POPPY O'Toole knows all the kitchen hacks. Whether it's how to slice a plant's worth of cherry tomatoes in half simultaneously (this involves a Tupperware lid and a steady hand) or how to peel garlic bulbs without getting garlicky hands.
"I'm obsessed with garlic," she practically shrieks down the phone. "I'll eat like three bulbs of garlic a week."
You can understand why she's so excited to explain that if you put lots of garlic cloves in a jar and shake it vigorously for a minute or two, the cloves will miraculously be denuded of their papery skins. It's like magic, and you can hear the awe and joy of it in her voice.
It's this sense of happy astonishment - that something could be so easy, so satisfying, so swiftly delicious - that makes O'Toole's debut cookbook, Poppy Cooks (packed with even more hacks), so infectious and come-at-able.
Were it not for the pandemic though, things likely wouldn't have turned out they way they have for the Londoner.
O'Toole (27) has worked in restaurant kitchens since she was 18, but lost her job when Covid kicked in and restaurants locked down. She applied for work at Iceland, but that didn't come off. What did though were the videos she began posting on TikTok @poppycooks.
Her page is both a clever, witty recipe vault - from her go-to tomato sauce to her perfect roast chicken - and an unapologetic ode to the humble potato.
O'Toole is 'Queen of Potatoes' and a potato TikTok acolyte - mashed, roasted, crispy, golden, buttery, any which way, she loves them.
"They've been everything for me," she says, quite seriously. "I find them very versatile. They can go in nearly everything. They go with nearly everything." They are, in fact, a cheap meal in a skin.
Now, a "crazy" 18 months and 1.8 million followers on, her potato related antics and all-encompassing enthusiasm for home cooking has landed her that cookbook. One designed to have you making classics (steak and chips, lasagne) and basic staples (white sauce, vinaigrette) as well as dishes that pop with fun (prawn tacos, potato bhaji butty).
Poppy Cooks, she hopes, is more an uplifting learning tool than just a recipe book, that will "build confidence" and teach you simple skills you can use in multiple ways.
"People get embarrassed a little bit to ask these questions, because they should know how to chop an onion apparently," she says, "but you don't, no one really always knows this sort of thing."
Be embarrassed no more, she seems to say.
O'Toole's interest in food can be traced to her Nanny Vicky, "the heart of the family" who died when O'Toole was around 10. She recalls with a laugh the "cremated" lamb chops they'd all eat and enjoy for Sunday lunch, and the "massive impact" her grandmother had on her.
"It was like having a hug every time she cooked for me," says O'Toole. "She just showed me that food is love. And you can really show somebody how much you care about them through making them a meal."
And if you cook without that care, she says, "you can taste there's nothing there."
A lack of care is not something you could ever level at O'Toole. As a teenager, her after-school job - and first job in hospitality - involved jumping in the car to "bomb it down to the nursing home" for 4.30pm. She'd sit with residents "and just to be able to help them and maybe make their day a little bit better by talking to them and giving them their corned beef hash and a cup of tea, was really lovely," she remembers.
"It taught me, again, that food is more than just energy and a need. It's actually something people really appreciate and love."
The practical side of things, like learning how to clean down and sterilise a kitchen thoroughly, "well that was handy as well".
It's experience that stood her well in the kitchens of Michelin-starred restaurants, but she's hoping to crack the perfect "facade" around fine dining.
"I want to show people that actually, even if you are a bit clumsy in the kitchen, you can still have a career out of it, and you can still enjoy it," she explains.
"I'm not a perfect chef. Even though I'm professional, I'm not polished."
Holding yourself to exceptional culinary standards at home though is not what cooking for yourself and your family is about.
"You can make food that's a little bit grubby round the sides, who cares? It's your own food. It's delicious, you're still making something at the end of the day, don't be scared to make mistakes because you think it needs to be perfect. You don't need that. Who cares? Just eat and enjoy yourself."
O'Toole has personally found that the cliché fits: you really do learn from your mistakes. "You make a mistake, you don't want to make it again, especially in a professional kitchen," she says - not if you want to avoid being yelled at.
Does she miss restaurant life? "Part of me does. It's weird, because you go, 'Oh, but I was working 78 hours a week', why would you miss it?"
On the macho, shouty chef front, O'Toole does think change is happening, if slowly. "There's been a vicious cycle of the people who are doing it, they were treated that way. And it's quite difficult to break, but it's getting there, and we will break it and there will be a change. And hopefully, the toxicity will leave. Because otherwise I don't think the hospitality industry will thrive as much as it should."
And ultimately, O'Toole wants everyone to be thriving, cooking and eating well. "You can do it. You need to be proud of yourself. Take a picture [of what you've cooked], show it off to your friends. Make it for somebody else if you want to," she says, full of encouragement.
"From a year of quite negative stuff, it's quite nice to have some positivity coming through," she says, and adds gleefully that there should be no food guilt whatsoever. "Please put the butter in, please."
::Poppy Cooks: The Food You Need by Poppy O'Toole, photography by Louise Hagger, is published by Bloomsbury, £16.99.
