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Aska by Fredrik Berselius

What’s the USP? Cutting edge, natural cooking from a leading New York chef.

Who’s the author? Two Michelin-starred, Swedish-born chef Fredrik Berselius of Aska restaurant that’s located in a Brooklyn back street under the shadow of the Willamsburg Bridge.

What does it look like? The book is a very desireable object with its textured black and gold cover, elegant design and stunning landscape, portrait and food photography.

Is it good bedtime reading? In addition to the inspirational food, Berselius writes evocatively about his homeland of Sweden, his foraging trips to upstate New York and being a restaurateur and chef in Brooklyn.

Will I have trouble finding ingredients? Recipes tick all the modish ‘New Nordic’ boxes with ingedients like aged diary cow, birch, buttermilk, lingonberries and white currents, some of which may be tricky to track down for the home cook.

What’s the faff factor? Berselius has his own distinctive style. Some of the the most impactful presentations are the most simple, yet belie the numerous processes that go into their creation. Lamb Heart Burnt in Bedstraw appears to be a black disc on the plate but is in fact brunoise of fermented sunchoke, sunchoke emulsion and rendered lamb heart fat dusted with a powder of lamb heart that’s been cured, dried, grated, dry-fried, burnt with bedstraw, dry-fried and burnt a second time then blended and passed.

How often will I cook from the book? Techniques such as smoking, pickling and fermenting (along with a fair bit of foraging) mean that cooking from the book will require a fair amount of committment in terms of time, energy and organisation. Definately not the book to reach for when you come home late from work and need to rustle something up in 20 minutes.

Killer recipes? Lichen, caramelised cream, pine mushroom, spruce and chanterelle; grilled eel head on a branch; mackerel and black locust; sourdough, smoked hake and toasted milk.

What will I love? Berselius might be a resolutely urban chef saying, ‘I knew I wanted to be in New York. I fell in love with the city as soon as I set foot here’, but his cooking draws on formative experiences and memories from growing up in the suburbs of Stockholm and visiting his grandmother in the north of Sweden with its ‘reindeeer and white and black birch bark’ and summers spent among the ‘wheat, oat, rapeseed, grazing cows, and horses’ of the lowlands. Berselius’s achingly beautiful creations put nature right there on the plate in front of you. The food ranges from delicate (lenghts of pickled and compressed cucmber are artfully decorated pickled linden flowers) to red in tooth and claw (truffles made from pigs blood, butter and rose hip) but always seem to evoke some wild Nordic landscape.

What won’t I like? Some readers may find the book a little po-faced and over serious.

Should I buy it? Aska provides genuine insight into the mind of an exciting chef who is pushing the boundaries of his own creativity. As accomplished as Berselius obviously is, I get the feeling that there is much more to come from him. Roll on Aska book two.

Cuisine: Progressive
Suitable for: Professional chefs
Cookbook Review Rating: 4 stars

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Aska
£39.95 Phaidon

Out of My Tree by Daniel Clifford

What’s the USP? Two decades worth of recipes and stories that chart the evolution of the iconic two Michelin-starred Cambridge restaurant Midsummer House and its chef/patron Daniel Clifford.

Who’s the author? Daniel Clifford is one of the most revered, respected and, at times, controversial chefs working in the UK today. In addition to those Michelin gongs, he also holds five AA rosettes, the title of AA Chefs’ Chef of the Year 2015 and 8 out of 10 in the Good Food Guide. In short, he’s premier league.

What does it look like? A million dollars. Clifford’s food is very photogenic and has been allowed to speak for itself. Many of the dishes appear to be ‘plated’ directly onto the white of the page, a la Michel Bras’s 2002 book Essential Cuisine, which gives the intricate presentations room to breathe. The exemplary food photography is supplement by ‘family album’ snapshots in the autobiographical sections, bringing personality to the book and breaking up all the glossy perfection with a dose of behind the scenes realism.

