What Dad Cooked is a collection of our dad’s recipes, thoughts, tips and cooking hacks that simply need to be shared with all you foodies!

Be Inspired
Seasonal Favourites

Some delicious seasonal summer family recipes to choose from the What Dad Cooked repertoire.

Asparagus Vignarola Pappardelle

This recipe uses a vignarola recipe but combines with pasta. A very good combination…

Asparagus and Tuna Sesame

It’s a Japanese way to mix sesame sauces in with food – I suspect the reason is because the sauce is so good it can’t help being slipped into all sorts of dishes…

Rosehip Syrup Recipe From Foraged Wild Dog Rose Hips

Food-for-free and foraging is the way. A diverse recipe to make your own rosehip syrup. Full of vitamins and goodness, try with yogurt or even rice pudding.

Jerk Pork with Jerk Sauce and Mango & Pineapple Relish

‘Summer is here! Time to go to your local butchers, pick up some good meat and fire up the BBQ! Try out dad’s tasty Caribbean Jerk marinade with a yummy mango and pineapple relish!’

Latest recipes

Check out Dad's latest homecooked dishes and recipes below. Or click recipes in the menu to browse through 6+ years of Dad's homecooking recipes for families.

Cassoulet de Toulouse à la Pappa

A perfect winter warmer – Cassoulet!

The Laughing Cow Lightest Loaded Quesadilla

Try Dad’s loaded low-fat salsa quesadillas with The Laughing Cow Lightest x8 cheese.

Melanzane Parmigiana with Dolmio 7 Vegetables Sun Ripened Tomato & Basil Pasta Sauce

An excellent way to turn a popular Italian slow food standard into an easy and quicker family classic.

Pumpkin Pie

My best pumpkin pie yet!

Asaparagus

A seasonal favourite ingredient of Dad's, so much so he made a 30 recipe series about the green spears! Try these recipes whilst asparagus can still be found locally.

Asparagus, Plaice and Maltaise Mousse Canapes

This is a spin on Escoffier’s white asparagus with sauce maltaise. The two are often served as an accompaniment for a white fish such as turbot. Here the fish is plaice rolled around asparagus and a maltaise mousse and served as a canapé.

Asparagus Vinaigrette with Soft Egg and Parmesan

A really easy and tasty starter or light lunch or supper. Make during summer when home-grown asparagus might still be available.

Dad’s Japanese style Asparagus Tempura Soba

This is a classic Japanese way with soba and tempura. Strickly speaking the asparagus tempura is kaki-age, made like a tempura fritter rather than individual spears coated in tempura. But such academic details seem trivial when it comes to tempura – any tempura is amazing – especially asparagus!

Asparagus and Potato Samosas

This is an asparagus spin on a pea and potato samosa. I’ve held back on some of the spices to allow the asparagus to shine through.

Dad's Food Journal

Dad loves to write about food. Whether it's discovering a new road local to London or Surrey, where the treasures of foodie stores and independent shops delight—or Dad's macro observations in the world of food. Dad's articles (and foodie stories to his recipes) are a funny and knowledgable journey through the lense of how pops views the world.

To Confit or Not to Confit

How can we say we’re ‘worth our salt’ unless we’ve submitted to the mysteries and heartaches of the confit and lived to tell the tale?

Why You Should Try Octopus: A Pro Octopus Blog Post by Dad

Octopus will divide your audience – it’s a ‘Marmite’ type of food: you either love it or hate it. But why all the fuss? We eat all manner of odd things from the sea. So here’s why you should try octopus…

10 Coffee Shops to Stop by on your Foodie Travels

We’ve been searching for the top foodie streets in London, but all that walking around requires a coffee break (or two)! Here’s What Dad Cooked’s top 10 favourite coffee shops.

Fish Friday

Last Friday I was passing the fish counter in my local supermarket when I noticed festoons of bunting announcing ‘Fish Friday!’



ADVERTISEMENT

GET THE LATEST STUFF!

Sign up to the WDC newsletter for the latest recipes, foodie stories and ingredient specials!

© What Dad Cooked, 2026. Privacy Policy. Terms and Conditions. Twitter Instagram