Dinner from six ingredients or fewer
Every recipe here has six ingredients or fewer, counted honestly from the recipe itself, and each one is a proper meal rather than a snack. Salt, pepper and water are not counted. The catch with short lists is that each ingredient has to earn its place, so the notes say what does the work in each dish.
Honey Teriyaki Salmon
1 of 8
Five ingredients: salmon, oil, soy, sake and sesame. The glaze is mixed, the fish sits in it, and it is pan-fried in a few minutes. This is the fastest dinner in the library.
Thai beef stir-fry
2 of 8
Beef, chilli, oyster sauce, basil and oil. The method is three minutes over a smoking-hot pan, so have everything cut before the oil goes in.
Gambas al ajillo
3 of 8
Prawns, garlic, olive oil, cayenne and parsley. The garlic is cooked gently in the oil first and the prawns go in for a minute or two; bread for the oil is the sixth ingredient nobody counts.
Bean & Sausage Hotpot
4 of 8
Sausages, tomato sauce, butter beans, treacle and mustard in one casserole. Brown the sausages, stir the rest in, lid on for half an hour. The treacle is what makes it taste slow-cooked.
Squash linguine
5 of 8
Roasted butternut squash and garlic tossed through linguine with sage. The squash roasts for forty minutes, which is the only real wait; the pasta water loosens it into a sauce.
Chicken Enchilada Casserole
6 of 8
Four ingredients: chicken, enchilada sauce, corn tortillas and Monterey Jack. The chicken poaches in the sauce, gets shredded, and the whole thing layers like a lasagne.
Vegetarian Chilli
7 of 8
Roasted vegetables, kidney beans, chopped tomatoes and a mixed-grain pouch. Twenty-five minutes in the oven and the grain heats in the microwave. It is a weeknight shortcut and it reads like one.
Migas
8 of 8
Stale bread, olive oil, garlic and pork. The bread is dampened and rested for half an hour before it goes in the pan, which is the step that turns crumbs into a dish.