For professional chefs

Chef’s cookbook prize draw for Brain Tumour Charity (UK mainland only)

Chef James cook book raffle for Brain Tumour Charity from Natural Selection Design on Vimeo.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: THIS PRIZE DRAW IS OPEN TO UK MAINLAND RESIDENTS ONLY

THE PRIZE
James is a talented chef who has spent his life pursuing his passion for food.

In 2022 James was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumour, which has given him a new perspective on life. Despite his illness, he has remained determined to make the most of his time and has decided to auction his collection of cookery books to raise funds for the Brain Tumour Association.

The cookery books in James’ collection are his pride and joy, and he has collected them over 20 years in the industry. The 150+ books represent a lifetime of learning and exploration in the world of food and butchery.

His treasured collection includes books from the world’s best restaurants and chefs, and it is a testament to his dedication to his craft.

They range from unique and out of print books to accessible books, to say that from new to replace is a £4k + collection. The El Bulli collection alone is retailed at £500 and Sergiology book also retails over £500.

Since the diagnosis of a grade 4 inoperable brain stem tumour, James has discovered that brain tumour research receives only around 1% funding. The importance of raising funds for the Brain Tumour Association has never been more important, and he is auctioning his beloved collection to help others in need. It is a selfless act that speaks to James’ character and his desire to make a positive impact in the world, even in the face of adversity.

James hopes that his contribution will help others who are also affected by brain tumours, and he is grateful for the opportunity to make a difference in this way. He has met amazing people who also want to help, and he hopes that with more available funds, they will be able to help more people in the future.

Find out how to enter the draw by clicking here The draw is open to UK mainland residents only and closes 14th April 2023 at 2:46pm. Full terms and conditions are here.

This is of course an amazing opportunity to acquire an incredible collection of cookbooks, but more importantly to support a truly altruistic act that benefits a worthy organisation, the Brain Tumour Charity who are dedicated to ‘a drive to improve services and outcomes for everyone affected by a brain tumour’.

Follow James on Twitter @chefjamesfpl and Instagram @jamescon198

Lune by Katie Reid

Lune: Croissants All Day, All Night – to which is there any other answer than, yes please? Making croissants is something I’ve always thought best left to the professionals. It’s a fine art and while not rocket science, there’s definitely crossover: one requires precision, delicacy and an intricate understanding of weight and heat distribution; the other is rocket science. Kate Reid, owner and author of Lune, originally worked as an aerospace engineer for the Williams Formula 1 Team before a trip to Paris convinced her to apply her skillset to making croissants. Over a decade later, Lune has multiple venues in Australia, queues of people willing to wait hours to try their products and as of last year, a debut cookbook.

Reid has talked at length at how the two seemingly distinct career paths have benefited one another. She compares Lune to a “croissant Formula 1 team”, being driven by a need for an experimental and results driven approach in the pursuit of excellence. The book wears its engineering influences quite literally on its sleeve: starting with the croissant-shaped spaceship logo, a sleek black and reflective silver design, high contrast photography and a rigorously assembled ingredients list and methodology. Recipes are broadly listed by what time of day to have them, from Breakfast to Dinner, all the times in between and interspersed with personal stories of establishing Lune.

The golden thread throughout the book is the croissant dough. Once made, it can be applied to numerous different pastry recipes ranging from croissants, cruffins, danishes, escargots and more. Alongside the classics, are inventive recipes like Chocolate Plum Sake Danishes or Beef Bourguignon croissants. The book gets this out of the way early and it’s only fair I should too: you will not be travelling at speed. It will take at least 48 hours over the course of three days and a decent amount of effort to produce a single batch. Croissant casuals need not apply.

Day one requires a morning making a poolish and an afternoon bringing the dough together. Day two is lamination, the process of layering butter and pastry that gives croissants their flaky layers and if laminated in the morning, can then be shaped in the evening. Day three calls for a 2am start (spoiler: I did not get up at 2am), proving the croissants for five hours before baking to have with breakfast.

It is as time consuming as the book assures you it is but the dough recipe is so exacting, with photographs accompanying every step and measurements to the centimetre and gram there is little scope to go wrong. It is entirely worth the effort. I bake mine at a much more reasonable 1pm, filling the house with croissant pheromones that continually entice us back into the kitchen to check on their progress. The results are ethereal wonders, so lovingly formed and delicate I consider making an application for a UNESCO heritage listing to preserve them forever. They taste even better, as if they descended fully formed, a divine aura sailing them gracefully into my mouth.