Is it good bedtime reading? Clifford is brutally honest in the fascinating autobiographical passages that begin each chapter, both about the industry and his personal life, making Out of My Tree as much of a page-turning blockbuster as it is a document of modern British haute cuisine. Expect to be up to the early hours finishing it.

Will I have trouble finding ingredients? There’s a fair few specialist items such as gelepressa (a thickening agent) that you’d need to hunt down online, and if you want to emulate Clifford’s food you’ll need to source the highest quality raw ingredients you can lay your hands on, so forget the supermarket for the most part and think top notch butchers, fishmongers and your best local independent market for fruit and veg.

What’s the faff factor? This is unashamedly Michelin food, so the recipes are often long with numerous elements and many ingredients and replicating them will be demanding, requiring intricate and precise cooking.

How often will I cook from the book? On very special occasions or simply when the urge to spend a whole weekend (and a whole weeks wages on ingredients) hits you. For the home cook, it’s probably best to see this book as a source of inspiration from which you can cherry pick a sauce here and a vegetable preperation there rather than tackling entire dishes.

Killer recipes? We could be here all day. One of the many wonderful things about Out of My Tree is the warts and all approach. Of course there are the many triumphs; the insanely complicated Chicken, Sweetcorn, Truffle and Peas that won Clifford four perfect 10s on the Great British Menu and includes ballotine of chicken lined with spinach, stuffed with steamed truffled egg white and sweetcorn jelly (to resemble an egg), wrapped in potato string and deep fried. But there are also some embarrassing also rans such as parfait of banana, chocolate and a palm tree-shaped coconut tuile from 1998 (all the recipes are dated) that looks like it might have come straight from a TGI Fridays menu. Clifford has also included recipes for his mums egg sandwiches (served for staff lunch every Friday at the restaurant) and his nan’s cheese scones which he put on the menu when she came to eat at Midsummer House. Cute.

What will I love? Clifford and his publisher deserve a standing ovation for the obvious effort put into this book. A reported three years have gone into its production and it shows from the perfect food (as someone who has been involved in the making of a cookbook, trust me that getting 140 dishes of this degree of complexity to look immaculate on the page takes some doing) to the extensive biography and numerous extras like interviews with past employees and the string of forewords by Sat Bains, Tom Kerridge, Claude Bosi and others. Little details like illustrating the stock recipes with photos of how the finished product should look like elevate the book above the norm.

What won’t I like? This is unashamedly Michelin-starred, fine-dining, testosterone fueled stuff which may not appeal to every reader.

Should I buy it? Out of My Tree is the new White Heat, a once in a generation book. Clifford has put his heart and soul onto every page, making it the culinary equivalent of Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks. Any chef that aspires to Michelin glory and wants to know what that really takes will want it on their shelf and every chef that has achieved that status it will want to share in Clifford’s journey. Enthusiastic diners will find the book truly eye opening. If you’re a chef, don’t just buy it, send Clifford an email to thank him for writing it; there is much hard-won wisdom generously shared in these 400-odd pages that, read carefully, might just save you years of grief.

Cuisine: Progressive British
Suitable for: Professional chefs
Cookbook Review Rating: 5 stars

Buy this book
Out of my tree (Midsummer House)
£45 Meze

Japan: The Cookbook by Nancy Singleton Hachisu

What’s the USP? This weighty 464-page volume is the latest in Phaidon’s series of ‘international cookbook bibles’ that have previously covered Mexico, Peru and China among other countries.

Who is the author? Californian Nancy Singleton Hachisu, a recognised authority on Japanese cooking both in America and Japan where she has lived for over thirty years

What does it look like? Three years in the making, the book contains over 400 recipes (many illustrated with clear and simple overhead photographs), organised into 15 categories including pickles, stir-fries and one pots, to create what Singleton Hachisu calls ‘a curated experience of Japan’s culinary framework from a specific moment in time’, researched during travels across the country and discussions with ‘chefs, local grandmothers and artisanal makers of traditional food’.

