How to make unusual food combinations according to the woman who wrote The Flavour Thesaurus

The Flavour Thesaurus – a bible for anyone who cooks by grabbing ingredients from the fridge – includes tips on imaginative food combinations from white chocolate and olives to bacon and pineapple.

But the book, which has been translated into over a dozen languages, still isn’t comprehensive enough for its writer and tireless food-lover Niki Segnit, who has revealed to The Independent the combinations she wishes she could now include.

“In the south of Italy they pair aubergine and chocolate. It’s like a chocolate pancake,” she said. “Slice and fry the aubergines, and put booze in a chocolate ganache with dried peel and nuts. It’s incredibly delicious."

The combination works because aubergine has a neutral flavour, she explained.

Floral raspberry and deep and musky elderberry is another combination she wishes she could have included. “It’s one of those very harmonies matches."

Pear cooked in sauvignon blanc, rather than the traditional red, is another winner, she added.

“Red wine can dominate but this combination gives that crispness and the herbal qualities of a sauvignon blanc.”

But pear and nutmeg, she cautions, is one flavour she certainly wouldn’t include.

“My poor husband blind tasted the combinations and I gave him a very nutmeggy pear pudding and he thought it was parsnip.

“It was really horriblem but those mistakes can teach you things," she said.

Segnit hopes her book, which she spent three years working on before it was released in 2010, will also have an impact on food waste by giving people the confidence to step away from recipe books and experiment with what is in their cupboard.

Novices in the kitchen who are daunted by flavours should simply allow themselves the time to gain a footing, says Segnit.

“When you are cooking something up that you are using for the first time always take a bit, try to be on your own, concentrate, close your eyes, and really taste it.”

Try some of Segnit's flavour combinations taken from The Flavour Thesaurus below.

Spiced apple and golden syrup to glazed cinnamon pies

Spiced apple and golden syrup pie

This pie reminds me of a really good British pudding, a great one you get from a proper pub lunch. The apples are slightly spiced and are rich and sweet with the toffee flavour of golden syrup, and it is topped with crisp buttery bread – think a crispy bread and butter pudding.

Serves 8

150 g unsalted butter
1.5 kg  apples, peeled, cored and roughly chopped
110 g caster (superfine) sugar
250 g golden syrup
½ teaspoon ground cardamom
1½ teaspoons ground allspice
300 ml  thick (double/heavy) cream
1 teaspoon natural vanilla extract
1 loaf pane di casa, crusts removed, torn into 1 cm (½ in) and 2 cm (¾ in) pieces (550 g crumbs)
100 g pecans, chopped
½ teaspoon fine sea salt
vanilla ice cream to serve

Pastry

200 g (7 oz/11/3 cups) plain (all-purpose) flour
¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
55 g  caster (superfine) sugar
125 g unsalted butter, chopped
2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar mixed with 80 ml cold water and 4 ice cubes

For the pastry, combine the flour, sugar and salt in a bowl. Add the butter pieces and toss to coat. Turn out onto a clean work surface and, using a pastry cutter (or flat-bladed knife), roughly cut the butter into the flour mixture (leave some large chunks of butter as this will help the pastry to become nice and flaky as it cooks). Create a well in the centre of the flour mixture and add the vinegar water in 3 batches, working it in with your hands to form a rough dough (you may not need all of the water). Shape into a rough disc and wrap in plastic wrap. Chill for 3 hours. Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured work surface to a circle with a thickness of 3 mm (1/8 in). Line a 22 cm (8. in) cast-iron ovenproof frying pan or pie dish with the pastry. Chill for 1 hour.

Meanwhile, make the pie filling. Melt 50 g (1. oz) of the butter in a large deep saucepan over medium heat. Add the apples, sugar, golden syrup, cardamom and allspice and cook, stirring, for 15 minutes or until the apples are tender. Remove from the heat and stir through the cream and vanilla, then leave to cool completely. Melt the remaining butter and combine with half the breadcrumbs and the pecans in a bowl with the salt, using your hands to make sure the breadcrumbs are completely coated in the mixture. Stir the remaining breadcrumbs through the apple mixture. Preheat the oven to 180 C. (350 F). Pour the apple mixture into the pastry case and top with the nutty bread mixture. Bake for 45 minutes or until the pastry and breadcrumbs are a dark golden colour. Remove from the oven and rest for 30 minutes before serving with ice cream.