Thankfully, the dough recipe returns enough for five batches and leaves plenty of opportunity to explore other pastries. The Cacio e Pepe Escargot is as lavish as its namesake. Danishes filled with strawberries and a burnt miso caramel custard are a rollercoaster of sweet and savoury. Cruffins are surprisingly easy to assemble and, in less of a shock, absolutely magnificent when filled with a peanut butter crème pâtissière and jam.

There are some small barriers to entry, investments in both time and equipment being examples. If you’re already a home baker, you’ll likely have the essentials to make the dough but for certain recipes, you’ll need more bespoke items like small, square silicone moulds for danish pastries. However, I didn’t have some of these and used the best equivalent I could find. The results were, admittedly, misshapen but no less delicious for it.

One of the many joys of this book is its laser focus. All of the recipes start from the same place – the croissant dough – which you’re going to learn to do very well and then apply it in an abundance of wildly inventive recipes. It’s refreshing to be encouraged to hone a craft, that yes, this is a practice of patience and discipline but it’s worth doing well. And once mastered, it can be taken in any creative direction you like – the sky’s the limit as they say, though I think Lune makes me want to shoot for the moon.

Cuisine: International
Suitable for: Confident home cooks/professional chefs
Cookbook Review Rating: Five stars

Buy the book: Lune: Croissants All Day, All Night by Katie Read
£28, Hardie Grant Books

Review written by Nick Dodd a Leeds-based pianist, teacher and writer. Contact him at www.yorkshirepiano.co.uk

Lune has been shortlisted for the Andre Simon Food and Drink Book Awards 2022

Cooking by Jeremy Lee

What’s the USP? Somewhat delightfully, there isn’t one. There’s no tortuous concept or shoehorned-in theme. There’s no claim of quick and easy recipes, that it’s the only cookbook you’ll ever need or that it’s yet another of that irksome and ubiquitous ilk, the cookbook for ‘every day’. As Robert de Niro once memorably stated in The Deer Hunter ‘This is this. This ain’t somethin’ else. This is this.’ It’s a cookbook. It’s a very good cookbook written by an outstanding chef with thirty years of knowledge, experience and wisdom he’s like to share with you. What else do you need?

Who is the author? Dundee born Jeremy Lee is the head chef of Quo Vadis restaurant and club in London’s bustling Soho. He was previously the head chef of Sir Terence Conran’s Blueprint Cafe in Shad Thames and at Euphorium in Islington where he first came to national attention (Independent news paper critic Emily Bell said that Lee ‘delivers flavour like Oliver Stone serves up violence’, a very 1995 sort of thing to say). Working backwards in time, Lee also cooked at Alistair Little at 49 Frith Street (now home to Hoppers Sri Lankan restaurant and just a ladle’s throw from Quo Vadis in Dean Street) and at Bibendum in South Kensington for Simon Hopkinson. There’s more, but you can buy the book to find it out (spoiler alert, you really should buy the book). Surprisingly, Cooking is Lee’s first cookbook.

Is it good bedtime reading? It is. There’s a reasonably chunky introduction that skips and hops briefly through Lee’s background and culinary career as well as some thoughts on his approach to food and cooking in general. Each of the 24 chapters, themed most around ingredients, includes a full page or so of introduction and many of the 100 or so recipes have substantial intros. There are also a couple of essays, one on equipment and one on stocking your pantry. That’s how you end up with a 400 hundred page book.

Will I have trouble finding the ingredients? The first line of the book reads ‘The simple truth I’ve learned from a lifetime of cooking is that good food is honed from fine ingredients.’ The simple truth that I’ve learned from a lifetime of shopping at supermarkets is that last thing they sell is fine ingredients. I mean, they’re fine for plebs like us, but they’re not fine. The likelihood is that you’ll be able to get most things that Lee cooks with in the book, but probably not of the same quality, unless you live somewhere that has great butchers, fishmongers, greengrocers and delis. You know, central London.

Some ingredients that might prove tricky if you are reliant on Lidl (or even Waitrose) might include fresh artichokes, samphire, monk’s bread, Tropea onions, Roscoff onions, Treviso, Tardivo, Banyuls vinegar ‘very, very good chicken’, ‘excellent duck’. marjoram, summer savory, Agen prunes, fennel pollen, herring, fresh mackerel, whole lemon sole, cuttlefish, verdina beans, skate knobs, cockles, Arbroath smokies, razor clams, smoked eel, quail, onglet, lamb’s sweetbreads, feuilles de brick, kid, hare, dandelion, puntarelle, Catalonga, lovage, salsify and sorrel.

That might seem like a long list, but do not let it put you off buying the book. Help is of course at hand from specialist internet suppliers and, post pandemic, it’s now easier than ever to get hold of excellent quality fresh fish, meat, vegetables and groceries delivered to your door (for a price of course). The excellent list of stockists at the back of the book will be extremely useful to many readers. There are also many recipes that you will be able to source ingredients for with no trouble or you will be able to make substitutions with reasonable ease.