Is it good bedtime reading? As long as you’ve got strong arms, and be careful not to nod off reading about Jomon period of Japanese food history, if the 1.7kg book falls out of your hands it could do some serious damage.

Will I have trouble finding ingredients? You may struggle to track down some things such as konnyaku but between your local Asian supermarket and online specialists such as Sous Chef you should be able to source the majority of stuff you need.

What’s the faff factor? All the dishes are listed with a preparation time and cooking time so you know what you’re letting yourself in for, but many can be completed in under half an hour.

How often will I cook from the book? There is a huge range of recipes included in this veritable encyclopedia of Japanese food so you could easily find yourself dipping into it on a regular basis.

Killer recipes? The broad selection of dishes from across the country covers everything from walnut dressed chrysanthemum petals to steamed mountain yam with nori and grilled eggplant miso soup to chicken yakitori.

What will I love? A history of Japanese food, a glossary of ingredients, a list of Japanese kitchen equipment and descriptions of Japanese cutting styles (zakugiri are ‘greens cut crosswise into 4cm pieces’). The 11-strong international line-up featured in the ‘shefu’ (chefs) chapter include Shinobu Namae of two Michelin-starred L’Effervescenvce in Tokyo, whose recipes include bonito sashimi with butterbur miso and shiso, and Shuko Oda of Koya Bar in London who contributes three recipes including clams, fava beans and capers steamed in dashi butter.

What won’t I like? If you’re looking for an encyclopedia of sushi, sashimi and ramen, then Japan The cookbook will disappoint, with just seven sushi, three sashimi and one ramen recipe (although there is a whole chapter on noodles).

Should I buy it? Japanese food has become an everyday part of the British diet. From udon at Wagamama to ramen at Bone Daddies, from robata grilled lamb chops at Roka to the omakase tasting menu at the three Michelin-starred The Araki, Japanese cuisine has become so prevalent that there are now even sushi counters in supermarkets. Japanese ingredients and techniques have also become part of many progressive British kitchens with dashi becoming almost as common as chicken stock.

But even the most ardent Japanophile chef will probably only have scratched the surface of a food culture with a recorded history dating back to the third century. That’s where Japan The Cookbook comes in. This is the perfect primer for anyone wanting to deepen their knowledge of an endlessly fascinating subject.

Cuisine: Japanese
Suitable for: Confident home cooks/professional chefs
Cookbook Review Rating: 5 stars

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Japan: The Cookbook
£29.95 Phaidon

Goat by James Whetlor

What’s the USP? Everything you wanted to know about the UK’s most undervalued and underused protein but were afraid to ask, plus 70 odd recipes covering just about anything and everything you could possibly do with a goat, gastronomically speaking of course.

Who’s the author? James Whetlor is a former River Cottage chef (Hugh Fearnely Whittingstall wrote the book’s foreword) the and now founder of Cabrito which supplies goat meat to catering butchers and restaurants around the country.

What does it look like? With its ominous horned goat head cover, you might mistake this for a book of black magic spells (and if you read it backwards, it actually is) but open it up and you find something far more benign with images of Whetlor cuddling a goat, munching on a goat burger and preparing a hay barbecue. The food has been imaginatively and attractively styled and shot and the book has a fresh, bright and elegant look.

Is it good bedtime reading? Of course; goats are the new sheep to count you off to sleep. Also there’s an extended 30-page introduction to get stuck into which goes into depth on the subject of goats, covering their place in history, goats and modern farming, goat as served in restaurants and their use in the leather industry.

Will I have trouble finding ingredients? Any butcher worth his salt should be able to source you some goat meat, but if not, you can always order some from Whetlor himself .

What’s the faff factor? There’s nothing to scare the horses in the book, although it will make goats very nervous.

How often will I cook from the book? You’re not going to eat goat every day, but this book should certainly inspire you to add it as a regular alternative to other meats on your weekly or monthly menus.

