<p>What is the one dish you know you have truly mastered, perhaps better than anyone else? We put this tantalising question to eight top chefs.</p><p>Discover our collection of <a href="/recipes/collection/british-comfort-food-recipes">comfort food recipes</a> for recipe inspiration, then browse through our line-up of <a href="/recipes/collection/quick-recipes">quick dinner ideas</a>, <a href="/recipes/collection/healthy-recipes">healthy recipes</a> and <a href="/recipes/collection/cheap-eat-recipes">budget dinners</a>.</p><p>Listen to the weekly <a href="/feature/podcasts">Good Food podcast</a> for more tips, techniques and recipes from top chefs, celebs and home cooks.</p><h2 id="1-chetna-makan-cookbook-author-and-bake-off-finalist-c96959ab">1. Chetna Makan, cookbook author and Bake Off finalist</h2><p>“I think I make a mean butter chicken. I also definitely do the best parathas – the stuffed flatbreads like an aloo paratha and gobi paratha. I think I get the right balance: there are parathas with too much dough and too little filling. And then sometimes there’s too much filling and then not enough dough, or the filling hasn’t got enough seasoning. I take the time."</p>
<img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/30/2026/03/Brandsitehomepage-carousel-1800×1068-eb73f9c.jpg" width="1880" height="1068" alt="Chetna Makan in a kitchen setting" title="Chetna Makan landscape carousel" />
<h2 id="2-clare-smyth-michelin-starred-chef-f8a73b1f">2. Clare Smyth, Michelin-starred chef</h2><p>"Beef bourguignon. It’s got to go into that pot that goes into an oven. It’s really important to be able to caramelise all the beef really well, so I like the big wide base ones, like a chicken fryer. You roast the beef rather than fry it, to get really nice caramelisation in that pan first. You want nice diced cubes of chuck steak, and then roast it all up, so you get that lovely Maillard reaction, caramelisation, because that’s where the flavour is being built.</p><p>"Then you tip off any excess fat, put all the vegetables in there, put the beef back in, lid on and whack it in the oven. I do the little shallots too, tiny baby onions, pearl onions. I pour boiling water over them to soften them and then peel them – but your hands look like you’ve had fake tan basically. I buy the frozen ones."</p>
<img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/30/2026/08/Clare-Smyth-77535cc.jpg" width="3360" height="3500" alt="Clare Smyth headshot" title="Clare Smyth" />
<h2 id="3-vivek-singh-indian-chef-and-restaurateur-28bd07bb">3. Vivek Singh, Indian chef and restaurateur</h2><p>"I think I make a really good biryani, better than most people do. But it’s only when I’m really invested in it. And so a lot of it depends on who I’m cooking for.</p><p>"The biryani is done in a huge pot and you put the dough over the top. It’s a celebration dish when you’re feeding lots of people but it’s such a therapeutic process of making it. I’m going to marinate some raw meat, put it at the bottom of the pan and then I’m going to put some par-cooked rice on top, and I’m going to seal it with the dough. Then I’m going to put it on a flame where the heat’s coming from the bottom, and your rice will not get overcooked, and your meat will be cooked just right, and it will smell beautiful. I’ve been cooking it for decades and yet, every time, it’s a slightly different conversation with the pot. It’s a slightly different connection. And you’re listening to it, you’re hearing what kind of sounds are coming, what kind of vapour, it’s just a beautiful connection."</p>
<img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/30/2026/08/viveksinghcinnamonclubbygarywilliams-1618312675033540517525604-d77b060.jpg" width="3600" height="2400" alt="Vivek Singh" title="Vivek Singh" />
<h2 id="4-nigel-ng-aka-uncle-roger-malaysian-cookbook-author-restaurateur-and-content-creator-d16d8343">4. Nigel Ng aka Uncle Roger, Malaysian cookbook author, restaurateur and content creator</h2><p>"I think at this point in my career it has to be fried rice. I’ve filmed it so many times. I’ve filmed it with so many different other food creators and they all want to bring their own little twist to it. So I figured out how to make all these things taste good in a fried rice dish. And as a result my fried rice skills have improved a lot."</p>
<img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/30/2026/08/HeadshotNigel-Ng-8f9c52e.jpg" width="1200" height="1345" alt="Nigel Ng headshot" title="Nigel Ng headshot" />