How annoyingly vague are the recipes? There is the odd ‘handful’ of this and ‘pinch’ of that, but they are few and far between. Methods are as well written as you might expect of such a well experienced chef and are as detailed as they need to be and easy to follow.

How often will I cook from the book? A lot. There’s pretty much a dish for every occasion, every time of day and every cook’s mood. There’s maple walnut biscuits breakfast or mid-morning coffee, chard and cheddar omelette for a quick lunch and chicken leek and tarragon pie for a comforting dinner. There a simple as can be puntarelle and anchovy salad for when time is short or a cottage pie made with braised oxtails for when you want to linger in the kitchen. Lee is also particularly good on baking, desserts and sweet things in general so expect an apple tart in your future soon.

However, this is a resolutely British and European book; a pinch of chilli flakes or a few drop of tabasco is about as spicy as things get. There are no modish Middle Eastern influences and India, Asia and South America don’t get a look in. Lee knows what he likes and sticks to it which gives the book a very strong identity. Cooking doesn’t cover every conceivable culinary base, but that’s no bad thing at all. There are many, many books available that will fill those particular needs, just have a browse around this site. Cooking is not an encyclopaedia of the subject but ‘home cooking rediscovered after a lifetime spent in professional cooking’ and all the better for it.

What will I love? You’ll recognise John Broadley’s intricate yet bold black and white illustrations from the menus at Quo Vadis if you’ve been fortunate enough to visit the restaurant (and if you haven’t, I’d highly recommend rectifying that particular situation, especially now as the restaurant has just been refurbished and expanded). They are a complete joy and give the book a unique style.

Lee’s writing style is also highly individual and charming. He has a turn of phrase like no other food writer. A spiced marmalade steamed pudding is ‘made bold with whole ginger and a spice’ and breadcrumbs are fashioned from ‘husks, heels and buckshee slices of bread’. Open the book at random and you’ll find sentences such as ‘I like the Presbyterian forthrightness of leek pie’ or ‘It is near miraculous how much water is released from the chard but perseverance pays a fine dividend’. There’s a kind of effortless poetry on every page that’s utterly delightful and doesn’t feel in the slightest bit forced. Within a single paragraph, Lee can be informative, instructional and celebratory; that’s fine food writing.

Killer recipes: salmagundy (warm roast chicken salad with summer slaw); maple walnut biscuits; chard potato and celeriac gratin; St Emilion au chocolat; hake with parsley, dill and anchovy sauce; smoked eel sandwich; lamb’s sweetbreads, peas, almonds and herbs; duck pea and cabbage hash (the list goes on…)

Should I buy it? With Cooking, Lee has joined the pantheon of great British food writers that includes Jane Grigson, Sophie Grigson, Elizabeth David, Alan Davidson, Alistair Little, Richard Whittington, Shaun Hill, Stephen Bull, Mark Hix and others. It might be reminiscent of older books, but in the current publishing climate, it’s a breath of fresh air. Rather than advising you on hints and tips that will enable you to spend the least amount of time as possible in your kitchen, Cooking is aimed at a readership that actually enjoys the craft and are happily chained to their stoves (you won’t find air fryer or slow cooker recipes here).

Cooking is worth the cover price just to learn how to cook chard properly. But you will learn so much more including the virtues of making a properly good vegetable salad, how to lift the flavour of a rustic kale soup with a spoon of new season Tuscan olive oil and how to make ‘coupe Danemark’ – a delicious yet simple dessert made from chocolate melted with cream, poured over vanilla ice cream and topped with nuts. Cooking is also full of intriguing kitchen miscellanea. Did you know a wishbone used to be known as the ‘merry thought’? Or that there’s a variety of potato called ‘Mr Little’s Yetholm Gypsy 1899’? Of course you didn’t. That’s why you need to buy this book. A genuine pleasure to cook from and to read, Cooking is an essential addition to any keen home cook or professional chef’s cookbook collection.

Cuisine: European
Suitable for: Confident home cooks/professional chefs
Cookbook Review Rating: Five stars

Buy this book: Cooking by Jeremy Lee
£30, Fourth Estate

Winner of the 2022 Andre Simon Food Award

The Wok by J. Kenji López-Alt

A friend does a great impression of a former housemate. It’s at exactly the moment they realise it’s much quicker to make mashed potatoes by chopping it into smaller bits first, rather than boiling one giant potato and mashing it whole. We’ve all been there. A fizzle and a crack as old neurons make new connections, a deluge of endorphins, a brief moment of shame and eureka: a higher plane of consciousness.

