Things I Love: Ben Slater, Chef, Recipe Developer and Food Stylist

Ben Slater has spent nearly two decades making notes on dishes and turning them into recipes, cutting his teeth in professional kitchens before moving into cookbooks, food styling and recipe development. Over the past few years he has found an even bigger audience online, who he invites into his home kitchen with weekly videos that show how a chef develops a recipe, and the culinary secrets behind their flavour. These recipes range from deceptively simple dishes like bangers and mash to elaborate meals with components prepared months – sometimes years – in advance, like a mushroom risotto with a stock he made six months ago. Now, through his newsletter Notes to Recipes, Slater is giving his ideas a longer shelf life. Inspiration is taken from meals out, nights in, quick lunches and cultural moments, culminating in in-depth recipes informed by obsessive process.

Here are 10 things he loves right now.

One of my favourite dishes in London is the short rib with salsa verde at Half Cut Market. Aidan (the chef/my mate) cooks it super slowly over coals before finishing it super hard and fast.

My routine never involves more than a shower and running a generous amount of this through my wet hair in the morning. It makes it super crispy then I have the satisfying job of fluffing it up into curls an hour or so later.

I have owned two wallets in my life, both of them have been an identical bright orange number from Comme Des Garcons. It’s easy to find on a club floor and isn’t velcro-clad, macho or boring.

Jeremy Lee is one of my favourite chefs, and both the books he has published over the last few years have been stone cold classics. This is his latest.

I cooked at the launch event for Sagamore’s new High Rye bourbon and have a load leftover. I have been shaking it into a sour or three over the last few weeks.

I’m trying to eat less meat at the moment, so have been spending more on dried beans than I ever have. I really love these ones as they cook consistently (old beans aren't mixed with new ones) and they soften to a lovely buttery texture.

I treat my knives pretty awfully, so I tend not to go for anything artisanal. This is my daily driver.

I’m not really a fragrance guy on the whole and never wear perfume (a hangover from kitchens) – but there is something dusty, foraged and magical about this candle. We buy a couple a month.

We get through a case or so of this a week and I wouldn’t say we are “pickle people”.

This is what I’m reading at the moment. And the reason I cried on my commute yesterday. Read. It.

@slaterchef