Caramel apple pie

In the picture, this pie is housed in a family heirloom: a cast-iron frying pan that we’ve had since I was born. When I was seven my parents took my sisters and me on an amazing six-month trip around Australia in a caravan. This pan was the vessel for months of Dad’s bolognese, sausages, baked beans and freshly caught fish, quite possibly pancakes (if we were lucky) but never pie. Nostalgia can be attached to the strangest things but I’ve always loved the fact that this pan lives permanently in our family kitchen and I jumped at the opportunity to put it in the book. This caramel apple pie is such a cinch to make with a good pan and a good piece of bought pastry.

Serves 8

850 g sharp green apples, e.g. Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and chopped
450 g jar dulce de leche
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
60 ml pouring (single/light) cream
2 x 435 g  frozen Careme vanilla bean pastry, thawed, or other bought sweet shortcrust rolled to a thickness of 3 mm (1/8 in)
35 g vanilla custard powder
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon demerara sugar

You can make your own dulce de leche by boiling two 395g (14 oz) tins of sweetened condensed milk, if you prefer. Remove and discard the labels from the tins, then make two holes in the lid of each using a tin opener. Place the tins in a saucepan, open side up, and fill the saucepan with cold water to about 1 cm below the tops of the tins.

Bring to the boil over high heat, then reduce the heat to medium–low and simmer for 3 hours. Keep topping up the water. Carefully remove the tins and leave to cool, then open the tins and scoop out the caramel. You may have a bit left over after making this recipe but that’s no bad thing!

Preheat the oven to 200 C (400 F). Cook the apples, dulce de leche and cinnamon in a large saucepan over medium–high heat, stirring often, for 10 minutes or until the apples are slightly softened. Remove from the heat and leave to cool completely. Stir through the cream. Line a 26 cm ovenproof frying pan or pie dish with half of the pastry. Scatter the custard powder over the top then spoon in the apple mixture. Top with the remaining pastry, trim any excess from the top layer that doesn’t match up with the bottom and press to seal. Cut a cross in the top of the pastry using a sharp knife. Brush the pastry with the beaten egg then scatter with the demerara sugar. Bake for 40 minutes or until the pastry is golden. Rest for 30 minutes before serving.

Glazed apple and cinnamon handpies

These handpies are like apple pie and a doughnut in one. The flaky fried pastry and caramelised apples is an absolutely wicked combination, and the crunchy Krispy Kreme-style glaze is the perfect finish. I took these to a picnic and they were devoured in minutes. They don’t have a great shelf life, so make sure they’re eaten on the day you make them (it won’t be hard).

Makes 6

600 g  plain (all-purpose) flour
¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
200 g  cold unsalted butter, chopped
300 ml cold milk
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

Apple filling

40 g unsalted butter
250 g  dark muscovado sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 apples, peeled, cored and
sliced into thin rounds
1 egg, lightly beaten
vegetable oil, for frying

Doughnut glaze

90 g  pure icing (confectioners’) sugar
25 g unsalted butter, melted
1½ tablespoons milk
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

Combine the flour and salt in a bowl. Add the butter and roughly cut into the flour (leave some larger chunks of butter in the dough, as this will make the pastry lovely and flaky as it cooks). Add the milk and vinegar and stir to combine, then knead until the mixture just forms a dough. Shape into a disc, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for 3 hours. For the apple filling, melt the butter in a saucepan with the sugar, cinnamon and 2 teaspoons of water over low heat. Cook the apples in batches for 10 minutes or until tender. Remove the apples using a slotted spoon and leave to cool. Cook the syrup for a further minute or until very thick and reduced. Cool completely.

Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured work surface. Cut out six 10 cm circles and six 11 cm circles. Place about 4 apple slices in the centre of each smaller circle, and top with 1 teaspoon of the reduced syrup. Brush the edges with the beaten egg, then place the larger rounds over the top, pressing the edges together to seal.

Half-fill a deep, heavy-based saucepan or deep-fryer with vegetable oil and heat to 170 C (340 F). (If you don’t have a kitchen thermometer you can test if the oil is hot enough by dropping in a small cube of bread; it should sizzle and turn brown in 20 seconds.) Working in 3 batches, cook the pies for 4 minutes on each side until golden and cooked through. Remove them using a slotted spoon and drain on paper towel. Leave to cool slightly.