Get used to this feeling reading The Wok, a book of such astonishing detail and craft that comparisons to other weighty tomes like encyclopaedias seem somehow derogatory. J. Kenji López-Alt has built his reputation on this meticulous, science-oriented approach to cooking and has seen him garner a huge online following with over a million subscribers to his excellent YouTube channel as well as regular contributions to major publications and a growing collection of cookbooks.

His latest is substantial in both size and scope. Physically, it’s the sort of thing that used to be compared to the Yellow Pages but now is probably more like a stack of iPads. Though the heft is a reward for the sheer breadth of information found on its pages, ranging from the basics of stir-frying and chopping all the way to Scoville units and the glutamic acid content of certain foods.

Woks are versatile creatures and the chapters reflect this, being summarised by either ways of cooking with a wok, like Stir-Frying, Braising or Deep Frying or cooking with wok-centric ingredients like Rice or Noodles. Each chapter mingles technique, scientific explanations and applicable recipes like in the section dedicated to stir-frying chicken for instance, you will find an explanation for velveting, the scientific reasoning behind it and then a recipe for Sweet and Sour Chicken.

If you’ve ever enjoyed something cooked with a wok whether from China, Japan, Thailand or even at your local takeaway, it’s likely to be here. There’s recipes for ramen, tempura, dumplings, curries, all types of noodles, classic takeaway meals, traditional dishes, oils, and condiments. The recipes are written with such exacting measurements and instructions it’s almost impossible to get wrong and are so precise, you’re often told exactly where to place the ingredients into the wok (swirl your sauce around the side!). Trust in the process and it’ll deliver probably the best homemade version of that particular dish you could hope for.

The book has elevated every part of my cooking with a wok. Dishes like Fried Rice, Dan Dan Noodles, Pad See Ew and Lo Mein that benefit from the turbocharged gas burners in restaurants were as good of an approximation I could have wished to achieve at home (I’ve yet to try the suggestion of using a blow torch to achieve more authentic results). Recipes less demanding of high heat like Kung Pao Chicken, Khai Jiao (Thai-Style Omelette), Mapo Tofu and Soy Glazed Mushrooms were all exceptional. Better still, The Wok has improved my cooking even when not following the book. Using the lessons learned like the specific size of the vegetables, the order of cooking the ingredients or how you heat the oil has meant the quick Tuesday night stir-fry is as good as it’s ever been.

There’s no avoiding The Wok is theory heavy, more a Cook’s Book than a cookbook. Scientific explanations are almost always lurking over the next page and how much you engage with these will depend on your appetite for it. They are tiny marvels in themselves, using a data and process driven approach to justify any conclusions though personally, I find overly academic accounts of kitchen alchemy can leave me a little cold, like gazing at a rainbow and being told it’s just water drops and light dispersion, actually.

This however, is a pocket-sized gripe. Much like López-Alt’s The Food Lab, Samin Nosrat’s Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat and Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking, The Wok is a book that isn’t content with showing you how, it wants to show you why. Sure, you can teach a man to fish but you could also show him how salt interacts with protein on a molecular level until he makes the best Kung Pao Prawns this side of the river. For a little time and energy, this is a book that will change how you cook for a lifetime.

Cuisine: International
Suitable for: Confident home cooks/Professional chefs
Cookbook Review Rating: Five stars

Buy this book: The Wok by J. Kenji López-Alt
£36, WW Norton & Co

Review written by Nick Dodd a Leeds-based pianist, teacher and writer. Contact him at www.yorkshirepiano.co.uk

Bras: The Tastes of Aubrac by Sebastian Bras

In 2009, chef Sébastien Bras took over the kitchens at Le Suquet, the world-famous restaurant and hotel that’s perched on a hill above the Aubrac in the southern Massif Central of France. Sébastien’s father Michel won three Michelin stars there for his nouvelle cuisine creations including gargouillou (a warm salad of vegetables and herbs) and soft centred ‘chocolate coulant’ that inspired a thousand chocolate fondants. In his first cookbook, Sébastien offers his own updated variations; a ‘raw’ summer gargouillou made with 120 varieties of vegetables, some grown in the restaurant’s kitchen garden, and a curry cream coulant inspired by a trip to India.

Many of the remaining 38 recipes also reflect the chef’s world travels, some of which are documented in the book, including a trip to the Sahara that inspired a dish of sand-baked taguella bread made with millet flour, semolina and honey and filled with air-dried courade sausage, and visits to Japan (until 2020, there was a Bras restaurant in Hokkaido) where Sébastien first tried the fried pork-loin gyoza that he serves with tangy carrot jus and chrysanthemums.

