Cook Books

This is a selection of the cook books I own and my opinion on them.

Heston at Home

This book accompanies the tv series.  As you would expect, there is a fair amount of blurb on the science of cooking.  Not so much that you glaze over though, some of it is really very useful.  Follows the standard chapter by course format.

At first glance the recipes seem a bit much as they all call for very precise temperatures.  However, once you read through them properly most seem achievable at home. 

There is a whole chapter on sous vide cooking, which is pretty useless unless you own a sous vide but it also contains a mix of surprisingly simple dishes and flavour combinations (pan fried sea bass with vanilla butter) along with some more complicated and time consuming ones.  Oh, and putting a washing up sponge in a cheese toastie = madness.

 

I've not cooked anything out of this book yet but I am planning a Heston dinner party very soon.  I have even bought the requisite meat themometer.

Rick Stein's Spain

This book accompanies the tv series and is full of drool inducing recipes from Espana.  Lots of lovely chorizo, morcilla, squid and custard based desserts - yum.

I've yet to cook anything out of it as I've been too busy licking the pages but I most certainly will and it is a joy to read.






Rick Stein's Far Eastern Odyssey

This accompanies another Rick tv series and has recipes from all over the far east.  Malaysian, Thai, Vietnamese, Sri Lakan etc.

It is full of really beautiful photos and you can almost smell the food.  He also gives an explanation of where the recipes come from.

I have tried the beef Massaman curry and the Thai green curry which were both fab.  There are many more recipes that I want to cook.

There is also (in common with his other books) a really useful section at the back about how to make all the basic pastes, sauces etc.

Rick Stein's French Odyssey

Another tv series book.  In the show Rick sails down an idyllic French canal and the French girl working on the boat tastes his food and describes it is 'ok'.  Love it.

This book is gastronomic loveliness.

I have made:
Confit duck legs (better than the ones you get in a tin and no fuss to make yourself)

Vetou's magret de canard (duck breast with a red wine and prune sauce, incredibly simple and tasty)

Creme brule

Most recipes seem very simple and full of butter to 'cut the richness'.

Nigella Feast

This book is split by different festivals and is all about cooking for gatherings.  There is a chapter for Christmas, Eid, Halloween and even funerals.

As you would expect from Nigella all the recipes are comforting and easy to make.  Some of them sound downright disgusting though - pus soup and marmite sandwiches anyone?  But overall there are lots of fab ideas for easy entertaining.  There is even a whole chapter dedicated to chocolate cake.

I've made several of the recipes from this book and all have worked well.  Next Christmas I want to try the mashed potato stuffed goose, or maybe the gingerbread stuffing.

Jamie's 30 Minute Meals

This book accompanies the tv series. 

I'm afraid to say that I am not a fan of this book.  While there are some fab sounding recipes in here I just cannot get on with the way it is written.  The instructions follow the format of the show so it starts of by telling you to boil the kettle and then it flits between jobs.  It assumes that you will make everything in the recipe.  If you wanted to just make part of the meal such as the main or a sauce you have to practically rewrite the recipe to find the instructions.  Personally I find this intensely irritating. 

It is written, in my opinion, for people who don't really cook.  There are some nice recipes in here but it takes a bit of digging to get at them.

I've had mixed results with the recipes.  I've made the oozing mushroom risotto which worked well and gave a top tip about blitzing dried porcini and then frying with onions at start.

However, I also made the jerk chicken and found that the balance of flavours just wasn't quite right.  I have come across this with several Jamie Oliver recipes that I've tried so have come to the conclusion that a lot of it is just not to my taste.

Supperclub - Kerstin Rodgers

This book is a really interesting read and beautiful to boot.  Kerstin Rodgers set up the UK's

first supperclub and explains the journey and experience.

It includes guest recipes as the author does not cook meat.

I haven't cooked anything out of it yet but I have plenty of things on my wishlist and it is just so pretty!