To make the glaze, whisk together all the ingredients in a bowl until smooth. Dip the pies in the glaze and drain them on a wire rack set over a tray. Serve while still warm.

Thomasina Miers’ game recipes – steamed venison buns and pigeon with lentils

Game has a fusty image, which is odd when you consider how many of us are concerned about healthy eating. Unlike farmed meat, game roams freely and, because of its foraged diet, is naturally low in fat, rich in protein and full of flavour; it can also be great value. Compare that with packaged foods crammed with additives to prolong shelf life, improve appearance and, in the case of meat, pumped full of unknown quantities of antibiotics. Game is generally free of all that; it’s common sense to give it a go.

Venison steamed buns

A street food classic to have at home. Beware: they are very moreish. Allow two hours for proving. Makes 12.

600g venison steak, cut into thick strips
500g plain flour
60g sugar
½ tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
7g fast action yeast
60ml whole milk
150ml water
20ml sesame oil
25ml brown rice vinegar
1 tsp each black and white sesame seeds, toasted

For the marinade
2 tbsp brown rice vinegar
2 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp dark brown sugar
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the carrot pickle
2 carrots, shaved with a vegetable peeler
2 tbsp brown rice vinegar
A squeeze of lime juice
¼ tsp caster sugar

For the mayonnaise
150g mayonnaise
40g gochujang (Korean chili paste)

In a bowl, whisk the marinade ingredients, season, then add the meat and toss. In a second bowl, mix the pickle ingredients. Put both bowls in the fridge and leave to marinate. In a small bowl, mix the mayo and gochujang and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. Put the yeast in a small bowl. Heat the milk and water until tepid, then pour over the yeast, stir and leave to froth slightly, then stir into the flour with the oil and vinegar.

Turn out the dough on to a work surface (don’t worry if it looks scraggy) and knead for seven to 10 minutes, until smooth and bouncy. Shape into a ball and put in a lightly oiled bowl. Loosely cover with a damp tea towel and leave in a warm place to prove for an hour, or until doubled in size.

Turn out the dough on to the work surface and knead for five minutes. Roll it into a fat sausage and cut into 12 evenly sized pieces. Roll each piece into a ball and flatten into a neat circle with the palm of your hand. Fold the circles into half-moons, and put a small, lightly oiled piece of baking paper between each fold. Lay the buns on an oven tray lined with more oiled baking paper, cover with a tea towel and leave to prove for an hour, until swollen.

Meanwhile, heat a little oil in a very hot frying pan and sear the venison in batches for two to three minutes, until browned all over but pink in the middle. Toss the meat in the toasted sesame seeds, cover in foil and leave to rest while you steam the buns.

Tear away the exposed baking paper around the proved buns (ie, so the bases remain lined) and lower them carefully into a metal or bamboo steamer (do so in batches, if need be). Cover and steam for 10 minutes, until the buns are puffed and glossy.

Remove the paper from the bases and folds of the cooked buns, stuff with the venison, carrot pickle and mayonnaise, and tuck in.

Pigeon, lentils, mushrooms and apple

Allow two pigeon breasts per person (or one partridge or pheasant breast, if you’d rather). Serves four to six.

45g dried porcini, soaked, or fresh, sliced
60g butter
1 small onion, peeled and finely diced
1 small carrot, peeled and finely diced
2 tbsp thyme leaves, plus extra to serve
1 large garlic clove, peeled and sliced
300g puy lentils
1 litre chicken stock
1 bay leaf
8-12 pigeon breasts
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp red-wine vinegar, plus ¼ tsp extra for the apples

2 apples, very finely sliced
30g hazelnuts, toasted and finely sliced
1 tbsp olive oil

Soak the dried porcini, if using, in boiling water for 10 minutes, then drain. Heat two-thirds of the butter in a deep saucepan and saute the onion, carrot and half the thyme for 10 minutes, until just softened. Add the garlic, fry for a few minutes, then stir in the lentils, until coated.

Pour in the stock, add the bay leaf and bring to a boil. Turn down to a simmer and leave to cook for 25-30 minutes, until almost all the liquid is absorbed and the lentils are tender.

