Lena Marsh
RDN, MS
Registered dietitian with a clinical specialism in everyday nutrition, diet patterns, protein targets, micronutrient adequacy in real cooking.
Who reviews the work.
Lena Marsh is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist (RDN) with a Master's in Clinical Nutrition from King's College London. She has spent the last seven years in NHS clinical practice and private nutrition consulting, and her interest sits squarely at the intersection of evidence-based eating patterns and the practical food question patients actually ask: 'so what do I cook tomorrow?' She reads every recipe on this site against the British Dietetic Association evidence base, the USDA FoodData Central reference, and her own clinical judgement on protein density and micronutrient balance. She is the human accountable for every nutrition number on ThatCleanChef.
Recipes and guides on this site.
- Reviewed Sept 2026
How to Cook Steak: Salt It Early, Dry It Properly, Use a Thermometer
There are only four variables in a steak and none of them is the pan. Thickness decides the method, surface moisture decides whether it browns or steams, internal temperature decides doneness, and the rest decides how much of the juice ends up on the board instead of in the meat. Salt forty-five minutes ahead, cook to a number rather than to a timer, and stop cutting into it to check.
- Reviewed Sept 2026
Scrambled Eggs: Low Heat, Constant Motion, Off the Hob Early
Scrambled eggs are a temperature exercise with an eight-minute margin for error and almost nobody uses it. Egg protein sets between 145F and 165F, and above that it squeezes out water and turns to rubber sitting in a grey puddle. Low heat, a spatula that never stops, fat that goes in cold, salt at the start, and the pan off the burner while they still look underdone.
- Reviewed Sept 2026
Mashed Potatoes: Cold Water Start, Warm Dairy, and Never a Blender
Gluey mash is not a seasoning problem, it is a mechanical one. Potato starch granules burst when you agitate them, and once they have burst nothing brings the texture back. Start the potatoes in cold salted water so they cook evenly, dry them over the burner, push them through a ricer rather than beating them, and add butter before dairy. Forty-five minutes including the pot you have to wash.
- Reviewed Sept 2026
Beef Bourguignon: Dry the Meat, Crowd Nothing, Wait a Day
This is a braise that fails at the first step or not at all. Wet beef in a crowded pot steams, and a stew built on steamed beef cannot be rescued later by wine, stock or time. Dry the cubes, brown them in three batches, cook the garnish separately, and give it three hours at 325F. Then, ideally, put it in the fridge overnight, because the second day is a different dish.
- Reviewed Sept 2026
Gazpacho: An Emulsion, Not a Cold Tomato Soup
The Andalusian version is thick, orange-pink and creamy without any dairy in it, and the two things that get it there are stale bread and olive oil poured in slowly at the end. Watery red gazpacho is a blender-order problem. It needs genuinely ripe tomatoes, sherry vinegar rather than any other kind, and four hours in the fridge, which the time on this page includes.
- Reviewed Sept 2026
Tabbouleh: A Parsley Salad With Bulgur In It, Not the Reverse
Almost every tabbouleh sold outside the Levant has the ratio backwards: a bowl of wet bulgur with parsley stirred through. The Lebanese version is three quarters herbs by volume, with fine bulgur used the way you would use breadcrumbs, soaked in tomato juice rather than boiled. Forty-five minutes, no cooking at all, and most of the work is drying parsley and chopping it properly.
- Reviewed Sept 2026
How to Cook Tofu: Press It, Coat It in Starch, Sauce It Last
Tofu is bland and soggy for two mechanical reasons, and both are fixable. It is packed in water, so the surface cannot brown until that water is gone, and it is a set protein gel with no internal channels, so marinade does not penetrate it no matter how long you wait. Press it, coat it in cornstarch, fry it hard, and sauce it after it is crisp. An hour, most of it pressing.
- Reviewed Sept 2026
Fried Rice: Cold Rice, Hot Pan, and Soy Down the Side
Fried rice is a moisture-management problem wearing a stir-fry costume. Freshly cooked rice is saturated and its starch is still gelatinised, so it clumps and steams. Rice that has spent a night uncovered in the fridge has lost surface water and retrograded, and it separates into individual grains in a hot pan. Twenty-five minutes of cooking, and one decision made the day before.
- Reviewed Sept 2026
Apple Crisp: Two Varieties, Cold Butter, Forty-Five Minutes
A watery apple crisp is not a topping problem. It is an apple problem and a time problem. One variety of apple gives you either mush or raw wedges, and thirty minutes is long enough to brown a topping but not long enough to cook fruit through and drive off its water. Two varieties, a spoon of cornstarch, coarse oat topping made with cold butter, and forty-five minutes at 375F. Seventy-five minutes total, and it wants twenty of them to rest.
- Reviewed Sept 2026
Coleslaw: Salt the Cabbage, Squeeze It, Then Dress It
Coleslaw goes watery for one reason. Cabbage is ninety-two percent water, and if you dress it raw, the salt in the dressing pulls that water out over the next hour and dilutes everything you just made. Salt the shredded cabbage first, let it drain for thirty minutes, squeeze it, and then dress it. Fifty minutes including the wait, and the difference is a slaw that is still crunchy on day three.
- Reviewed Sept 2026
Enchiladas: Fry the Tortillas, Fry the Sauce, Bake Them Briefly
Nearly every bad enchilada is the same enchilada: a raw corn tortilla soaked in canned sauce and baked until the whole tray turns to porridge. Two steps fix it permanently. Pass each tortilla through hot oil for twenty seconds so it waterproofs, and fry the blended chile sauce in fat before it goes anywhere near the pan. Ninety minutes, most of it the sauce, and twenty of it in the oven.
- Reviewed Sept 2026
Carbonara: Four Ingredients, One Temperature, No Cream
Carbonara is not a cream sauce and it is not scrambled eggs. It is an emulsion of egg yolk, rendered pork fat, grated sheep cheese and starchy pasta water, held together by heat that stops just short of setting the egg. Everything that goes wrong goes wrong in the last ninety seconds. Thirty minutes, four ingredients, and a pan that comes off the burner before the eggs arrive.
Plus 153 more, see the recipe index.