‘I am not a chef’: Nigella Lawson Opens Up About Flaws

By MiNDFOOD

Nigella Lawson loves sharing her favourite recipes and 'eating updates' on her Instagram
Nigella Lawson loves sharing her favourite recipes and 'eating updates' on her Instagram
The cooking queen reveals her faults, including how she was once terrified of poaching eggs.

Popular television cook Nigella Lawson has shared the secret to perfecting poached eggs – after admitting she at first found them frightening.

“One of the things I was convinced I could never do was poach an egg,” she revealed during a talk at the Cheltenham Literature Festival. “I had such a fear of egg poaching out of proportion to the task,” reports The Mirror.

The celebrity cook – who insists she is a “home cook” instead of a chef – explained that she learnt how to poach the perfect egg from a French cook and is now an expert in the area. “I have cracked it now. I crack the egg in a tea strainer over a cup and all the very watery bits go underneath,” she explains. “I push it into another cup and I add a teaspoon of lemon juice to the egg white in the cup. I put it into the water, which is almost turned off, and I leave it in there for three or four minutes and I sometimes with my slotted spoon encourage the white to come up in shape. I never do anything with the water.”

Lawson, who has sold more than 12 million cook books around the world, went on to discuss her other cooking flaws.

 “I feel I have eaten much better lemon meringue pies than I have made. I hope that will change one day and it made me come up with a very good lemon meringue cake.”

She added that she doesn’t aspire to be a chef. “I am not a chef, and I don’t try and cook like a chef. I wouldn’t be able to do it and I don’t have any knife skills.”

The humble chef also said she disliked fancy meals and would happily eat home-cooked dishes forever more.

 

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