Follow the simple principles of quality meat, cheese and herbs for the perfect patty – and don’t forget a fresh, tangy sauce

I have never seen an Ottolenghi recipe for a burger, be it meaty or vegetarian. How would you construct and garnish your perfect hamburger?
David, Winnipeg, Canada
That’s such a good spot! To be honest, traditional, full-sized burgers are something I tend to seek out from others - passionate people who flip burgers all day, every day – and my must-have condiments for those are proper burger sauce (that is, two parts mustard, one part mayo and one part ketchup), melting American cheese, pickles, raw white onion and iceberg lettuce. And on those rare occasions when I do make a burger at home, I follow similar principles.

Buy the best-quality meat you can afford. I love lamb in my burger patties, but I’ve also been known to use minced turkey thigh. For a lighter, springier patty, breadcrumbs are the obvious choice, but coarsely grated courgette (squeezed to get rid of excess moisture), grated onion and even mashed potato (as in today’s broad bean burger recipe) work really well, too, along with a beaten egg. Cheese such as ricotta, paneer, manouri and feta are also brilliant in a burger, as in the mix for my lamb and oregano meatballs, which can easily be turned into a patty.

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© Photograph: Ola O Smit/The Guardian. Food styling: Tamara Vos. Prop styling: Anna Wilkins.

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© Photograph: Ola O Smit/The Guardian. Food styling: Tamara Vos. Prop styling: Anna Wilkins.

One of those rare videos from The Dodo that isn't unapologetically sappy. This one is more Far Side, I think. Watch This Fish "Drive" To His Mom To Get Treats [3m] is about university researchers who have set goldfish free to drive on land.

Controversial, maybe, but these sandwich fillings dial up the taste factor and fit pretty well in a soft white roll

If I was forced to choose, I’d say I’m a butter, cheese and pickles man. I love mine open and I tend to go for sourdough, even if that does induce eye-rolls from many. I’m talking, of course, about sandwiches, a subject on which everyone has wonderfully strong opinions. What bread to use? Cut it on the diagonal or straight down the middle? Is it OK for anyone over the age of seven to cut off the crusts? And that’s before you even start discussing what’s going inside. Slices of tomato: sublime or soggy? A handful of crisps: critical or criminal? A lettuce leaf or two: lovely or limp? Fish finger sandwiches: right or wrong? Such seemingly innocent questions, yet ones that incite such firm feelings. (My reply to that last question, incidentally, is revealed by today’s first recipe, which takes the concept, dials it up and feels pretty strongly about the presence of a soft white roll.)

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© Photograph: Louise Hagger/The Guardian. Food styling: Emily Kydd. Prop styling: Eden Owen-Jones.

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© Photograph: Louise Hagger/The Guardian. Food styling: Emily Kydd. Prop styling: Eden Owen-Jones.

This south-east Asian favourite is fun to make, easy to adapt and healthy, so get rolling …

Though I enjoy a spring roll as much as the next fried-food fan, the freshness of the Vietnamese summer version has my heart, especially if I’m the one preparing it. Fun to make and easy to adapt to suit different tastes and diets, it’s fortunate they’re so healthy, because once I start rolling, I find it very hard to stop.

Prep 20 min, plus cooling time
Cook 25 min
Makes 8

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© Photograph: Robert Billington/The Guardian. Food styling: Loïc Parisot.

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© Photograph: Robert Billington/The Guardian. Food styling: Loïc Parisot.

Think tinned fish, curry, tahini, soft vegetables in butter … and who says the cheese has to be cheddar?

I’m tight on time lately, so want to have more jacket potato dinners. What toppings can I use other than tuna salad or baked beans and cheddar?
Paloma, Colorado, US
The key with the filling for a jacket potato is to use something that is, er, filling (which is why tuna or baked beans work so well) and to have a rich, creamy element that brings everything together, which is why mayonnaise is such a classic combo with tuna and grated cheese with beans.

Try that mayo with a different protein, though – it works especially well with leftover roast chicken, chopped ham or prawns, say. Or use coleslaw instead, maybe with some chopped fried bacon or pancetta mixed in. Or take the sauce in a curried direction with the likes of coronation chicken; for vegetarians, simply replace the chicken with chickpeas or butter beans.

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© Photograph: Jonathan Lovekin

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© Photograph: Jonathan Lovekin

Kick back, crack open the rosé and enjoy a vibrant, nutty Georgian vegetable paté and grilled lime prawns with courgettes

Whether it’s gorgeous or glacial, I’m determined to eat outside this bank holiday weekend. Fresh air I will find and alfresco I will call it! I’m not even talking a full decamp to the nearest common or heath – picnic planning still feels a bit too wishful; I’m thinking more outside the confines of the kitchen, so garden table, front doorstep, balcony: whatever we have, we should take, I think. Even an open window would count, with a chair perched beside it, plate on knees, searching for the sun.

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© Photograph: Louise Hagger/The Guardian. Food styling: Emily Kydd. Prop styling: Eden Owen-Jones.

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© Photograph: Louise Hagger/The Guardian. Food styling: Emily Kydd. Prop styling: Eden Owen-Jones.

The rich and aromatic Jamaican coconut and fish stew in just a few easy steps

Such is the mystery surrounding this curiously named breakfast favourite that Caribbean chef Riaz Phillips claims that, were he visited by a culinary genie offering to grant three foodie wishes, he’d use one to “ask the lineage and origin of Caribbean rundown”. Citing a dictionary of Jamaican English that describes it as “a kind of sauce made by boiling coconut down til it becomes like custard”, Phillips’ book West Winds suggests an intriguing link with the similarly rich and coconut-based Indonesian rendang, while food writer Melissa Thompson notes parallels with the pepper pots made by Jamaica’s indigenous population.

