ARRIVING HOME TO a dark kitchen and an empty fridge can be difficult to face, but it’s also the perfect opportunity to brighten up your evening with colourful, fresh food, packed with delicious flavours. And Mediterranean cooking can be the perfect place to start.

So, let this be the winter that you become a dinner aficionado. And looking south is a great for inspiration and making healthier choices in the kitchen, says professional chef and managing director of ReliefChefs.ie, Austin Lawrence:

Mediterranean cooking has gotten us away from using too much dairy and instead rely on the likes of oils instead, which are so easy to infuse with flavour.

Whether it’s a delicious Spanish-style paella like the photo above or a creamy pasta dish, here are a few simple things that he says you can do easily to create restaurant-standard meals in your kitchen (with a pinch of inspiration from the Mediterranean). Deliver-who?

1. Liven up your cupboards with spices

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“A good selection of ingredients is paramount”, urges Lawrence, who reminds that dried herbs and spices have a brilliant shelf life. And a lack of them can make cooking overwhelming: “It can be daunting to open a cookery book and think I don’t have that. You have to have something to work with.” 

Dried spices are an excellent way to season a fresh piece of meat or fish and Lawrence has a few that he feels every kitchen should have to hand: He suggests stocking up on cumin, a “very good garam masala” and five spice. 

2. Keep your herbs ultra-fresh by using your freezer

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Think the ‘mixed herb’ bottle you got when you moved in might be past its prime? Chefs are moving away from herb jars and towards the freezer:

The best ones out there are freeze-dried rather than dried which are nearly gone. They freeze them straight away when they’re fresh and you just shake them out directly from the container for stuffing or fish.

You can get these in most good supermarkets. Wondering what to stock up on when it comes to herbs? Dill, fennel and coriander offer a good variety of flavours, says Lawrence who echoes they can transform an otherwise bland dinner. “Herbs definitely elevate any meal, they’ve a lovely green colour, flavour and freshness that works with everything.”

3. Make life easier with a good quality knife

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This tip isn’t just going to make your dinner prep easier – it will prevent you from injuring yourself, explains Lawrence, who says that if your knife isn’t sharp it’s actually dangerous: “If it’s blunt and you’re cutting an apple or an avocado you’ll put more pressure on it and it can slip and that’s how you can get badly cut.”

4. Treat yourself to a good quality olive oil

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Though you may always reach for olive oil to cook, don’t forget that frying is an opportunity to lock in other flavours just as they do in the Mediterranean, says Lawrence:

I’d change the oil depending on what I was making. Make sure you have a good quality olive oil for times when you don’t want to over-flavour.

This is also especially important when it comes to dressings for salads: “There’s nothing worse than having dressing sitting at the bottom of the bowl”, says Lawrence. And to avoid this, get some extra virgin olive oil, which sticks to leaves better as it is thicker. “I would go five parts oil and one part balsamic vinegar but taste as you go”.

5. Use your freezer to lock in flavour

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If your freezer currently looks like a frozen wasteland with just a few sad burger buns, it’s time to give it some TLC, says Lawrence, who maintains that freezing dinners will make your workload miniscule in comparison to cooking every night:

Make enough for 6-8 and freeze it in portions in tupperware so if you are home late all you have to do is take out your pasta or curry and defrost it.

In relation to freezing meat, make things simple for yourself by opting for lamb and beef, says Lawrence: “Pork and chicken are harder to heat up from frozen so don’t use them. Lamb and beef  tend to carry flavour a lot better anyway.”

6. Keep your dinners lively by only using fresh pasta

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Guilty of waiting so long for your pasta it boils over? This tip won’t just make your meals tastier – it will absolutely cut cooking time in half as fresh egg pasta will cook in four or five minutes once you drop it into boiling water.  Although it’s “one of the most versatile dishes”, Lawrence shares his own go-to quick dinner:

The tastiest thing to add would be cream and smoked salmon, which has a long shelf life. Just throw it into a frying pan with cream, onion and white wine and there’s no need to season it as it’s already salted.

7. Inject some zest with unexpected vegetable combinations

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When it comes to making a tasty salad, variety is key says Lawrence: “Never use just one type of leaves, they have so many different flavours – rocket is peppery while iceberg is watery and plain.”

In the supermarket reach for the mixed leaves, where you’ll get about seven or eight different leaves. The rest of the salad? It’s a chance for you to experiment with flavour, says Lawrence: 

You can add anything from a chopped apple with an avocado, or chopped beetroot with melon. You can also add salty nuts to lift the flavours and dried pumpkin seeds for crunch.

8. Leave your steak to warm up a little before you fry

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Although steak can be one of the most simple dishes to serve up, it can sometimes be the most difficult. So where do most people go wrong? “Using the heat too high is definitely a big one”, shares Lawrence, who tells us how it’s done in professional kitchens:

Most importantly, don’t have the steak too cold – if at all possible have it at room temperature so the fibres don’t contract and you get more tender meat.

Here you want to season both sides with salt and pepper, start off on a very hot pan to seal both sides but then turn it down and cook to your own liking. It should be done in ten minutes, says Lawrence.

9. Let your slow cooker welcome you home

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Especially if you’re not confident in the kitchen, a slow cooker essentially means that you never have to worry about burning anything: “It carries huge flavour and you don’t have multiple pots on the go that all need to be washed up”.

Here’s a warming treat to try this week that Lawrence promises is the ultimate comfort food when coming in from the cold in winter: 

Get yourself some good quality lamb shanks, add root vegetables like parsnips, red wine and onions. Slow cook it and all the flavours will melt together.

No matter what you cook this winter, Don Carlos is Ireland’s favourite olive oil brand, grown, pressed and bottled in the Andalucía region of southern Spain, which boasts some of the world’s best olive groves. Check out their full range in supermarkets now.