Category: cookbooks

Categories
cookbooks cooks food

my favourite cookbooks of 2012

my cookbook shelf, december 2012

I look forward to writing this post every year; a chance to reflect on the year’s cookbook shelves. Polpo gave us a travelogue round Venice’s cicchetti bars, Madhur Jaffrey returned to explore the UK’s curry scene, and LEON released their fourth impressive volume.

As baking fever truly took hold, with Jubilees and the like to celebrate, the market groaned with cupcake and muffin recipe manuals designed to capture Great British Bake-Off mania. It sometimes felt as though this was the only part of the market churning out books! From the non-cake section I’ve compiled my favourite cookbooks of 2012 that have in turns entertained, educated and enlightened me.

3. Jerusalem – Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi

Yotam Ottolenghi has become one of those chefs for whom I pay close attention. Whatever he’s up to I’m interested, as it will certainly have an unusual angle that is completely new to me.

And this book goes some way to explaining why. Part holiday guide, part autobiography and all good eating, Jerusalem is a culinary tour of his and long-term collaborator Sam’s childhood home, knocking on all the doors of their youth and exploring the complex political and religious web that covers the city. They grew up in opposite corners of Jerusalem and their “same but different” upbringing is a fascinating story.

Most recipes have some potted history alongside it, and the recipes themselves are of course outstanding. Packed with bold flavours and its sings of people making the most of what little they have. In many cuisines crowd-pleasing dinners have peasant roots; warming, familiar, generous. These qualities abound throughout the book.

Perfect for: adventurous types with a love of aubergines!

Standout recipe: Aubergines with lamb and pine nuts

2. Jamie’s 15 Minute Meals – Jamie Oliver

Some may well groan at this inclusion – I imagine like 30 Min Meals it has set some sort of sales record – and the same tired old moans about adhering strictly to 15 minutes as an absolute time limit will surface no doubt.

But I cannot ignore this book. Like its almost slothful predecessor it had genuinely changed the way I prepare the evening meal, freeing me of the usual rules and conventions encouraging me to think in more adventurous ways. Deconstructing a chilli con carne, not in the modern British way so loved by Masterchef finalists, but in a sensible way to separate all the elements you love about it and bring together at the end is simply brilliant. This approach echoes throughout the book, touching on loads of great world cuisines along the way.

There is a reliance on kitchen gadgetry but none of it is gratuitous. It is sensible and well-judged. I defy anyone not to take at least one of these great recipes into their weekly repertoire.

Perfect for: people looking to do more in less time.

Standout recipe: 15 minute chilli con carne meatballs

1. Everybody Everyday – Alex Mackay

This came out of nowhere. I was a little familiar with Kiwi chef Alex Mackay so had almost no expectations for this book. I knew it was going to be great when I’d got about half way through my first flick-through and had to stop putting post-it notes against the ones I wanted to make, because ten is too big a for a to-cook list.

The premise is simple: take one ‘mother’ recipe, then spin it into five proper meals. But not in a prissy, cheffy way. Each one is approachable, and broken down to a very low level. Every description has steps in there for how children and babies can have the same food (for all his professional training with Raymond Blanc and Delia Smith, Alex runs many cookery classes for children, and it shows). Do you know the best thing about the recipes? They are all for two people. This is the number I cook for most often, so it’s so appealing to have recipes easily multiplied up.

But that’s all technical details, what about the food? It’s all just excellent, home-style food with influences from every continent. There are stir-fries, roasts, pizzas and many more. I’ve learned so many things from this book that I’ve stuck straight into my everyday repertoire – like how to cook a potato pancake perfectly every time, I must’ve made nine times this year. Or how to make an unctuous and delicious sauce like I’ve always dreamed of.

It is a book that reads very well, and eats even better. It’s smart cookery, by spending a lot of time on the base recipe you can have five very different meals with it, all of which are great. This is a truly good cookery book – add it to your shelf now.

Perfect for: everybody, everyday. Cheesy but true.

Standout recipe: Burger with red onion and red wine sauce

Such great books to choose from this year. What was your standout cookbook this year?

Categories
competition cookbooks cooks food

competition – win jamie oliver’s 15 minute meals book [closed]

This competition is now closed. Many thanks for all your entries. So many ideas in there, both inspired and crazy! The winner has been notified by email.

You can’t move far around this blog without bumping into a Jamie Oliver recipe. It’s fair to say I’m fan, having decked out my kitchen with branded crockery, bakeware, utensils and knives. I even owned a Flavour Shaker.

After the rip-roaring success of Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals, we now have Jamie’s 15 Minute Meals. Not content with resting on the success of this book, he took a step back and realised more could be done with a tighter focus on a single, substantial dish. I’ve tried a few of the recipes out already and I’ve been impressed with what you can achieve in a short time so far.

I’ve already blogged a few of these: golden chicken and chilli con carne meatballs.

To celebrate the start of the series on Channel 4 this week, I’ve got a copy of his new book to give away. To be in with a chance of winning, just leave a comment answering the following question:

What’s your best time-saving kitchen tip?

  • Competition closes 8pm 28th October. Comments posted after then won’t be counted.
  • I’ll pick the winners at random using some fancy random number generator.
  • Entrants must be 18 years or older.
  • If the winner hasn’t replied within one week, someone else will get it.
  • Only people from the UK please. Additionally, I’ll only post to a UK address.
  • Any answer along the lines “I get the wife to do it” or “I have the kebab shop on speed-dial” will be tutted and sighed at, and not counted. Get into the spirit of things, people!
Categories
cookbooks cooks food

my favourite cookbooks of 2011

2011 is not quite over but I think we have seen the major releases in cookbooks this year that we should expect. If you’re planning on buying the foodie in your life a recipe book, here’s what I would be asking for!

