With hearty stews such as beef in ale with dumplings, or Lancashire hotpot, we tend to think of one-pot cooking as a winter pursuit. But to a one-pot aficionado like Alan Rosenthal, they are equally suited to spring or summer.
“This style of dish exists throughout the world, but they’re just not necessarily called stews,” he says. “An Italian casserole with cannellini beans, cherry tomatoes and white wine is a one-pot dish, but no one would claim you can’t eat it after March.” It’s simply a way of marrying up robust flavours and saving on the washing up. “It’s not about putting on a slow cooker for three hours. Paella is a one-pot dish as much as the warm beetroot and feta recipe here, which is ready in minutes.”
Rosenthal is the man behind Stewed!, whose pots you’ll see on supermarket shelves. He started out selling 20 tubs of chorizo, chickpea and pork at a farmers’ market and four years later sells up to 10,000 pots a day. For him, it’s all about gutsy flavours, come rain or shine.
Alan Rosenthal (steweduk.co.uk) will be teaching one-pot cooking at Leiths cookery school on May 11 (leiths.com)