Killer recipes? Whetlor has gone out of his way to demonstrate the versatility of his beloved animals and the variety of dishes is impressive from kid shank, apricot and pistachio tagine to schnitzel and Greek-style orange and leek sausages. The author has roped in a number of high profile chef friends to contribute their own recipes too, including Neil Rankin from Temper (goat tacos) and Hugh FH himself (kid, lentil and labneh salad).

What will I love? Fifty per cent of the royalties from the book fo to Farm Africa charitable project that has used goats to help rehabilitate local ecosystems in rural eastern Africa and which Cabrito also give part of their profits.

What won’t I like? Yes, its a single ingredient book so theoretically might have limited appeal.

Should I buy it? Currently, the male offspring of dairy goats are simply destroyed but could become a sustainable and ethical source of low fat, high protein meat. Buying this book and putting goat on your menu will help that become a reality. That’s a pretty good reason to pick up a copy.

Cuisine: International
Suitable for: Confident home cooks/professional chefs
Cookbook Review Rating: 4 stars

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Goat
£20, Quadrille

Kricket: An Indian-Inspired Cookbook by Will Bowlby

What’s the USP? A collection of over 80 modern and classic Indian recipes from Kricket restaurant in Soho.
Who’s the author? This is the debut book from young British chef and restaurateur Will Bowlby who trained with Rowley Leigh at the much missed Le Cafe Anglais before relocating to Mumbai for two years to work as a head chef. He then travelled the subcontinent, learning about regional Indian cuisine. Kricket originally opened in a shipping container in Brixton in 2015 before relocating to Soho in 2017. Bowlby has been named national chef of the year by the Asian curry awards
What does it look like? Good enough to eat. Photographer Hugh Johnson has brought Bowlby’s simple, colourful and impactful food to life while restaurant interiors and kitchen action shots give an insight into what it’s like to dine at Kricket. Chapter headings are illustrated with line drawings by Myoung Chung and lend the book extra style and elegance.
Is it good bedtime reading? This is first and foremost a recipe book so keep this one in the kitchen.
Will I have trouble finding ingredients? There are the odd one or two you might have to make an effort to get hold of such as caul fat for lamb galouti kebabs or green papaya paste for lamb chops with burnt onion raita, but most supermarkets now have an extensive array of ingredients for Indian dishes so you should have few problems.
What’s the faff factor? Most of the dishes will require a bit of planning ahead to factor in marinating times or making the spice pastes and mixes, but that goes with the territory. There is nothing too technically challenging and you should derive a lot of pleasure from cooking from the book.
How often will I cook from the book? The book will be most suited to weekend and special occasion cooking, when you’ve got a bit more time to spare.
Killer recipes? Just flip through at random and you’re bound to find something you’ll want to cook, from a classic Old Delhi (butter) chicken to more modish creations like bone marrow and cep kulcha (mini naan bread) or chanterelles in malai (lightly spiced cashew nut and green mango) sauce with fresh peas and pea shoots.
What will I love? The sheer variety and inventiveness of the recipes aside, there’s an informative introduction, suggested seasonal menu plans and a whole chapter of delicious sounding cocktails including smoked tarbooz made with vodka, whisky, watermelon juice and cinnamon syrup
What won’t I like? If you have purist tendencies when it comes to Indian cooking, this is not the book you are looking for.
Should I buy it? Pierre Koffmann, who wrote the book’s foreword, loves Will Bowlby’s food so it’s a no-brainer.

Cuisine: Indian
Suitable for:Confident home cooks/professional chefs
Cookbook Review Rating:4 stars

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Kricket: An Indian-inspired cookbook
£26, Hardie Grant

The Mushroom Cookbook by Michael Hyams and Liz O’Keefe

What is it? A directory of the most widely available mushrooms, both wild and cultivated, plus a collection of 50 mushroom- based recipes. Michael Hyams, based in Covent Garden Market, is apparently known as The Mushroom Man and supplies markets and restaurants with fungi while co-writer Lix O’Keefe is a chef, recipe developer and food stylist.