2010 was an embarrassment of riches in the cookbook market; to be honest this year wasn’t quite as bountiful. Nevertheless there are plenty of gems to be had. Here’s a rundown of what I consider to be my absolute favourites of this year.

3. The Good Cook – Simon Hopkinson

This was a real joy to discover. Simon Hopkinson, someone I was only passingly familiar with, popped up week after week with relaxed, homely, but gobstoppingly good food. Nothing was difficult, nothing was pressured but everything was tasty without feeling stodgy. The presentation was fresh and geek that I am giggled at the use of QR codes for the recipes. All the recipes are winners.

And on another note: I really want Simon’s kitchen, replete with adjacent sofa for reading while your sponge rises.

If there’s an unconfident cook you know this would be a great gift, with recognisable but foolproof dinners.

Standout recipe: Lamb breast with onions

2. Ginger Pig Meat Book – Tim Wilson & Fran Warde

This book had a unique criteria for selection in this list. My Dad flicked through it, raised his eyebrows and said “can I borrow that?” and took it home to read cover-to-cover. Not like my Dad at all.

He enjoyed the same things that I did in it: part recipe book and part autobiography, this lovingly prepared tome covers the trials and tribulations of raising livestock. There’s so much humanity in every page you really feel for Tim and Fran as they lose another animal to the ravages of nature and disease.

If that doesn’t do it for you then the recipes will. Proper farmhouse fare treating each animal and each cut with the respect they know it deserves. Casseroles, roasts, stir-fries… all very approachable.

This book also features one of my favourite things: those diagrams that tell you where all the cuts of an animal are from, with dotted lines criss-crossing the beast. I think they’re fascinating.

Standout recipe: Pork in milk

1. Heston Blumenthal at Home – Heston Blumenthal

It could never really be anyone else. My mild Heston obsession peaked this year with both meeting the man himself and then the arrival of this beautiful book. It’s a huge great heavy thing, not easy to read in bed I can tell you (yes, I read it in bed, so what?).

Even though it bears the title “at home” most of the recipes are still quite involved and still multi-stage. Nothing however is insurmountable and thankfully laid out in a clear and achievable way. He admits some things do need a lot of investment but reading the method thoroughly reveals insight. None of it feels extraneous and calling on Heston’s detailed research yields incredible results on the plate. With flavour combinations you’re not familiar with and processes that feel odd at the time, this is a real way to genuinely improve your daily techniques in the way you approach cooking. From chicken and potatoes, from triple-cooked chips to porridge, from sweets in a jar to dry-ice ice cream, all the Heston classics are here plus new delights.

The best parts are the long chunks on Heston’s thoughts about a subject, such as fish, desserts and the long evangelising essay on the benefits of sous-vide (which I would love to have at home – just waiting on Argos to do an Anthony Worral-Thompson branded one).

One slight quibble is if you are a Heston-maniac many of them will feel familiar and almost reprinted but the comprehensiveness of the collection make them apt. To be without them would feel lacking.

In short, it’s a great collection of articles with moments of brilliant inspiration from the chef that most inspires me. Fantastic.

Standout recipe: Pea and ham soup

That was really difficult to choose my top 3! What cookbook did it for you this year?

Categories
competition cookbooks food

competition – win gordon ramsay cookbooks [closed]

This giveaway is now closed. Feel free to keep leaving comments though!

I have too many cookbooks. This is probably true of quite a few of you if you’re mildly food-obsessed like me. So I had to be quite tough with a cookbook reorganisation lately. Quite a few went to the lucky charity shops. Some others I thought to sell on. There’s Gordon Ramsay’s Fast Food, which features one of my favourite things to cook in the whole wide world. There’s Gordon Ramsay’s Pub Food, packed with lovely British recipes. And Rose Prince’s The New English Kitchen which gives you kitchen classics for nearly everything. They’re all in fine condition but I have exhausted their usefulness and can’t see me needing them again. But you look at the second-hand market for big-name cookbooks but it’s a complete waste of time – I’m competing with 1p copies. One penny. What is the point?!

And these books are too good to get rid of for a penny. So I thought I’d take that idea and shove it through a logic hole until it falls out the other end and get rid of them for nothing. I’m going to exchange them for a comment you make. Because a comment from another real person is worth more than a penny to me. The acknowledgement that these words aren’t just tumbling into anonymous Internet noise, but that some people’s RSS feeds and Google searches find these witterings and leave their own ideas, photos and suggestions is worth a lot more.

Here’s the deal. I’m on 959 comments all-time for this blog. Let’s pick a round number, say, I don’t know, 1,000 comments. When I hit that number I’ll give one of these books to someone who commented in between 959 – 1,000 at random. Don’t comment on this – this is a pretty pointless post, history will reveal. But have a trawl through the archives. Tell me about one of these recipes you’ve cooked. Or about what I’m doing terribly wrong. Or that I need to try making XYZ. Whatever. Just leave me something interesting to read. You never know, you might get a free book out of it.

Tedious obligatory bit: these are freebies after all, so I’m only going to send these on to a UK address.

Exit mobile version