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Easy flat breads
(Makes 4)
250g/9oz plain flour, plus extra for dusting
250g/9oz Greek yogurt (or 125ml/½ cup warm water + 2 tbsp vegetable oil, if you're vegan)
1tsp onion seeds, poppy seeds or sesame seeds
1tsp baking powder
Salt and black pepper
Method:
1. This is literally so easy... in a bowl mix all the ingredients - flour, yogurt, seeds, baking powder and seasoning - into a dough. Knead for about three minutes, to a soft but not sticky ball. Cover with a clean tea towel and leave for 10 minutes to rest.
2. Cut the ball into four equal pieces and use a rolling pin to roll each one out to a thin round. You're aiming for them to be about 12cm/5 inches in diameter - but don't worry if they look rustic in shape. Set aside the rolled-flat flat breads on a lightly floured surface.
3. Place a large, dry frying pan over a high heat. Leave it to get hot, then throw in the first flat bread - no oil, no butter, nothing... just dry, hot heat.
4. Once bubbles start to form in the dough (about 30 seconds) and you've got a little bit of char on the underside, flip over the flat bread and cook the other side for about 30 seconds, to get a little bit of char there, too. Keep warm while you do the same with the remaining three flat breads. That's it, remove from the pan and serve (or cool and tightly wrap to store).
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Tikka salmon
(Serves 4)
1 recipe quantity of Easy Flat Breads
For the salmon:
400g/14oz boneless salmon fillet (skin on)
3tbsp tandoori masala powder
2tbsp Greek or coconut-milk yogurt
Juice of 1 lemon
1tbsp olive oil
Salt and black pepper
For the cucumber salad:
Juice of 1 lime
½ cucumber, sliced into ribbons (To get ribbons from a cucumber, simply use a speed peeler and slice off lengths in the same spot all the way through. Behold - a pile of long, thin cucumber ribbons)
A small bunch of coriander, leaves picked and chopped
A small bunch of mint, leaves picked and chopped
A pinch of flaky salt
To serve:
Mango chutney
1 red chilli, sliced into rounds (optional; deseeded for less heat)
Bombay mix (optional)
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 200C/180C fan/400F/Gas 6. Line a baking tray with baking paper.
2. Make the flat breads, following the recipe above
3. Pat the fish dry with kitchen paper, then place it on to the lined tray.
4. Mix all the remaining salmon ingredients in a bowl to create a marinade, then use this for smothering your salmon. You want a nice, thick layer.
5. Leave the salmon to marinate at room temperature for 10 minutes, then put the tray in the oven and bake the salmon for 20 minutes, until opaque and cooked through.
6. Meanwhile, make the cucumber salad. Mix together the lime juice, the cucumber ribbons and both the herbs. Season with the salt and set aside.
7. Heat a dry frying pan over a high heat until it's smoking hot. Place the flat breads in the pan and warm through. (Or reheat them in a microwave.) Set aside and keep them warm until you're ready to use.
8. Once the salmon is ready, smother the flat breads in mango chutney, top with gorgeous flakes of pink salmon and cover with your cucumber salad. I like to add an extra kick with some slices of chilli, and texture with extra-crunchy Bombay mix. That's it. Fold and eat.
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Slow-roasted harissa lamb shoulder
(Serves 4–6)
2 quantities of Easy Flat Breads, for 8 flat breads
For the lamb:
2tbsp rose harissa paste
3tbsp ras el hanout
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
5 garlic cloves, peeled
1tbsp light brown soft sugar
6 thyme sprigs, leaves picked
6 rosemary sprigs, leaves picked
2tbsp almond butter
2tbsp olive oil
1.4–1.5kg/3–3 ¼lb lamb shoulder on the bone
For the couscous:
200g/7oz couscous
Seeds of 1 pomegranate
A small bunch of mint, leaves picked and chopped
A small bunch of flat-leaf parsley, leaves picked and chopped
5–6 black or green olives, pitted and sliced
1tbsp dried oregano
Juice of 1 lemon
Salt and black pepper
Method:
1. Start this the night before you want to cook. Place all of the lamb ingredients apart from the meat itself into a blender and blitz to a smooth paste to make a marinade.
2. With a knife, make some little incisions into the lamb shoulder to help the marinade get right into the meat. Rub and massage the marinade into the shoulder like it's date night, until it's completely covered.
3. Transfer the lamb to a roasting tin, cover with foil and place it in the fridge overnight (or for a minimum of six hours).
4. Make the flat breads
5. Put the couscous into a container big enough to allow it to double in size and pour in 400ml/about one-and-a-half cups of cold water. Cover the bowl and transfer it to the fridge. Leave this overnight, too.
6. Remove the meat from the fridge 30 minutes before you intend to start cooking so that it can come up to room temperature, and preheat the oven to 190C/170C fan/375F/Gas 5.
7. When you're ready to cook, roast the lamb, still covered with the foil, for four hours, until it is charred a little on the outside and the meat is tender and pulls apart.
8. Drain the couscous through a fine sieve, so you don't lose any of it. Mix all of the other couscous ingredients into it. Season with salt and pepper to taste and leave on the side to come up to room temperature.
9. Towards the end of the lamb cooking time, heat a dry frying pan over a high heat until it's smoking hot. Place the flat breads in the pan and warm through. (Or reheat them in a microwave.)
10. Either serve your massive hunk of delicious lamb in the tin as it comes, or transfer it to a wooden board and pour all of the sauce that is left in the bottom of the roasting tin into a little jug.
11. Just let people dig and tear into this huge, sharing-lamb deliciousness, with the warmed flat breads, the couscous and the sauce served alongside.
