Do You Know What's Nice? Gochujang Broccoli Rice

5-Ingredient Recipe Month closes, plus Madrid eating highlights

I’m just back from a week in Madrid, where I consumed more crisps and olives than any human should, and reaffirmed my interest in tripe. Find the best things I ate at the bottom of this newsletter. You can bet your bottom dollar (or should I say, dinero) that el flan featured. This week’s recipe needs just 5 ingredients and 25 minutes. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

In a way, 5-Ingredient Recipe Month was a challenge for me. But it was an invigorating one, which offered edible rewards. Being limited to just a handful of ingredients, and working on recipes which could be finished within 30 minutes meant that I was never knackered at the end of recipe testing. Instead, I could put my feet up and relax. What a joy! Instead of thinking: wow, I need a lie down (as I sometimes do after hours in the kitchen). I was thinking: wow, I can’t wait to make this again.

I would define myself as someone who finds it difficult to sit down. I think it’s why I love cooking so much, because it focuses me on one task which has a concrete end result and which leaves me with a sense of achievement and satisfaction. But what I need to remember more often, is that cooking can be relaxing whether it’s for a short burst of 20 minutes or a 5 hour marathon of cakes, breads and homemade pasta. I may be addicted to the kitchen but a short hit will actually sometimes do.

What I’m trying to say is that working on these achievable dinner recipes has taught me a lot. I hope you will try one if not all of them. I think they all offer something different but special, and I think this week’s Gochujang Broccoli Rice might be the easiest of all.