What’s the USP? From morels to mousseron and portobello to pom pom, Hyams describes in detail 33of the most widely available wild and cultivated mushroom varieties, listing alternative names, their Latin name, where the mushroom can be found and when, along with a detailed description of its appearance, flavour and texture and how it should be prepared and cooked. In the second half of the book, O’Keefe provides 50 ways to cook your fungi.

What does it look like? It’s a game of two halves. The first half that contains the directory is a reference work with the emphasis on providing simple, clear and well organised information. The photos are mainly of unadorned mushrooms against a white or grey background accompanied with step by step illustrations of how to clean and prepare them. By contrast, in the second recipe half, there is a serious amount of food styling going on with all manner of folded napkins, trays, boards, slates and other props to liven up proceedings.

Is it good bedtime reading? Although there is plenty of text, this is more of a reference work than a relaxing read.

Will I have trouble finding ingredients? That will depend on how keen you are on foraging. You could substitute easier to find mushrooms for some of the more obscure varieties, although that would seem to defeat the whole object of the book.

What’s the faff factor? There’s a fair amount of wrapping and stuffing going on, but for the most part, the recipes are quite straightforward.

How often will I cook from the book? How much do you love mushrooms? For most readers, the book will come in handy for when they want to cook something a little different for a dinner party or find themselves with a sudden fungi fixation.

Killer recipes? Chinese mixed mushroom curry; Asian mushroom and pork ramen; wild mushroom and boar sausages

What will I love? The price. A 250 page, full-colour illustrated hardback cookbook for £15 is excellent value.

What won’t I like? Some of the recipes, like mushroom sushi, are a little gimmicky, there are some odd flavour combinations (Camembert and blackberry fondue on your mushroom burger anyone?) and some of the dishes like whole roast salmon with garlic pesto and truffle look messy and unappetising.

Should I buy it? At the knock-down price, it’s worth picking up for the mushroom directory alone.

Cuisine: International
Suitable for: Confident home cooks
Cookbook Review Rating: 3 stars

Buy this book
The Mushroom Cookbook: A Guide to Edible Wild and Cultivated Mushrooms – And Delicious Seasonal Recipes to Cook with Them
£15, Lorenz Books

Salted Caramel Cacao, Malt Ice Cream by Robin Gill

Salted Caramel - 0181 One of the first dishes to be created at The Dairy, this recipe has been improved and enhanced by the quality of the chocolate we now use and the addition of a special malt we buy from a local brewery. A well-known chef said this about the dessert: ‘I would run completely naked across the Common just to have that again.’ If you are left with any excess truffles, they can be stored in the freezer and served as petits fours.

Serves 6–8

Chocolate Truffles

50g unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
100ml double cream
250g 72% dark chocolate buttons (or chopped dark chocolate)
40g cacao nibs
a pinch of Maldon sea salt
cocoa powder, for dusting

Put the butter in a pan over a high heat and cook until it starts to foam and brown and has a nutty aroma. Stir in the cream, then bring just to the boil.

Pour this mixture over the chocolate in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the balloon whisk attachment. Whisk on a low speed until the chocolate has fully melted. Turn up the mixer speed gradually until the mixture begins to whip. When it is light and aerated, add the cacao nibs and salt, and mix on a high speed briefly to incorporate.

Transfer the mixture to a disposable piping bag and snip off the end. Pipe into lengths (1.5cm in diameter) on greaseproof paper. Freeze before roughly cutting into pieces (about 1.5cm long). Dust with cocoa powder. Keep in the freezer until required.

Chocolate Soil

250g ground almonds
150g demerara sugar
150g buckwheat flour
80g cocoa powder
1 teaspoon Maldon sea salt
140g unsalted butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 160°C fan/180°C/Gas Mark 4. Mix together all the dry ingredients in a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Add the melted butter and mix to combine.