In addition to discovering his feelings about the Michelin guide (Sébastien famously ‘handed back’ the restaurant’s three Michelin stars in 2017), the book also tells the stories behind the creation of two of the chef’s signature dishes. The ‘miwam’ (a made-up word) is a filled wheat and spelt galette/waffle cooked in a special mould made by Sébastien’s engineer brother William and sold at The Café Bras in Rodez in the south of France; the ‘gouttière’ is its fine dining cousin, a potato waffle made from wavy tuiles sandwiched with hazelnut butter cream and drizzled with salted butter caramel.

The stunning photography documenting the food, life at the restaurant and the austere beauty of the Aubrac through the seasons, and essays on the Bras family, restaurant team, producers and culinary techniques add up to a compelling picture of an extraordinary enterprise that will inspire any keen home cook or chef.

Cuisine: International
Suitable for: Confident home cooks and chefs
Cookbook Review Rating: Four stars

Buy this book: Bras by Sebastian Bras
£39.95, Phaidon

This review originally appeared in The Caterer magazine.

Outside by Gill Meller

What’s up? You haven’t had a look on your face like that since your tortoise died.

I’m not sure I can go through this again

Through what?

It’s another one. By him.

Have you had a stroke? What are you talking about?

Gill Meller, he’s got a new book out.

Who?

Don’t tell me you don’t remember. The last one was during lockdown. I’m still not really over it.

Oh, you mean Gill Meller, alumni of Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall’s River Cottage organization and chef, food writer and teacher. His first book Gather won the Fortnum and Mason award for Best Debut Food Book in 2017 and his other books include root, steam, leaf, flower and Time, both of which you’ve reviewed.

Why are you talking like that? You sound like a newspaper article or something.

I’m not talking like anything. Anyway, I don’t know why you’ve got such a problem with him, I think he’s great. The books always look fantastic, and his recipes are ace. Let me see. Oh, it’s Andrew Montgomery doing the pics. I like him. That one of Meller in the woods, that’s stunning.

Hmm, what do you know? I’m the cookbook blogger. Give it here. Actually, before you do, check something for me.

What? That Gill Meller is still better looking and more successful than you, you bitter old…

Poetry. Is there any poetry in the book?

Oh, good point. That’s what tipped you over the edge last time wasn’t it? Let me have a look. Nope, nothing, unless you count the recipe for ‘The Bacon Sandwich’ which is better than an Amanda Gorman stanza.

It’s called ‘the’ bacon sandwich?

Yeah. Why? What’s the problem with that?

Nothing. Not really, it’s just, you know…

Oh God, I remember, you’ve got a problem with his recipe titles, haven’t you? ‘Unnecessarily overwritten, arch and twee constructions like ‘A tart for May’ and ‘Aubergines and roast tomatoes for everything’ are like fingernails down a blackboard to me’ is what you said. What is wrong with you?

Tell me some other titles, go on. Do your worst, let’s get it over with.

Well, sorry to disappoint you, but they’re all just sort of normal.

What?! Let me see.

Alright, don’t snatch! Learn some manners.

This is weird, ‘Salted cabbage salad with chestnut mushrooms and flaked seaweed’, ‘Wild garlic polenta with barbecued asparagus and crispy stinging nettles’. They are just sort of normal. No poetry, no offensive recipe titles. It’s almost like he’s read my review.

Oh, do not flatter yourself! You sound ridiculous.

I’ll have you know I’m an internationally renowned food writer.

*yawns*

What is Outside actually about? Let me have a look at the back cover. ‘We shouldn’t be shutting doors anymore – we should be opening them’. That’s terrible advice. One, obvious security issue, who leaves their front door open? Two, you’re going to let all the heat out and no one can afford to do that, hasn’t he heard about the cost-of-living crisis? And three, you’re not really using the full functionality of a door if you’re just opening it are you? Doors by their very nature open and close. You might as well just have a hole in the wall if you’re never going to shut it. Stands to reason.

Very funny, have you considered a career in stand up? Russell Howard must be shitting himself.

Anyway, it doesn’t make any sense, I’m going to have to read the introduction, aren’t I?

I see you’ve deliberately ignored the bit on the back cover where it also says ‘Gill Meller’s new book Outside is a thoughtful celebration of the joys of cooking and eating outdoors’, but you know, comic effect is more important than accuracy. And it is your bloody job to read the introduction.

Suppose.

*sighs*

Read out the best bits otherwise there’s just going to be a blank space.

You mean a silence?

Erm, yeah, whatever.

I’m through the first paragraph, no problem. I think everything’s going to be OK…

Well done you. Keep going. You’re a hero.

Oh shit…spoke too soon.

What is it now? Jesus.

Writing. Creative writing. So much. Can’t breathe. Heart is racing. Must stay calm.

