Food 'n' Flix: Cooking Inspired by the Movies

Kung Fu Panda: dim sum, shumai and law bok gow

Po the panda is a noodle-shop kid at heart, so a film built on Chinese folklore and a father who runs a kitchen almost demands a spread of dim sum. Two dishes carry the round nicely: shumai (open-topped pork and prawn dumplings) and law bok gow, the pan-fried turnip cake you meet on trolleys in Cantonese teahouses.

Shumai

Mince pork and roughly chopped raw prawn, then season with grated ginger, a little soy, a splash of Shaoxing wine, sesame oil, white pepper and a pinch of sugar. Stir the same direction for a couple of minutes until the mix turns sticky and holds together. Sit a spoonful in a round wonton wrapper, gather the sides so the top stays open, tap the base flat and crown each one with a single green pea or a dot of grated carrot. Steam over a lined bamboo basket for about eight to ten minutes.

Law bok gow (turnip cake)

Grate a peeled daikon (mooli) and cook it gently in a little water until soft. Stir in soaked and chopped dried shrimp and a scattering of Chinese sausage if you have it, then bind with rice flour slackened to a loose batter. Steam the mixture in a lined tin for around forty-five minutes until set, cool it fully, then slice and pan-fry until each face is golden and crisp. Serve with chilli oil or a light soy dip.

Bridesmaids: a carrot cake to make up after a fight

Bridesmaids is chaos and cake in almost equal measure, and its heart is a friendship that frays and mends. Carrot cake fits the mood: homely, forgiving, the sort of bake you carry round to say sorry. It is also genuinely hard to get wrong, which suits a film about people getting almost everything wrong.

Whisk eggs, soft brown sugar and a neutral oil until thick, then fold in grated carrot, a handful of chopped walnuts and a little crushed tinned pineapple for moisture. Sift in plain flour, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and a grate of nutmeg, fold just until combined, and bake at 170C until a skewer comes out clean, roughly forty minutes. Cool fully before topping with cream cheese icing beaten with soft butter, icing sugar and a squeeze of lemon to cut the richness. The oil rather than butter in the sponge is what keeps it tender for days.

Butter: a rich buttery bake, and a compound butter to sculpt

The film Butter revolves around competitive butter sculpting in Iowa, which is a gift of a prompt: the dish practically has to be built on butter itself. Go two ways. Bake something that leans on good butter for its whole character, and make a compound butter you can actually shape and show off.

A butter-rich bake

A simple pound cake or a batch of shortbread lets the butter do the talking. For shortbread, beat soft butter with caster sugar, work in plain flour and a little cornflour until it just clumps, press into a tin, dock with a fork and bake low and slow until pale gold. Do not brown it. The flavour you want is sweet dairy, not toast.

A compound butter to sculpt

Beat soft butter until pale, then split it. Fold chopped herbs, garlic and lemon zest through a savoury batch, and honey with a scrape of vanilla through a sweet one. Chill until firm enough to mould, then press into a shape with cold hands or a lined mould. It is a small, silly nod to the sculptors on screen, and it makes toast the next morning a treat.

The Terminal: a cross-cultural plate stuck between borders

Viktor in The Terminal is a man from a country that stops existing while he is mid-flight, marooned in an airport that belongs to no one. The right dish for that is something in between: a plate that borrows from more than one place and settles nowhere, the way an airport food court does.

Build a warm flatbread wrap that refuses to pick a side. Grill spiced chicken thigh marinated in yoghurt, paprika and cumin, then pile it into a soft flatbread with pickled cabbage, a garlicky yoghurt sauce and a spoon of harissa or chilli. It nods to a dozen cuisines at once and none exactly, which is the whole point. Serve it standing up if you want the full departure-lounge experience.

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: a squashed-tomatoes baguette

A B-movie about rampaging tomatoes deserves a dish that treats tomatoes gleefully, even a little roughly. A squashed-tomatoes baguette, essentially the Catalan pan con tomate scaled up into lunch, is exactly that. You crush ripe tomatoes to a pulp and let the bread drink them in.

Toast or griddle thick lengths of baguette until crisp, then rub the cut surface with a halved raw garlic clove. Halve very ripe tomatoes, grate the cut face down to the skin so you catch all the pulp, and season that pulp with salt and a good glug of olive oil. Spoon it over the hot bread so it soaks in without going soggy. Eat immediately, ideally over a plate to catch the drips. For a fuller meal, add anchovies, a few olives or a slick of soft cheese.

The Goonies: fish and veggie crisps for the adventure

The Goonies is a scrappy treasure hunt led by kids, so the food should be the kind you eat with your hands on the move. Homemade fish and vegetable crisps, thin and crunchy, are perfect snacking fuel for a den full of would-be pirates.

Vegetable crisps

Slice beetroot, parsnip and sweet potato as thin as you dare, ideally with a mandoline. Pat every slice bone dry, toss with a little oil and salt, and bake in a single layer at a low temperature, turning once, until crisp. They colour fast at the edges, so pull them the moment they set rather than waiting for deep brown.

Crisp fish

For the fish, cut a firm white fillet into strips, coat in seasoned flour then a light batter or panko, and shallow fry until golden. Drain on paper and salt straight away. Serve the fish and the vegetable crisps together in a paper cone with a lemony dip, and eat before the map leads you anywhere else.

A Christmas Story: pan-fried smashed potatoes

A Christmas Story is all frost, longing and a family dinner that goes sideways, so a warm potato dish belongs at its centre. Pan-fried smashed potatoes give you the best of both worlds: fluffy inside, shatteringly crisp outside, and cheerful enough to rescue any meal that has not gone to plan.

Boil small waxy potatoes whole in well-salted water until a knife slides in easily, then drain and steam-dry for a minute. Sit each one on an oiled tray and press down with the base of a glass or a fork until it splays but still holds together. Brush generously with oil or melted butter, season, and roast hot, around 220C, until the edges are deep gold and lacy. Finish with flaky salt and chopped rosemary or a dusting of smoked paprika. The double cook, soft then crushed then blasted, is what makes them so crunchy.

Bridget Jones's Diary: the famous turkey curry

Few films are as tied to a single dish as Bridget Jones's Diary is to the turkey curry buffet. It stands for awkward family gatherings, leftover birds and being set up with the wrong (or maybe right) person. Turned into a proper recipe, it is a brilliant way to use up cooked turkey after any big meal.

Soften onion, garlic and ginger, then stir in a curry powder or a blend of cumin, coriander, turmeric and a little chilli, and cook until fragrant. Add chopped tomatoes and a splash of stock, simmer to a sauce, then fold in shredded cooked turkey and warm it through gently so it stays tender rather than stringy. Finish with a spoon of yoghurt or coconut milk, check the salt, and scatter with fresh coriander. Serve with rice or naan. It is comfort food dressed up as an anecdote.

Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? a chocolate mousse

This comic thriller follows Europe's finest chefs being bumped off one by one, each in the style of their signature dish, so the food has to be properly indulgent. A classic chocolate mousse fits the bill: rich, a touch theatrical, and the sort of dessert a great chef would sign their name to.

Melt good dark chocolate gently and let it cool a little so it does not seize. Whisk egg yolks into it, then fold in whipped cream for body. Separately whisk egg whites to soft peaks with a spoon of sugar and fold them through in additions, keeping as much air as you can so the mousse stays light. Spoon into glasses and chill for at least a couple of hours to set. A pinch of salt and a small splash of coffee or brandy deepen the chocolate without shouting. Fold gently: the whole texture lives in the air you keep.