Spread the mixture on a baking tray. Bake for 30 minutes, stirring the mixture every 10 minutes. Allow to cool, then store in an airtight container in a cool, dry place.

Salted Caramel

300g caster sugar
7.5g trimoline
75g unsalted butter, diced
300ml double cream
100g 66% dark chocolate buttons (or chopped dark chocolate)
1 teaspoon Maldon sea salt

Place the sugar and trimoline in a pan. Add a little water to make a ‘wet sand’ consistency. Set over a high heat to melt the sugar, then boil until the syrup reaches a dark caramel stage (165–175°C). Remove from the heat and whisk in the butter a third at a time. Continue whisking until smooth.

In a separate pan, warm the cream until it just reaches boiling point. Pour over the chocolate in a bowl and whisk until smooth and glossy.

Pour the cream/chocolate mixture into the butter caramel and whisk together until smooth. Add the Maldon salt and mix through.

Chocolate Tuile

50g liquid glucose
50ml double cream
125g unsalted butter
155g caster sugar
¾ teaspoon pectin powder
175g cacao nibs

Put the glucose, cream, butter and 150g of the sugar in a pan and melt together. Mix the pectin with the remaining sugar and add to the pan. Boil the mixture until it reaches 107°C. Remove from the heat and allow the mixture to cool down to at least 45°C before folding through the cacao nibs.

Roll out the mixture between sheets of greaseproof paper as thinly as possible. Freeze and keep in the freezer until ready to bake.

Preheat the oven to 160°C fan/180°C/Gas Mark 4. Place the frozen tuile sheet (still with greaseproof paper top and bottom) on a large baking tray and set a large wire rack over the top to hold down the edges of the greaseproof paper. Bake for about 15 minutes or until the tuile is set and doesn’t appear to be liquid when the tray is gently knocked. Allow to cool before breaking into shards. Store in an airtight container.

Malt Ice Cream

375ml double cream
375ml whole milk
35g milk powder
25g trimoline
1 teaspoon Stab 2000 (ice cream stabiliser)
75g malt extract
90g pasteurised egg yolks
65g caster sugar

Put the cream, milk, milk powder, trimoline, Stab and malt extract in a pan. Whisk together and bring to the boil. In a large bowl, mix together the yolks and sugar. Pour a third of the hot mixture over the yolks and sugar and whisk together. Add this to the rest of the hot mixture in the pan and whisk in. Heat until the temperature of the mixture is 85°C.

Pass through a chinois or very fine sieve into a deep tray set over ice to cool the mixture quickly. Once cool, churn in an ice cream machine according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Store in the freezer.

Assembly

Spoon some of the salted caramel over the bottom of each plate. Sprinkle with a few truffles and scatter over chocolate soil. Add a couple of quenelles of ice cream to each plate and finish with a few tuile shards.

Extract taken from Larder by Robin Gill (Absolute Press, £26)
Photography © Paul Winch-Furness

Cook more recipes from this book:
Loch Duart Salmon Oyster Emulsion, Fennel, Fried Wakame by Robin Gill
Smoked beetroot tartare Cacklebean egg yolk, hazelnut by Robin Gill

Read the review

Buy this book
Larder: From pantry to plate – delicious recipes for your table

Loch Duart Salmon Oyster Emulsion, Fennel, Fried Wakame by Robin Gill

Photographer Paul Winch-Furness The oyster emulsion here is an absolute winner. It’s also amazing served as a dip with some oysters in tempura or with a beef tartare. The way the salmon is cooked is a trick I picked up from Raymond Blanc. I’ll never forget tasting it for the first time. It simply blew my mind and taught me to understand the nature of cooking fish. You will often hear chefs say that it takes great skill to cook fish. I slightly disagree. I believe it just requires an understanding. Fish is delicate and in most cases should never be cooked at too high a temperature, otherwise the fish tenses up and an unpleasant white protein appears, which for me is an alarm bell screaming that I have overcooked the fish.

