Speedy recipes that taste like you’ve been cooking all day

Born in Dublin, Anna trained as a professional chef and is the owner of Chelsea restaurant, Myrtle. She has worked with Gordon Ramsay and has appeared on numerous TV shows including BBC MasterChef: The Professionals.

I was lucky to cook alongside my mother as soon as I could stand, and from the first day I helped her to make dinner in our bright orange kitchen in Tallaght, Dublin, I loved it. Cooking is in my bones and sharing is in my nature. Everything about it suited me – and still does – from the wonderful aromas lifting from the pans and the sneaky tastes you can steal as you cook, to the fact that I am always at my best when keeping myself busy.

Out of that sunny orange kitchen flew mackerel coated with oats and fried boxty potato pancakes, Dublin coddle filled with sausages and (yes) potatoes, Irish stew, lamb chops, a seemingly endless supply of fresh scones, and always apple tart cooked on a large dinner plate.

For a long time, Irish cooking languished in the doldrums, overlooked both by us Irish – not as mindful of its heritage as we might have been – and by everyone else. Happily, in recent years, the mood couldn’t be more different. Irish food has everything to offer: wonderful ingredients with impeccable provenance and rich traditions, as well as a dynamic approach to modernity.

From every city I’ve worked in, I’ve kept a battered, scrappy notebook crammed with the dishes and kitchen secrets I learned there. In my book, Cooking with Anna, I’ve combined those classic recipes – as well as others from my own family – with my top insider’s tips for how you can create delicious, beautiful plates of food at home with minimal fuss, and how you can elevate them to restaurant standard.

Although cooking is a pleasure, I have many days when there isn’t enough time to spend hours in the kitchen preparing a feast. Here, I’ve shared recipes that don’t take long, but which taste like you’ve been cooking all day. When you need something speedy and yummy, these are the dishes you want.

Cooking with Anna: Modern Home Cooking with Irish Heart, by Anna Haugh (Bloomsbury, £26), is out now. Find more of her recipes here.