<h2 id="5-itamar-srulovich-co-founder-of-honey-co-restaurant-b9aa411c">5. Itamar Srulovich, co-founder of Honey & Co restaurant</h2><p>"Eggs I’m good at, specifically my father’s omelette, but any eggs really. It’s all in the wrist.</p><p>"I also feel that I’m the only person in the world who understands how to cook chicken breast properly. People overcook it – you need to be a little bit brave because you need to pull it out before it’s completely cooked and let it rest. And I feel that I’m the only person on earth that can do it instinctively. But now everyone can because it’s in the book!"</p>
<img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/30/2026/08/20230911HoneyCoDaily537PatriciaNiven-d54c74e.jpg" width="1701" height="1134" alt="Sarit Packer headshot" title="Sarit Packer" />
<h2 id="6-si-king-cook-and-broadcaster-3f61d139">6. Si King, cook and broadcaster</h2><p>"It’s my mum’s recipe, for flat rib broth. It’s a piece of flat rib, and you make a frito with onions, a little bit of garlic, carrots, celery, and get a little bit of colour on there. Some yellow split peas, some green split peas, pearl barley, and you sauté that off a little bit, with a little bit of oil and a knob of butter. Then a really good beef stock, or you can use chicken or veggie stock if you like. You buy the whole rib, half it, and put it side by side in a big stock pot, and leave it on the stove top for three hours.</p><p>In that three hours, you make your stottie, which is a local flatbread we have in the Northeast. It’s leaven bread. You let it prove once, then knock it back and let it prove again, then smash the dough off the table top, shape it and put your thumb in the middle of it. It’s ready for the oven when your thumbprint starts to rise. Then you put it in the bottom of the oven, cover it with butter and eat it with your flat rib."</p>
<img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/30/2026/05/Si-King-Headshot-d8c685c.jpg" width="1229" height="1600" alt="Si King" title="Si King" />
<h2 id="7-niklas-ekstedt-swedish-michelin-starred-chef-and-restaurateur-37670667">7. Niklas Ekstedt, Swedish Michelin-starred chef and restaurateur</h2><p>"I have a couple of dishes that I do better than anyone else because I’m the only one that does them. Being raised among Sámi people, we’ve had the incredible game meat and reindeer meat, and they taught me how to cook and prepare this type of game. Small game, especially the offals of game, hardly anyone wants – sometimes they throw them out but I tend to really cook them.</p><p>I have that one dish I’ve done for a long time. It’s not on the menu at the moment but I do it at home still. It’s venison or reindeer heart, freshly cut and then fried in a cast iron bowl, sizzling next to the table, with lingonberries and the flatbread. It’s almost like a sort of Korean barbecue, and I use a little bit of dry spice in there, like juniper."</p>
<img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/30/2026/06/HH-Niklas-Ekstedt-The-Swedish-Cookbook-Day-9-Niklas-Cover-Portraits-050-BW-50cf8f3.jpg" width="1182" height="1772" alt="Niklas Ekstedt headshot" title="Niklas Ekstedt" />
<h2 id="8-tamar-adler-chef-writer-and-author-33ca2503">8. Tamar Adler, chef, writer and author</h2><p>"Nobody makes beans as good as mine. I think I dote over them. Part of being super lazy and not cooking a lot of different things, I make a pot of something, and then there’s rice and bread. But that gives you time to dote over your one thing. I know how good beans can be. I know they can be exquisite, transportive, so luscious that you would never want to eat anything else, that you would think if I only ate these beans for the rest of my life, I would be happy. They can be like that, and I insist that they are like that when I make them.</p><p>"I will not take beans off the stove unless five eaten sequentially are perfectly tender. Even when there’s other stuff going on, and I get tempted, if I taste four and one has a tiny bit of crunch left, I’ll turn it off. Some bean genie inside of me rises and says ‘don’t do this’. There’s always a chance somebody at your table has yet to be converted to beans, so if you ever miss an opportunity to evangelise, you will have missed part of your mission here on earth."</p>
<img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/30/2026/05/Tamar-AdlerPortrait-Image-Credit-Georgia-Hilmer-179c8c1.jpg" width="3275" height="2171" alt="Tamar Adler" title="Tamar Adler" />