Meanwhile, heat a wide frying pan until very hot, add half the remaining butter and fry the mushrooms until golden and stir into the lentils.

Season the breasts. Add the rest of the butter to the same pan and, once sizzling, sear the breasts for two to three minutes on each side, until golden on the outside and pink in the middle, basting as they fry. Transfer to a plate, cover with foil and leave to rest for 10-15 minutes.

Meanwhile, add a tablespoon of vinegar to the pan and stir, scraping up any caramelised bits, then set aside. Combine the apples, nuts, remaining thyme and vinegar, and the oil in a bowl, and season to taste.

Slice the breasts (add any juices to the reduced sauce). Spoon the lentils on to plates, top with pigeon, scatter with a little thyme, spoon on the pan juices and serve with the salad.

And for the rest of the week…

The bun dough freezes well, so make double and keep some for another occasion (you can also use it for bite-sized buns for fun party food). The venison marinade works well on beef, too – try marinating a whole joint and pair with noodles and an Asian salad. The apple salad is also delicious with pork chops or roast pork – just add potatoes, preferably dauphinoise.

Page Turners: Yotam Ottolenghi's Favourite Recipes From His First Book

My first cookbook is being reissued next week, with a shiny new red cover, a few design updates and new recipe introductions. Looking back on the original, published eight years ago, it feels like only yesterday that Sami Tamimi and I spent every Friday night serving up a feast for friends to test the dishes for the book.

At the same time, it also feels like a lifetime ago. The team has grown and my approach to recipe writing has become more precise. Back then, the cliche that ignorance is bliss held very true: doing something for the first time, with nothing to compare it against, you just get on with it. So long as a recipe made sense and our readers could make a delicious meal by following it, that was that. Job done: let’s eat! Eight years down the line, I can now find myself wondering for far too long whether I should be writing “flaked” or “flaky” sea salt in an ingredients list. Such level of detail matters more to me than to some readers, true, but it’s the way I’ve evolved.

Looking back on such ignorance (though I prefer to think of it as innocence), I wouldn’t change it for the world. It’s also reassuring to see how much the things that were important to Sami and me in 2008 have stayed the same. Here are four recipes I was excited to return to: favourites of mine, and of our readers, too. We’re still putting our heart and soul into the same thing: making food that we love to eat and that, we hope, makes people happy.

French beans and mangetout with hazelnut and orange

Readers tell us that this is the salad they go back to time and again, and it’s easy to see why: it’s totally hassle-free. Everything can be prepared well in advance and it’s simple to size up for a crowd. It looks lovely, too – every table needs a bit of green on it, after all. Serves six.

400g french beans
400g mangetout
70g unskinned hazelnuts
1 orange
20g chives, roughly chopped
1 garlic clove, peeled and crushed
3 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp hazelnut oil 
Flaky sea salt and black pepper

Heat the oven to 200C/390F/gas mark 6. With a small, sharp knife, trim the stalk ends off the beans and mangetout, keeping the two separate. Bring a large saucepan of unsalted water to a boil – you need lots of space for the beans, because that’s crucial for preserving their colour. Blanch the beans for four minutes, then drain into a colander and run under the cold tap until cold. Leave to drain and dry. Repeat with the mangetout, but blanch them for only a minute.

While the beans are cooking, scatter the hazelnuts over a baking tray and roast in the hot oven for 10 minutes. Leave until cool enough to handle, then rub them in a clean tea-towel to remove most of the skins and roughly chop; leave some whole or whole-ish, if you like.

With a vegetable peeler, remove the zest from the orange in strips, taking care to avoid the bitter pith. Cut each piece of zest into very thin strips (or, if you have a citrus zester, do the whole job with that).

To assemble the dish, mix all the ingredients in a bowl, toss gently, then taste and adjust the seasoning with some flaky sea salt and a good grind of black pepper. Serve at room temperature.

Seafood, fennel and lime salad

Fennel, herbs and seafood go together like sun, sea and sandcastles. Serve as a starter or light lunch, with some fresh crusty bread to mop up all the juices, or as part of a mezze spread. You can make it a day ahead, up to the point the seafood is added to the bowl, should you be so inclined. Serves four.