Whatever the truth, rundown, of Jamaican origins but popular on other islands and in parts of Latin America, too, is beloved – “a rich and textured meal that is most often enjoyed on Sundays, when there is ample time to prepare it, as well as time to leisurely imbibe and digest,” as chefs Michelle and Suzanne Rousseau explain, while for Levi Roots it’s simply a classic. And if all that feels like too much of an effort first thing in the morning, be reassured by Phillips that, when it comes to rundown, “many people (including myself) have decided that being limited to the morning just isn’t long enough”.

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© Photograph: Robert Billington/The Guardian. Food styling: Loïc Parisot.

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© Photograph: Robert Billington/The Guardian. Food styling: Loïc Parisot.

The Basques work wonders with fresh peas: try them with fried cod, fino and jamón, pork belly with fried eggs, goat’s cheese toasts or in crab and pea rice

As with any proud Basque, peas have played a huge part in my culinary education – they even feature in one of my earliest kitchen memories, of five-year-old me podding peas with my mother. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that peas are one of the most important ingredients in our cooking tradition, and we happily eat them for breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner, as well as a raw snack. Every spring, we Basques turn into pea-obsessives, because that’s when guisantes lágrima come into season. They’re much smaller than regular peas, and much, much sweeter, and we cook them every which way, from roasting and frying to stews and salads – they’re so revered that we call them “green caviar”. Lágrima peas are next to impossible to get hold of in the UK, but that’s not to say you can’t use fresh British peas in similarly delicious and varied ways.

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© Photograph: Lizzie Mayson/The Guardian. Food and prop styling: Kitty Coles. Food assistant: Immy Mucklow.

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© Photograph: Lizzie Mayson/The Guardian. Food and prop styling: Kitty Coles. Food assistant: Immy Mucklow.

Food for Fish is an underpants-infused game you can play in your browser thanks to WebGPU, so try it in Chrome, Edge, or Safari Technology Preview. [via waxy.org]

‘Catastrophic’ global decline due to dams, mining, diverting water and pollution threatens humans and ecosystems, study warns

Migratory fish populations have crashed by more than 80% since 1970, new findings show.

Populations are declining in all regions of the world, but it is happening fastest in South America and the Caribbean, where abundance of these species has dropped by 91% over the past 50 years.

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© Photograph: O Humphreys/PA

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© Photograph: O Humphreys/PA

More than 216,000 fish died in 2022-2023, when England recorded a 54% increase in sewage spills

Mass deaths of fish in England’s rivers have increased almost tenfold since 2020, with fears sewage pollution is exterminating life in the country’s waterways.

Environment Agency (EA) data from the past four years shows an alarming rise in the number of fish deaths linked to sewage pollution, with figures escalating from 26,690 in 2020-2021 to 216,135 in 2023-2024.

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© Photograph: Rob Read/Alamy

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© Photograph: Rob Read/Alamy

The Dublin-born chef talks about realising the culinary value of Irish food, plus six recipes from her new cookbook, Cooking with Anna

When Anna Haugh decided to write a cookbook after more than two decades in professional kitchens, pitching her recipes at the right skill level was a challenge. “Trying to simplify and reduce was an interesting learning curve,” says the Dublin-born chef, who opened her restaurant Myrtle in London’s Chelsea five years ago. “Even when I was doing the photoshoot [for the book] I would think, ‘No, that’s a bit too much,’ and I’d remove an element.”

The result is accessible enough for even the most hesitant cooks. It begins, irresistibly, with a section on 20-minute dinners, featuring potato cakes, speedy pasta dishes and a sea bream bake “for which you need zero cooking ability”. But Haugh, who has appeared as a judge on MasterChef, believes that sometimes a little extra effort at the stove can yield outsized rewards. “There are some dishes that might look complicated, but then you do it and realise, I’ve just injected loads of flavour and it wasn’t that hard. There weren’t 15 pots in the sink, a broken marriage and somebody weeping on the floor, questioning their life decisions.”

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© Photograph: Laura Edwards

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© Photograph: Laura Edwards

Faith No More was one of the most influential bands in the 1990s. The song and video for Epic was a hit in the US, Australia and New Zealand. Like many songs, it was about sexual frustration. They weren't the first to mix rap and metal, but they are the ones who have to apologize for it. But about that fish ...

It was the 90's. Maybe he needed the money. It all turned out OK, according to the director. I wonder if Bjork ever forgave them ...

"The average smoker loses 10 years of life. Which means some lose, like, 5 years and some lose like 25. You don't know which one will be you." Smoking is Awesome by Kurzgesagt and How "Anti-Vaping" Ads Trick You Into Vaping by Maggie Mae Fish are two sides of a coin: Maggie Mae Fish explains the media literacy needed to determine what makes effective anti-smoking ads and how tobacco (and now vaping) companies direct policy towards ineffective anti-smoking ads. Kurzgesagt has an informative and effective anti-smoking video.

The brittle star specimen suggests that the sea creatures have been splitting themselves in two to reproduce for more than 150 million years.

Cuttlefish malware platform roaming around enterprise SOHO routers capable of covertly harvesting public cloud authentication data from internet traffic.

The post Cuttlefish Malware Targets Routers, Harvests Cloud Authentication Data  appeared first on SecurityWeek.