Nigella Lawson has one strict rule when it comes to entertaining at home – guests must pass the pyjama test to score a supper invite. That is, if she doesn’t feel comfortable enough to be in her PJs with a make-up free face, she’s probably not going to host at all.

Only one person is exempt, she told us this morning at a Business Chicks breakfast, when newsreader Natarsha Belling asked the domestic goddess to name her dream dinner party guests.

“My favorite people to cook for are my friends and family. It goes back to the pyjama and no make-up rule. I admire many people, but all the pleasure I get from cooking is gone, because I’m stressing whether they’ll like the food.”

But then she hosted celebrated British chef Yotam Ottolenghi.

“Well, I wore the closest possible thing to pyjamas – a t-shirt dress – and was bare foot,” Nigella says. “I made roast cauliflower with chickpeas and harissa, roast pumpkin with green tahini and zatar, some lamb ribs and served it all with flat breads. Oh, and a feta, avocado and pickled red onion salad.”

And for dessert? An apricot and almond cake, with cardamom and rosewater, topped with pistachios.

“I served it with my matcha tea ice cream; there’s just three ingredients – matcha, condensed milk and double cream – and you don’t have to churn it. I make things in advance.”

Cooking is almost meditative for the domestic goddess, who said she uses stove time as an excuse to switch off from technology and decompress. For example, she said. Stirring a risotto is a simple, mindless excuse that requires your full concentration.

“Making a risotto means buying yourself 20 minutes of peaceful time.”

That’s a kind of meditation we can get into.

She also extolled the virtues of vegemite, but wrote off the marmite versus vegemite debate.

“If you like one, you must like the other, because they are so similar,” she said. “Marmite is your gloss version, whereas vegemite is the matte.” She’s referring, clearly, to British Marmite, not that New Zealand rendition of the salty black stuff.

We didn’t press her on Promite.