Read it out, you’ll feel better. We’ll all feel better.

What do you mean ‘we’ll all feel better’? Who is ‘we’?

Just read it, there’s a dear.

So, he’s writing about moving to the countryside from the town when he was a kid and getting into bird watching as way of adapting to the change. Which is all fine, and then he says, ‘the rooks would fall on to the wing and dance up over the pine, tumbling, shrieking, wheeling to the weather. They cut a shifty, marauding form, but squabbled with eloquence as they turned and raked together, a black ballet in the afternoon.’

Gosh. That’s…a lot. It’s very descriptive though, isn’t it? I mean, who wouldn’t enjoy a black ballet in the afternoon. Don’t get distracted, what’s the book actually about?

OK, now were getting to it. He’s having a Proust’s madeleine moment except it involves a flask of soup and some bread. The general idea seems to be that by cooking and eating outside we can reconnect with a kinder gentler time when we were closer to nature and not so tied to technology.

What, by having a picnic?

Actually, yes.

Well, you can’t beat Ginster’s and a packet of Frazzles in the park can you?

Don’t forget your four pack of Special Brew, will you? That doesn’t sound very ‘elemental’ does it, you’re not going to discover ‘another aspect of our primal hardwiring’ with that heart attack on a paper plate are you? No, Gill has something a little more sophisticated in mind for you, like wild mushroom and thyme sausage rolls or a ham hock, potato and parsley terrine.

Ooh, fancy. Actually, I do fancy that. Go on, what else is in the book?

Why don’t you have a look yourself?

Because you’ve got to tell me. Otherwise, this doesn’t work.

What won’t work? Honestly, you are in a strange mood today. Well, there’s a chapter on cooking over fire, one on eating out (don’t even think about making a joke, it’s beneath even you) that’s based around raw preparations, a chapter on camping out (I’ll just pause for a moment here. Are you done? Good) which is really just more cooking over fire, a section on wild things (foraging) and an early autumn feast that’s based around setting a sheep on fire by the looks of things.

That doesn’t sound very PC.

Hold that call to PETA. It says, ‘A Sheep on Fire’ but what it actually means is ‘A Sheep on a Fire’ which is an entirely different thing. It’s already dead and has had a pole stuck up its…

That’s quite enough detail thanks. So, what are you cooking for us tonight then, oh former Masterchef semi-finalist.

Can you be a ‘former Masterchef semi-finalist’? You either are or you aren’t. It’s a bit like being a president.

What, do you tart about insisting people call you by your title? When they ask you for your name at Starbucks do say ‘Masterchef semi-finalist Lynes’.

No, of course not. At least not since the, er, incident. I’m not cooking anything if you’re just going to take the piss.

Just pick a recipe.

Alright, I’m thinking. I’m not setting fire to a sheep, that’s for sure. I could make the hispi cabbage with miso, honey, tamari and sesame. Sounds nice. Oh, hold on, I’ll need ‘a bed of hot chunky embers’ and some clay to wrap the cabbage in. Maybe not. Smokey anchovies with baked wet garlic? But where am I going to get fresh anchovy fillet and wet garlic from? Venison cured with blackberries, elderberries, juniper and bay…no good, got to marinate the meat for 24 hours.

You’re just looking for problems, aren’t you? Give me the book. Look, what’s wrong with lentils cooked with garlic, chilli and rosemary with baked eggs and kale. Or spatchcock chicken, aioli and toast. Or a lovely vegetarian ‘Campervan’ stew?

*shrugs*

Sorry, I didn’t hear you.

I said ‘nothing’.

Right then. Supermarket it is. Well, shall we go?

Yes, let’s go.

They do not move.

Cuisine: British
Suitable for: For confident home cooks/professional chefs
Cookbook Review Rating: Three stars

Buy this book: Outside by Gill Meller
£30, Hardie Grant

Core by Clare Smyth

As the first and currently only British female chef to hold three Michelin stars, Clare Smyth needs no introduction. But in case you didn’t know, before opening Core restaurant in Notting Hill in 2017, Smyth was chef-patron of Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, worked for Alain Ducasse in Monaco and staged at Thomas Keller’s The French Laundry and Per Se, all of them three Michelin starred establishments. So it’s no surprise to flick through the gold lined pages of this sumptuously produced book to find immaculately presented, highly detailed and technically brilliant dishes.

From a ‘Caviar Sandwich’ – a perfect, tiny wedge of buckwheat pancake layered with sieved egg white and yolk bound in mayonnaise, creme fraiche, puffed buckwheat and caviar served on a beautiful bespoke wooden sphere – to a pear and verbena Eton mess that belies its name with a Faberge-like construction of upturned meringue dome filled with lemon verbena cream, pear puree, verbena jelly, compressed pear pearls and pear sorbet, topped with miniature discs of pear and meringue, each of the 60 recipes (there are also a further 70 recipes for stocks, sauces and breads) is an elegant work of culinary art.