2 small fennel bulbs
½ red onion, peeled and very thinly sliced
Finely grated zest and juice of 1 lime
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
10g dill leaves, roughly chopped
10g parsley leaves, roughly chopped
1 mild chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
60ml olive oil
Flaky sea salt
8 tiger prawns, peeled and deveined
350g baby squid, cleaned 
1 tbsp sumac
10g coriander, roughly chopped
Pomegranate seeds, to garnish (optional)

Trim the bases and tops off the fennel bulbs, then slice the bulbs widthwise as thinly as you can (use a mandoline, if you have one). In a large bowl, mix the fennel and red onion with the lime juice and zest, garlic, dill, parsley, chilli, two tablespoons of olive oil and half a teaspoon of salt.

Heat a heavy cast-iron pan (preferably a griddle) on a high flame. Meanwhile, mix the prawns and squid with the remaining oil and a pinch of salt. Once the pan is piping hot, grill the seafood in small batches, turning it after a minute, and cooking only until just done (roughly a minute more for the squid and two to three for the prawns). Transfer to a board and cut the squid into thick rings; leave the prawns whole or cut them in half.

Add the seafood to the salad bowl and toss. Serve immediately or put the salad in the fridge for up to 24 hours. Just before serving, stir in the sumac and coriander, then taste and adjust the seasoning. A scattering of pomegranate seeds makes for a beautiful garnish.

Plum, marzipan and cinnamon muffins

Makes 10-12.

480g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon 
1 pinch salt
200g caster sugar
2 eggs
280ml milk
110g unsalted butter, melted
120g marzipan 
Finely grated zest of 2 oranges
Icing sugar, for dusting

For the plum compote

700g ripe red plums, pitted and cut into quarters
60g caster sugar
1 cinnamon stick

First make the compote. Heat the oven to 190C/375F/gas mark 5. Put the plums in a shallow baking dish, toss with the sugar and add the cinnamon stick. Bake for 10-20 minutes, until the plums are soft and their skin is coming away from the flesh (the cooking time will vary a lot depending on the ripeness of the fruit). Remove from the oven and leave to cool.

Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarb, cinnamon and salt into a bowl. Put the sugar and eggs in a large mixing bowl and whisk together. Add the milk and butter, and whisk again to combine.

Grate the marzipan on the coarse side of a grater and add to the batter with the orange zest. Stir in 80g of the compote (pulp and juices), and keep the rest for later.

Using a rubber spatula, gently fold the flour mixture into the wet mix until just combined (there may be a few lumps and bits of flour in the mix, but don’t worry; it’s meant to be like that).

Line two muffin tins with paper cases and spoon in the cake mix all the way to the top. Bake for 25–30 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean. When cool enough to handle, remove the muffins from the tins and leave on a wire rack until cold.

Just before serving, dust with a little icing sugar and top with the reserved plum compote.

Roast chicken with sumac, za’atar and lemon

This recipe is so popular, we should maybe have renamed the book Roast Chicken And Other Recipes. It’s super-simple, packed with flavour, and the marinade does all the work. It just needs rice, roast potatoes or pitta alongside, and perhaps a garlicky yoghurt or tahini sauce. Serves four.

1 large chicken, quartered
2 red onions, peeled and thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
60ml olive oil, plus extra to finish
1½ tsp ground allspice (pimento)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp sumac
1 lemon, thinly sliced
200ml chicken stock (or water)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp za’atar
20g unsalted butter
50g pine nuts
20g parsley, roughly chopped

In a big bowl, mix the chicken with the onions, garlic, olive oil, spices, lemon, stock, a teaspoon and a half of salt and a good grind of pepper, then leave in the fridge to marinate for a few hours or overnight.

Heat the oven to 220C/425F/gas mark 7. Put the chicken skin side up in a big oven tray, pour in the marinade and sprinkle za’atar on top. Roast for 30-40 minutes, until the bird is coloured and just cooked through.

Meanwhile, melt the butter in a small frying pan, add the pine nuts and a pinch of salt, and cook over a moderate heat, stirring constantly, until golden. Transfer to a plate lined with kitchen paper to drain.

Transfer the hot chicken and onions to a platter, and scatter over the nuts, parsley and a drizzle of oil. If you like, sprinkle with more za’atar and sumac before serving.