Rukmini Iyer - The Roasting Tin: Simple One Dish Dinners

The Roasting Tin is a deliciously simple concept: fresh, easy ingredients, five minutes prep, and let the oven do the work.

Like one-pot dinners but using the oven rather than the hob, this is convenience cooking without scrimping on flavour or health. It is for anyone who:
wants to eat quick, tasty and interesting dinners, with little more effort than opening a ready-meal.
wants to eat nutritious food made from scratch that fits around their busy lives.
does not like washing up!

From chicken traybakes to supergrains to puddings, these one-dish recipes cover the gamut of delicious dinners. And once you have mastered the concept there are handy infographics for each chapter so you can create your own recipes. From chipotle chicken with sweet potato wedges, coriander and lime yoghurt to salmon la pesto with giant couscous, watercress and lemon, these recipes are quick, clever and incredibly delicious.

Rukmini is a food stylist and food writer, formerly a lawyer. She loves creating new recipes and making food look beautiful for shoots, and when shes not styling, cooking or entertaining, she can usually be found reading by the riverside, or filling her balcony with more plants than it can hold.

This is not a conventional cookbook in that once youve tried a few recipes and are happy with the principle (stick everything in a roasting tin, pop the tin in the oven, eat), you can, and indeed should, use the infographics in the chapter openers to create any number of your own recipes, filleting useful information like oven timings and temperatures from the charts at the beginning of each chapter. In the mood for salmon with roasted red peppers, onions and thyme rather than chicken? Swap them, and borrow the oven temperature and timings as needed. Got vine tomatoes staring at you reproachfully from the fruit bowl? Stick them in, and let them get gloriously blistered with everything else.

Use roasting tins, lasagne dishes (glass, ceramic) or shallow casserole pans anything ovenproof will do. And for recipes that feed a crowd, like the smoky roast bonfire night sausages and sweet potatoes (), consider using the very large metal roasting tray that comes fitted as standard in most ovens.

The recipes in each chapter are organised by speed towards the beginning of each youll find recipes that roast in under 30 minutes, progressing to trays that you can leave in the oven for an hour or so. A few, designed for lazy weekend lunches, will sit happily for three hours after minimal prep, like the harissa lamb ().

Most recipes will serve four, and any leftovers make for really superior next day lunches. The orzo with broccoli () are particularly good if you plan to induce lunchbox envy among your colleagues.

While the design of the book is to cook everything in the same tin, which works particularly well in the grains chapter with pearl barley, spelt or cous cous, if it is significantly quicker to stick a pan of boiling water on for accompanying carbs (rice or pasta), then I have suggested that instead. The timings in the recipes are such that your traybake and low-effort pan will be finished at the same time always preferable.

The nicest thing about traybakes is that they are both versatile and forgiving. They require the barest minimum in terms of effort a little light chopping to start, tasting and adjusting the salt or lemon juice at the end and, most importantly they leave you free to do something else while dinner looks after itself have a bath, help the children with their homework, or, my preferred option, flop on the sofa with a glass of wine, reading Nora Ephron on crisp potatoes and true love. (Ideally with crisp potatoes ticking over in the oven.)

A well-stocked store cupboard allows you to transform staple fresh ingredients chicken, fish, vegetables into something different and interesting with each traybake. Have the following on hand:

SHARP: Keep small pots of strong Dijon mustard, olive tapenade, fresh or jarred pesto and rose harissa on standby in the fridge to dress even the simplest traybake.

SWEET: Root vegetables, chicken and sausages all benefit from the judicious use of sweetness, alongside other flavours try honey, maple syrup or agave they all combine well with mustard or spices.

SAVOURY: You dont have to get fussy with the type of salt that you use this book calls for flaked sea salt from preference, but by all means use fine ground if you prefer.

Texture is all-important for a traybake, as it is for any dish keep whole almonds, hazelnuts, pistachios and pine nuts in the fridge, and a couple of packets of panko breadcrumbs in the cupboard as a quick topping for fish or vegetable dishes.

Add instant interest and can be combined in endless variations. Keep a mix of the classics ground cumin, coriander, fennel seeds and smoked paprika alongside the now popular and easily available sumac, ras el hanout and zaatar.

The key to a successful roasting tray olive oil will do for almost anything, try toasted sesame for Asian dishes, or coconut if you are that way inclined. Lots of people arent its fine.

You are always going to need red and white onions and garlic, so keep them in the cupboard, and ginger in the fridge. Lemons and limes are an essential standby for sharpness and interest, either as zest or juice and youll often find a squeeze of lemon juice a more effective seasoning than an extra pinch of salt.