Words matter. These are the best Rachel Khoo Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Crab meat is surprisingly sweet in its purest form, which is why it is often pepped up with zippy chilli and lifted with citrus.
Forget sushi, yakitori and tempura, ramen is what really gets the Japanese excited.
I realised filming in my own apartment that it was nice to come home and have some space. It worked for ‘The Little Paris Kitchen’ but now I’ve learned a lot about TV; you need space for the camera and you want to be mentally sound after filming.
Failing ownership of a wood-fired oven, whacking pizza dough straight on to the hot grill is the next best way to achieve that beautiful scorched crust.
It’s great that Mary Berry got a primetime TV show, but I don’t think there are enough women chefs on TV.
I love cheese. It intensified when I moved to France. It felt like my cheese shop lady was my dealer because every week I’d say, ‘I need this cheese, I need that cheese’, and she’d cut me enough for the week but I’d finish a whole piece in one go.
Mum is a fantastic knitter – she taught me, too, but I can only manage simple things.
When I first moved to Paris, I worked as an au pair for two girls aged eight and 11.
I went to art college. I like to be creative. I use food as my medium at the moment but it could easily be illustrations in the future, or something else.
I haggle with French grannies over their old knick-knacks and walk away with some real gems.
As a woman you have to tick all these boxes to be able to be on TV. I know I look a certain way and that’s partly why I’m on TV. If I were really ugly and fat, I don’t think I’d have had the same chance.
A whole trout is the ultimate Sunday table centrepiece to replace a hearty roast. It looks a little retro with the radish and cucumber scales, but this also adds freshness and acidity.
I always say I’m more of a food writer than a TV presenter, because that’s what I’m trained in, that’s what I spend most of my year doing. TV is about performance and I’ve never had any training.
To follow my meal, I’d drink a glass of my uncle’s homemade apricot schnapps. He puts it in beautiful glass bottles and sells it at his local market in Austria. You don’t normally drink with Asian food, so this would be a fitting end to the meal.
My dad is Chinese/Malaysian and my mum is Austrian, so food was always a big deal in our house.
Ramen is Japanese soul food, appealing to old and young, rich and poor.
I want to be taken seriously: I can cook, I do have qualifications, OK, I do make mistakes, but I want to show that on camera. I’m not perfect. I’m someone who works hard, who is serious about what they’re doing. It’s substance over style.
I had quite a few jobs in Paris before hitting the jackpot and writing cookbooks. One of them was peeling vegetables and prepping other veggie delights at Bob’s Juice Bar.
While we Brits love a curry, the French get their spicy kicks from the culinary traditions bestowed by their North African population.
Wild garlic and crab is a revelatory pairing.
Every Frenchie has inherited their own way of making ratatouille, usually just as maman used to make. Well, my mum never made one, so I consider that my licence to make mine as I please.
Mum and Dad grew vegetables and every day it would be beans for dinner and we’d have to go and pick them, and weed and stuff. If you wanted your pocket money you did your chores.
Children love cupcakes and so do I – a good one makes the perfect afternoon pick-me-up.
The Little Paris Kitchen’ was about my experience of living and cooking in Paris, ‘My little French Kitchen’ about my travels around France and ‘Rachel Khoo’s Kitchen Notebook’ was a peek into my personal cooking diary with influences from around the world.
I’m always looking for a way to get some spice into my cooking but, generally, the French don’t like spicy food.
While studying art and design at Central Saint Martins, I went round supermarkets taking photos of shoppers and their baskets: the game was to match people with their food. For an architectural project, I made a scale model of a shop out of gingerbread rather than foam and added icing and sweets very colourfully.
Wimbledon heralds the unofficial start of summer.
I admit it, I do like pickled red onion. I made some the other day. You just slice up the onion, pull it apart and you get these petals and you make a pickling liquid, I make mine sweet and sour.
Sundays are great for a lie in, a read of the papers, a potter around at home and then brunch, which is normally cheese on toast!
I want to push myself. I’m always up for a challenge.
Whether it evokes pleasant memories of holidays in the Caribbean, or best-forgotten outings to Notting Hill, most of us have experienced jerk chicken in one form or another.
Fika is a bit like afternoon tea but with coffee and pastries instead of sandwiches.
I was fortunate that what you see on TV is who I am. I didn’t change the way I dress.
True to his Malay Chinese heritage, my dad would regularly whip up a revitalising spicy broth in the depths of winter. He was a firm believer that spicy food is the solution to most problems, and feeling under the weather was no exception.
Whatever I do, whether it’s cooking shows, books or events, the details count and that’s what sets me apart from other food TV personalities. If you take out the details what’s left?
I hate eating food on camera – I always cringe afterwards!
I’ve always felt the easiest way to get to know new culture is through its food even if you don’t speak the language. Food will do it for you. It’s an universal language.
Like its breakfast companion Marmite, jam seems to divide the crowds. In many of its mass-produced guises, it seems barely acquainted with the fruit named on the jar, tasting mostly of sugar.
Warming and nourishing bowls of food are something I love wrapping my hands around when the cold nights drawn in.
The Great British summer has many qualities, but unfortunately guaranteed warm weather is not one of them.
While they might have got a bit fancier over the years, I still relish a good packed lunch if I am on the road, with that mounting excitement for a particular goodie I’ve wrapped up for the trip and the challenge of holding out for as long as I can before I cave.
I love watching the fishermen step off their boats and lay out their catch – typically sardines, monkfish and everything you’d find in bouillabaisse.
The northern Japanese ramen is characterised by its miso base. In the south, the ramen may steer more towards a seafood-based broth, while in Tokyo, virtually every style of ramen exists.
My mum still needs all her pots and pans, so she’s not giving me any of hers yet.
When I studied at the Parisian cookery school Le Cordon Bleu, making shortcrust pastry was one of the first techniques I learned.
I made it quite clear that I want to be female-friendly. I don’t want to be too sexualised because a woman in a kitchen is already a loaded image.
I would try and barter a cake for some help with coding. I’m not the best coder. I have some basic HTML but that’s about it.
Education in Bavaria is tough. You fail sports, you have to repeat the year.
For me, the best burger buns are made from an enriched dough, soft and absorbent enough to soak up all the juices.
I eat a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables not so much meat and fish. Baguettes and croissants are not an everyday food for me.
I’m trying to keep my cooking approachable and accessible but with a little fun twist.
Alot of my inspiration comes from people that you don’t see on TV like my mum and my grandma. There’s so much history and knowledge.
Sweden endured a potato famine like in Ireland and loads of people emigrated to the US.
Even if some of us daren’t admit it to ourselves, we are all a little conscious of Christmas weight gain. The trouble for foodies like myself is the best way to socialise is over a meal.
My cookbooks are like a personal journey for me, they’re like a chapter in my life.
Moving to France is not the hard part. Living here is more difficult. Of course there are many benefits but it’s not always easy especially if you don’t speak the language.
I used to have a bit of a thing against starting a meal with soup. I’d find they were often too heavy, filling you up rather than igniting the appetite. Plus, I’d end up mopping it up with scoops of baguette.
Angel cake is an American classic; a delicate meringue gently merged with minimal flour and zero butter, angelic because of its fluffy texture.
Many a Gallic treat is based on a hearty dose of butter.
I am a big fan of spice. It’s not only the intense heat of chilli flakes or a sprinkling of cayenne that gets my taste buds going, but also the deep warmth of cumin and ginger.