Serves 4

Oyster Emulsion

100g banana shallots, sliced
200ml dry white wine
130g freshly shucked rock oysters (juice reserved)
150ml grapeseed oil
5 sorrel leaves
1 tablespoon crème fraîche

Put the shallots into a saucepan and pour over the white wine. Place on a medium to low heat and boil until all the wine has evaporated. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

Tip the shallot mixture and oysters into a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. While blending, gradually add the oil to make a mayonnaise consistency. Add the sorrel leaves and blend through, then blend in some of the reserved oyster juice to loosen the mixture. Stir in the crème fraîche. Keep the emulsion in the fridge until ready to serve.

Fried Wakame

200ml vegetable oil, for frying
50g dried wakame

Heat the oil in a deep pan to 160°C. Fry the wakame for 1½ minutes or until crisp. Remove and drain on kitchen paper.

Assembly

250g Cured Salmon (see Larder)
8 slices Fennel Kimchi (see Larder)
dill fronds
fennel fronds

Portion the salmon into four pieces. Place a spoon of oyster emulsion on each plate and add a piece of salmon to the side. Arrange the fennel kimchi and fried wakame around the fish. Garnish with dill and fennel.

Cook more recipes from this book:
Smoked beetroot tartare Cacklebean egg yolk, hazelnut by Robin Gill
Salted Caramel Cacao, Malt Ice Cream by Robin Gill

Read the review

Buy this book
Larder: From pantry to plate – delicious recipes for your table

Smoked beetroot tartare Cacklebean egg yolk, hazelnut by Robin Gill

Photographer Paul Winch-Furness I’ve become slightly obsessed with smoking things. I started with the obvious, salmon, and moved on to meat like game, pigeon and venison, then to bone marrow (our smoked bone marrow butter became kind of legendary). We even started smoking ice creams. Playing around with smoking fruit and vegetables was exciting and opened up so many possibilities. Beetroot worked immediately. It’s one of my favourite vegetables because of its versatility. I find the large ruby beetroot to be quite meaty so we thought up a play on a beef tartare. But not in the way of veggie burgers and vegan sausages. I hate that stuff! It is kind of fun to dress this tartare as you would imagine it being served in a Parisian brasserie.

Serves 6

Hung Yoghurt

200g plain yoghurt

Line a large sieve with muslin and set it over a deep bowl. Put the yoghurt into the sieve, then gather up the edges of the cloth and secure them together. Leave in the fridge overnight to allow the liquid to drain out of the yoghurt (this liquid or whey can be reserved and used in ferments).

Smoked Beetroot

500g raw beetroots
a drizzle of vegetable oil
rock salt
applewood chips for smoking

Preheat the oven to 190°C fan/210°C/Gas Mark 6–7. Drizzle each beetroot with oil, sprinkle with salt and wrap individually in foil. Bake for 1–1½ hours or until the core temperature reaches 90°C. Remove from the oven and allow to cool and steam in the foil for 15 minutes. Remove from the foil and rub off the skins.

Take a flat tray with a steam insert (such as a deep roasting tray that will hold a flat steaming rack) and spread the applewood chips over the bottom of the tray. Warm the tray over a medium heat until the chips start to smoke, then turn the heat down to low. Place the beetroot on the steam insert/steaming rack and set this over the smoking chips. Completely cover the top and sides tightly with oven-safe clingfilm so the smoke is sealed inside with the beetroot. Leave to lightly smoke for 7 minutes. Remove the beetroot from the tray and leave to cool.

Brined Egg Yolks

500ml 7% brine (see note below)
10 egg yolks (we use CackleBean) – this allows for a few breakages
a drizzle of vegetable oil

Pour the brine into a deep bowl. Gentle add the yolks using your hands or a slotted spoon. Cover the surface of the brine with the vegetable oil so that the yolks are held down in the brine. Allow the yolks to brine for 1 hour at room temperature. To serve, gently remove the yolks with your hands or a slotted spoon.

