A British kitchen exploring American soul food
Soul food, made from scratch in a British kitchen
Real recipes, honest ingredient swaps, and everything I’ve learned cooking this food from 3,000 miles away.
“I’m not from the South. I became obsessed with this food and figured out how to make it work in a British kitchen — one recipe at a time.”
Start here — everything I wish I’d known
What the holy trinity is, why collard greens need low and slow heat, and where to track down the ingredients you can’t get at Tesco. Everything I figured out so you don’t have to start from scratch.
Read the beginner’s guide →Latest Posts
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Easy Soul Food Peach Cobbler
Cobbler has deep roots in African American home cooking, traditionally built from whatever fruit was on hand and topped with a quick biscuit-style dough rather than a rolled pastry crust. That’s the detail that separates a soul food cobbler from a British-style crumble: the topping here is soft, pillowy, and slightly bread-like, closer to a…
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No Buttermilk? Here’s the UK Substitute That Actually Works
If you’ve ever stood in the baking aisle looking for buttermilk and come away empty-handed, you’re not imagining things. It’s not a fridge staple here the way it is in the US, and most UK recipes just quietly assume you’ll work around it. The good news is that a substitute takes minutes to make with…
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Candied Yams: A Soul Food Classic Made Simple
If you’ve come across “candied yams” on a soul food menu and pictured actual yams, you’re in good company. Here’s the twist: despite the name, the classic American version of this dish is made almost entirely with sweet potatoes, not true yams at all. Once that’s cleared up, this is a wonderfully simple, comforting side…
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Traditional Southern Fried Chicken: Method, UK Substitutions & Tips
Most fried chicken recipes online skip the “why” entirely. They hand you a list of steps and expect you to trust it. This guide walks through the traditional method properly: the buttermilk brine, the seasoned dredge, the frying technique, and why each part matters, then bridges the gap for UK readers who can’t always find…
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Sunday Soul Food Dinner: A Full Menu and How to Plan It
A proper Sunday soul food dinner is built around one protein, two or three sides, a bread, and something sweet to finish, all timed so they land on the table together rather than in stages. This guide sets out a complete, tested menu using five recipes from this site, plus the cooking order that gets…
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Cornbread Recipe: The Only Soul Food Cornbread You Need
There are a thousand cornbread recipes online. This isn’t going to hedge like most of them. Soul food cornbread isn’t sweet, it isn’t a cake, and getting the crust right is everything. If you’ve been making cornbread out of a box mix, or a version loaded with sugar, this is going to change how you…
