg for a more substantial supper

These warmly spiced fritters are inspired by the tikki-chaat carts found all over India, which sizzle fresh chickpea, potato or lentil patties on hot-plates until crisp, then slather them with chutneys. The coconut sambol ushers forth the flavours of south India – coconut, mustard seeds and lime; add a teaspoon of tamarind paste to increase the tartness, if you like. A good dollop of yoghurt is a must, and a fried egg or avocado on the side turns these fritters into a satisfying supper.

A deliciously humble lentil and spaghetti dish, and a meat-free riff on meatball pasta made with aubergine veggie-balls

Some plant-based pasta dishes are light, bright and summery – pesto genovese, tomato sauce, aglio e olio – but some have an umami and complexity that is normally associated with more carnal pleasures. Here are two. Pasta with lentils is a firm personal and family favourite – my mum and I make this dish whenever we fancy something really comforting, and the earthiness of the lentils plays against grassy olive oil and parsley, and the texture of the pasta. True cucina povera – a humble meal, and deliciously so. Veggie-balls are also great things. Polpette (normally translated as meatballs) is just balls (of anything pulped), after all. They can be made of white fish, oily fish or vegetables. I particularly love courgette for its bright, green, fresh flavour, and, above all, rich, velvety, chocolatey aubergine. Of course, you can eat them on their own, but I also love them through pasta, as a vegetarian riff on spaghetti and meatballs.

Cool, juicy pears, cold ice-cream, hot chocolate sauce and a crunchy garnish – the perfect pudding

It’s always slightly embarrassing to realise that you’ve missed a pop culture reference, even if it’s 162 years old, so I won’t dwell on the fact that until last week I was unaware of the existence of Offenbach’s 1864 operetta about Helen of Troy, La Belle Hélène, after which today’s dish is named. In any case, the great French chef Escoffier was so moved by it, or perhaps by its popularity among Parisian diners, to name this simple dessert of vanilla-scented poached pears topped with hot chocolate sauce after the work’s heroine, played by the comely Hortense Schneider.

Though other homages (he includes no fewer than five dishes with that name in his 1907 Guide Culinaire, none of which involve pears) may, like the music, have faded from public consciousness, this particular pairing, if you’ll forgive the pun, has stood the test of time. As Nigel Slater observes in Tender: Volume 2, “The marriage of pears and chocolate is extraordinary. It is as if they were made for each other.” This, I think, is the duo at its “most sumptuous”.

This offshoot of a New York favourite isn’t reinventing the wheel, but it does bring a touch of Gallic glam to the neighbourhood

A faux-French, cult-hit New York brasserie has opened in Neal’s Yard, deep in the hairy armpit of Covent Garden among alleyways where holistic therapy rooms, walk-in back rub spaces, Neal’s Yard Remedies and 26 Grains cafe are its immediate neighbours. The windchimes and the whiff of patchouli part the air round these parts, and the footfall is yoga pant-clad and hungry for hummus. Buvette, meanwhile, has brought a touch of Gallic glam to the neighbourhood, and is clearly aimed at the Emily in Paris generation with its totalement français menu featuring croque monsieur with roast mushrooms and gruyere, rillettes de saumon or salade niçoise with haricots verts and a mollet egg; there’s also a Macvin champagne and muscadet spritz, pastis on the rocks, warm scones with jam, and almond croissants.

This is the London arm of Jody Williams’ West Village gastrothèque, and its menu is a pretty card listing 25 dishes to choose from, none of them above £18. It clearly thinks it’s a hot, fresh, new thing, but I’m not sure it’s anything new at all. We used to call places that looked like this Café Rouge: that is, recognisably French, and by that I mean recognisable if you have a working GCSE knowledge of La Rochelle cafe life. It’s that version of French dining that won’t scare the horses, or at least the horses that the French haven’t minced coarsely and served in their own gastroduodenal canals with an exemplary homemade moutarde.

Poach your leeks to perfection, then pair with pickled pears and nutty miso

I have a great respect for the leek, which is possibly the most demanding vegetable in its need to be freshly cooked before consumption. A warm leek, fresh from the pot, is an ethereal, collapsing sigh of diaphanous veils, whereas cold it can all too easily become a slippery and almost slimy mess of hopelessness.

Jackson Boxer is chef/owner of Brunswick House, Vesper and Dove, all in London, and culinary director of Cowley Manor near Cheltenham and the Henrietta in London

The annual Taoist celebration is held in the ninth lunar month of the Chinese calendar. During the nine-day vegetarian festival – also known as the Nine Emperor Gods festival – worshippers abstain from eating meat, consume only vegetarian food and perform rituals to cleanse body and mind

I wait each year for my cumquat tree to fruit. Then I make Mum’s jam

It’s citrus season, and the trees of my streets are heavy with the bright balls of fruit. My son sometimes picks me a lemon or two on his way home from school, and I help myself to the basket of limes that hang from the fence of a nearby house. The potted plant on my balcony fruited early this season, and for weeks I watched as the hundreds of small green cumquats slowly ripened. I finally picked them when they were fattened with juice and seeds and colour, the cat squatting on the ground to watch. When I dropped a cumquat she sniffed at the skin and turned away, as if sensing the sharpness of its flesh.

Since my daughter moved out several years ago, my household has shrunk. It is now only my son and me. And the cat. A scratchy, sullen creature who delights in ignoring us both unless we are sitting in the seat she believes is hers. My son has begun cooking for himself, and so I find my services in the kitchen required less often. Except for the yearly making of cumquat jam.