Assembly

240g Fermented Beetroot (see Larder)
1 tablespoon Shallot Vinegar (see Larder)
2 tablespoons capers
a drizzle of Ember Oil (see Larder)
Maldon sea salt and cracked black pepper
handful fresh hazelnuts, finely sliced
bittercress or watercress to garnish

Mince the fermented and smoked beetroot through a mincer or chop finely with a knife. Season with the shallot vinegar, capers, ember oil and some salt and pepper. Using a small ring mould, make a disc of the beetroot mixture in the centre of each plate. Top with a layer of the hazelnut slices. Gently place a brined egg yolk to the side of each disc. Garnish with cracked black pepper and bittercress or watercress. Place a spoonful of the hung yoghurt to the side of each disc.

NOTE:
Salt and brines: A brine is a mixture of salt and water. The salt is added to the water and brought just to the boil to dissolve the salt, then allowed to cool before use. We make brines of different strengths based on the amount of salt that is added. This is expressed as a percentage in relation to the amount of water. So, for example, a 2% brine means that the weight of salt added is 2% of the weight of the water. In other words, for a litre of water (which weighs 1kg) you would need to add 20g of salt.

Cook more recipes from this book:
Salted Caramel Cacao, Malt Ice Cream by Robin Gill
Loch Duart Salmon Oyster Emulsion, Fennel, Fried Wakame by Robin Gill

Read the review

Buy this book
Larder: From pantry to plate – delicious recipes for your table

First, Catch by Thom Eagle

What’s the USP? When is a cookbook not a cookbook? When its a ‘hymn to an early spring meal’, all 226 pages of it. This is food writing in the purest sense, a series of extended essays ruminating on the process of cooking a single meal; a sort of exercise in culinary mindfulness.

Who’s the author? Thom Eagle is the head chef of Little Duck: The Picklery, a ‘fermenting kitchen and wine bar’ in East London (unsurprisingly, there is a fair amount on fermentation in the book) and writes the food blog ‘In Search of Lost Thyme’. First, Catch is his debut in print.

What does it look like? A novel. Forget glossy photographs, this is all text interspersed with some black and white line drawings of pots, pans and assorted ingredients by artist Aurelia Lange.

Killer recipes? Here’s the thing, Eagle says ‘recipes are lies’ so there aren’t any. At least not in the list-of-ingredients-followed-by-a-method format that we all know and love. Instead, they are snuck in by stealth, so for example, a recipe for quick-cured lamb loin, complete with measurements for the simple salt and sugar cure appears spread over three pages at the end of chapter one, ‘On Curing With Salt’ and one for salsa verde is nestled quietly in chapter 10 ‘On Wild and Domestic Celeries’.

What will I love? Eagle is a thoughtful sort of bloke with a particular view on all things culinary which gives the book a distinctive tone. When was the last time you heard someone say that they ‘go out of their way’ to visit old salt-pans’? Eagle has travelled from Kent to Sicily to look at the damn things, trips which have helped him, and now, in turn, his readers ‘appreciate the importance of salt throughout our history’.

What won’t I like? Eagle is very self consciously ‘a writer’ (he studied American Literature at uni) and consequently there is a fair bit of ‘food writing’ to get through; raw vegetables aren’t seasoned but ‘subjected to the violence of lemon and salt’ which you’ll either think is incredibly creative writing or just plain irritating, depending on your taste in literature.

Should I buy it? It may be a little pretentious and overwritten, and it’s debatable whether the ‘stealth’ recipes are an improvement on the traditional format, but Eagle has genuine insight into the practical and philosophical sides of cooking, as well as extensive knowledge of international cuisines and culinary history, making First, Catch well worth reading.

Cuisine: Modernist British
Suitable for: Anyone really interested in cooking and food writing
Cookbook Review Rating: 3 stars

Read an extract

Buy this book
First, Catch by Thom Eagle
£16.99, Quadrille