Smyth calls her style ‘British fine dining’, eschewing and ‘excessive reliance on imported luxury ingredients’ and instead celebrating world class produce from the British Isles such as Scottish langoustines and Lake District hogget. In Smyth’s hands, even the humble potato (from a secret supplier she won’t reveal the name of) is transformed into a signature dish of astonishingly intense flavours. Cooked sous vide with kombu and dulse, topped with trout and herring roe and homemade salt and vinegar crisps and served with a dulse beurre blanc ‘Potato and Roe’ is an homage to the food of Smyth’s Northern Ireland coastal upbringing.

With a forward by Ramsay, introduction by journalist Kieran Morris, essays on subjects such as Smyth’s suppliers and informative recipe introductions, there’s plenty to read, while the colour food and landscape photography – and black and white shots of the restaurant in action –are stunning. It all adds up to an unmissable package that any ambitious cook will find inspiring.

Cuisine: British
Suitable for: For confident home cooks/professional chefs
Cookbook Review Rating: Five stars

Buy this book: Core by Clare Smyth
£45, Phaidon

Live Fire by Helen Graves

Live Fire is a book so dedicated to the subject of barbecue that it will convince you that you can cook over live fire all year round. But this isn’t just a barbecue book for all seasons, it’s for all cuisines too with carefully researched recipes from around the globe, bolstered by interviews with experts in many of the national and regional traditions featured.

The author is a widely published London-based food writer and editor of the highly rated, independently published Pit magazine that’s not just about food and fire, but also is about it, if that makes sense. Live Fire is Graves’s first book.

You should buy Live Fire if you are new to barbecue and need some guidance on equipment, accessories, what fuel to burn and cooking techniques. But you should buy it especially if you are an experienced barbecue cook and are looking to expand your repertoire. With more than 100 recipes covering everything from a simple plate of sugar snap peas with mint (the sort of thing you’d imagine Fergus Henderson cooking if you let him near the barbecue) to expert-level smoked and braised ox cheek tacos, Graves has got every skill level, taste and occasion covered.

Things get even more interesting when Graves delves into those aforementioned global live fire culinary traditions that include suya – spicy beef skewers from West Africa, Vietnamese bun cha – barbecued pork with noodles and a dipping sauce, and Jamaican jerk chicken among many others. Each comes with a well researched and fascinating essay, making the book as much of an entertaining and informative read as it is a cooking manual. That said, it’s worth the cover price alone for Graves’s version of the legendary tandoori lamb chops from Tayyabs restaurant in Whitechapel.

There are many barbecue books on the market, but none I’ve seen are quite like Live Fire. Even if you don’t have a barbecue and never intend buying one, I’d still recommend getting hold of a copy of this book. As Graves points out, you can use a cast iron griddle pan to cook many of the recipes. The result may not be quite the same, but at least you won’t be missing out on all those delicious dishes.

Buy this book: Live Fire by Helen Graves
£26, Hardie Grant

Cuisine: Barbecue
Suitable for: For beginners/confident home cooks/professional chefs
Cookbook Review Rating: Five stars

Seared by Genevieve Taylor

There are few better qualified people to write a guide to barbecuing meat than Genevieve Taylor. As well as authoring ten previous cookbooks, including Charred: The Complete Guide to Vegetarian Grilling and Barbecue, Taylor runs the Bristol Fire School where she teaches cooking over fire. She shares her knowledge and expertise in the practical side of barbecuing in an extended introduction that’s the next best thing to attending one of her classes. Taylor covers all the key areas of cooking over fire including all the equipment you’ll probably ever need as well as what sort of fuel you should consider buying and how to create various fuel set ups for cooking different cuts of meat.

Divided into two main chapters of ‘Beast’ (covering beef, pork, lamb, veal, venison and goat) and ‘Bird’ (chicken, turkey and duck), the collection of globally inspired recipes covers both fast and slow cooking methods and will help barbecue newbies and more experienced practitioners alike expand their repertoire. The creative dishes include pork tenderloin with pistachio crust and grilled spring veg; tandoori venison kebabs, and even a Thai red curry with meatballs and green beans.

The ubiquitous and often mundane barbecue double act of sausages and burgers are given a makeover with homemade pork butt and beef chuck Texas hot link sausages spiced with smoked paprika and cayenne, and minty lamb smash burgers served with feta and beetroot. Ribs get an entire chapter to themselves and have never sounded more tempting than in the guise of Sri Lankan black pork spare-ribs with curry BBQ sauce or cola and gochugaru flanken-cut (across the bones) beef ribs.

