Carbonara is an all-time classic. And due to its simplicity, it affords very little room for reinvention or tweaking. And yet, and yet. You readers still really wanted to know how to combine guanciale, egg yolk and garlic in the precise way the talented chefs at Surry Hills pub the Dolphin do. Yeah, us too.
Late summer is the best time to make this classic but lesser-known pasta from the Amalfi coast. That’s when the hero ingredient, zucchini, is at its fullest and greenest. That said, you’re frying it, so it’ll taste good in most conditions. Add some garlic, butter, basil and parmesan, and Roberto’s your uncle. (Actually, there’s a little trick involving pasta water, but we’ll let you discover that.)
“Stir your risotto constantly if you like, but I don’t think it’s necessary.” Thank you, Mr Cook Up, for giving us the permission so many other risotto recipes deny. We’ll be using the spare time and bicep power to make your lovely prawn stock and simple but oh-so-good chilli-and-paprika butter. Which, by the way, needn’t be reserved for topping just this dish – might we also suggest dolloping on grilled or barbequed corn?
Everyone loves a good doughnut. Not everyone loves making a good doughnut, which is time-consuming and fiddly. Get the best of both worlds with this simple, unyeasted ricotta-egg batter mixed with apple, sultanas, cinnamon, vanilla, lemon zest and optional rum or marsala, then deep-fried for four minutes. Handily, it can be prepared ahead of time and fried to order – at the end of a long lunch, say.
“What is Australian cuisine?” Decades on, this remains a nebulous question, but a laksa like this – fusing Darwin’s Southeast Asian influences with local native ingredients – feels like as good an answer as any. Heads up: it’s also the most complex and time-consuming recipe on this list, putting it in the definite “weekend project” category. You know it’s worth it, though.
From the makers of a pork-and-veal lasagne with no equal, this recipe sends us right back to the Pizza Hut buffet, waiting for the kitchen to send out more lurid, implausibly perfect and uniform slices of garlic bread. Although we’re pretty sure the Hut never used confit garlic or real Grana Padano.
Last year the smiley dynamo known as Recipetineats broke all sorts of records with her debut cookbook, Dinner, which outsold Jamie Oliver and Yotam Ottolenghi’s competing titles. Since 2021 she’s also used her enormous profile to help feed disadvantaged Aussies, through her own Recipetin Meals food bank and here, with a cracking Sichuan noodles recipe for Sydney social enterprise Too Good Co. Combining pork mince, peanuts, chilli paste and numbing Sichuan peppercorns, it’s spicy but not “blow your head off” spicy. Dial up or down as you like. Either way, it’s a winner.
It’s about time we stage an intervention, readers. You can’t stop clicking on tiramisu recipes (and making and eating them, we hope). This is the seventh version of the dessert to appear on Broadsheet (here are the first six), and a staunchly classic one at that. What can we say? It’s a classic for a reason.
We don’t know how Mars Australia Pty Ltd feels about this recipe. We know how we feel: good. Very, very good. Like all sweets in the “slice” category, it evokes that wondrous childhood nostalgia. Yet somehow, it’s relatively healthy? No, really. The recipe calls for zero refined sugars but includes almonds, brown rice flour, dates and seed butter in the pursuit of “faux caramel”. Does it measure up? You’ll have to make it and find out.
Puffy woodfired bread made Bondi restaurant Totti’s famous (and, later, its Lorne offshoot too), but this ruffled-pasta dish is equally worthy of admiration. It sees pork belly mince braised in milk, white wine, star anise, cinnamon and cloves for two hours, and hit with a liberal amount of cream, parmesan and chilli oil (if that’s your thing) prior to serving. While it’s simmering, do the right thing and cool down a crisp, acid-driven Italian white wine to drink with it, like fiano, vermentino or trebbiano.
Runners up:
Meatsmith’s fried chicken sandwich
Maker & Monger and G McBean’s glazed-ham-and-cheese toastie
Kirsten Tibballs’s oozy chocolate sourdough toastie
Joseph Abboud’s tahini chicken
Tom Sarafian’s hummus bil lahme
Previous years:
Broadsheet’s Most Popular Recipes of 2022
Broadsheet’s Most Popular Recipes of 2021