With guides on brines, marinades and rubs, how to cook the perfect steak (with or without bone), techniques for smoking and braising on the barbecue and a quick reference infographic guide to the internal temperatures for all the included varieties of meat, Taylor covers all the barbecue bases and lives up to the claim in the book’s subtitle that this is ‘The Ultimate Guide to Barbecuing Meat’.

Cuisine: Barbecue
Suitable for: Beginner and confident home cooks/professional chefs
Cookbook Review Rating: Four stars

Buy this book
Seared by Genevieve Taylor
£20, Hardie Grant

This review was first published in The Caterer magazine.

Tarkari by Rohit Ghai

What’s the USP? Tarkari is Bengali word that refers to any vegetable dish and therefore a fitting title for this collection of vegetarian and vegan Indian dishes from one of the UK’s most exciting Indian chefs.

Who is the author? Rohit Ghai is the Michelin-star winning chef of Kutir restaurant in Chelsea and Manthan in Mayfair. He was previously chef at various other highly acclaimed London destinations including Gymkhana, Jamavar, Trishna and Hoppers. Tarkari is his first book

Is it good bedtime reading? `Takari is first and foremost a recipe book, the only extras are a short introduction from Ghai and a brief chapter on ‘The Magic of Spices’ with a description of Ghai’s favoured spices and recipes for masalas, spice mixes and pastes.

How annoyingly vague are the recipes? The recipe for aloo gobi requires ‘2 potatoes, diced’, size, weight or variety is not specified. Similarly, the other ingredients include ‘1 cauliflower’ and ‘2 tomatoes’, both of which can vary in size quite dramticaly . No doubt you can get away with your own judgement here, but the quantities of spices are quite small, two and half teaspoons in total, so you may end up with an underpowered dish if your veggies are on the large side. This is frustrating as there are more specific recipes elsewhere in the book. For example, Courgette Mussalam requires 250g of boiled and mashed potatoes. You see, it’s not that difficult is it? And yet Tawa Salad calls for ‘100g of beetroots’ (hurrah) and ‘2 carrots’ (boo). So, yeah, a bit annoyingly vague.

Will I have trouble finding ingredients? Starting with Ghai’s spice rack, you will probably have to resort to an online source for black moon flower (a key ingredient in his signature garam masala blend) and also amchur (dried mango powder), pomegranate powder, sambhar powder, fenugreek seeds and black cumin seeds if you don’t have a good Asian grocer near to you. I also had to order black lentils online for the rich and delicious dal makhani Kasundhi mustard may need hunting down, but pretty much everything else spice-wise should be easily obtainable.

What’s the faff factor? To get the most out of the book, you’ll want to spend some time making Ghai’s spice blends for which you’ll need a spice blender (a very affordable addition to your kitchen batterie if you don’t already own one) or a decent sized pestle and mortar. Once you have your spice pantry sorted, the complexity of the recipes vary from a simple Chickpea and Samphire Salad or Bhuteko Bhat (Nepalese Fried Rice) to the more demanding (but still very achievable) Punjabi Samosa or Chandni Chowk Ki Aloo Tikki with its multiple elements and sub-recipes. In the main however, these are dishes that any enthusiastic home cook will be happy to tackle and feel it was worth the effort.

How often will I cook from the book? If you love Indian food and observe a vegetarian or vegan diet then you could easily be cooking from Tarkari on a weekly basis, or even more often. If you are looking to cut down on meat, this book is full of dishes that would make excellent and delicious mid-week meals without too much effort required.

Killer recipes: Malabar cauliflower (spicy battered and deep-fried florets); mushroom and truffle khichadi (a dish of spiced rice and lentils) ; dum aloo (potato curry); jackfruit masala; chickpea and mushroom biryani.

Should I buy it? Covering everything from breakfasts to desserts with snacks, pickles and dips, curries, sharing plates, sides, and rice and breads in between, Tarkari is a one stop shop for vegetarian and vegan cooking. Ghai brings real flair and inspiration to the dishes making the book an essential purchase for anyone who loves Indian food or is looking for a comprehensive introduction to the vegetarian and vegan side of the cuisine.

Anyone who has had the opportunity to dine at one of Ghai’s restaurants may be disappointed that the book doesn’t include recipes for some of his sublime meat and fish dishes, but I imagine and certainly hope there will be a second volume on the horizon to cover those soon.

Cuisine: Indian
Suitable for: confident home cooks/professional chefs
Cookbook Review Rating: Four stars

Buy this book
Tarkari: Vegetarian and Vegan Indian Dishes with Heart and Soul
£25, Kyle Books