What are your favourite cook books

Minder

Anyone out there who collects cookbooks?

If you had to give up all but one cookbook, which one would you keep and why?

My choice would have to be The Dean & DeLuca Cookbook. 576 pages of savory cooking and not a single picture. There is sufficient inspiration in these pages to keep me occupied for months.

Extract from Amazon. Many of the 400 recipes draw on Asian (Grilled Japanese Eggplant with Orange-Sesame Miso Sauce), Mexican (Ancho- and Chipotle-Rubbed Pork Loin, roasted in a clay pot) and regional American influences (Rack of Cervena with Texas Barbecue Sauce), as well as standard French (Bouillabaisse in Three Courses) and Italian (Roasted Tomato Sauce with Pancetta and Herbs) cooking.

It is refreshing to read such a detailed book and be challenged by the recipes - even if some of the ingredients are a little difficult to come by.

washiskin

Full and Plenty by Maura Laverty (Best Irish cookbook ever)

Rhodes Around Britain - Gary Rhodes

The Sugar Club Cook Book - Peter Gordon

Nigella Bites - Nigella Lawson

and thats just for "starters".

Dizzyblonde

Feast - Nigella Lawson

Avoca Cafe cookbooks 1 & 2

Nigel Slater's Real Food

Cook With Jamie - Jamie Oliver

and....

Chocolate - Patricia Lousada

I couldn't pick just one but if I had to save one from a burning building it'd be Feast by Nigella Lawson

olaola

I have to say Rachel Allen's cook books are great. The recipes are easy to follow and you can get the ingredients in most small shops around the country.

I find Jamie's a bit too fussy - Nigel Slater does a bit too much faffing around.
Apples for Jam is possibly the worst I've seen - you can't even see the bleedin text! Avoca is quite good, and the Domini Kemp one - Real Food Real Fast is also definitely worth a purchase.

dudara

The Cafe Paradiso cookbooks ( whether you're vegetarian or not, it doesn't matter)

Crazy Water, Pickled Lemons

Food and Travels in Asia by Alastair Hendy

TBH, most of the TV chefs books are fairly poor.

Minder

dudara wrote: »

The Cafe Paradiso cookbooks

Agreed, I have both of Dennis Cotter's books and they have a brilliant selection of tried and tested recipes - everything works!!

lucylu

Avoca 1 & 2
Cook with Jamie - Carrot Cake recipe is fantastic in that book
Ballymaloe cookery course
Kenwood mixer cookery book

also have an addiction to easyfood & bbc food magazine just to name a few...

SlummyMummy

Minder; so interested about the Dean and Deluca cookbook, I bought it about 6 years ago on a visit to NY cause I loved the Soho shop but I've never used it !! Think its just too much of a tome but would love to hear about some of your favourite recipes from the book; it might inspire me !!

Favourites

Nigella -- How to Eat and Feast (though current series is dismal)
Jamie -- Early books
Moro The Cookbook
Ballymaloe Cookery Course

Minder

One recipe that I return to again & again in Dean & Deluca is the Ancho paste recipe. Made from dried chipolte and ancho chilli with a bewildering list of ingredients, it has become an essential addition to chilli con carne. Wouldn't make it without my ancho paste. It keeps in the fridge in a kilner jar forever. It is so packed with natural preservatives I doubt it would ever go off. Has a wonderful smokey, fruity flavour with a warm chilli kick.

Other recipes - there is a blue cheese dressing that is a must with celery sticks. Always served with buffalo wings in our house.

I have made the clam chowder - always used the water from cooking the clams as the stock for the chowder.

There is a recipe for a red onion marmalade that includes wine vinegar, anchovies and parsley. Used as a side dish for roast lamb, it also makes the best cold roast lamb sandwich I have ever tasted.

There is a recipe for brine that is used to cure a pork chop before grilling. The result is amazing succulent meat.

I want to try the jerk seasoning recipe. Jerk is a marinade made from scotch bonnet chilli, with allspice, garlic, spring onion and a lot of other ingredients. I can buy the paste in a jar (Walkerswood), but it is very spicy and can easily make a dish inedible.

washiskin

"Other recipes - there is a blue cheese dressing that is a must with celery sticks. Always served with buffalo wings in our house. "

Oh to be able to stomach bluse cheese!:o

SlummyMummy

Minder wrote: »

One recipe that I return to again & again in Dean & Deluca is the Ancho paste recipe. Made from dried chipolte and ancho chilli with a bewildering list of ingredients, it has become an essential addition to chilli con carne. Wouldn't make it without my ancho paste. It keeps in the fridge in a kilner jar forever. It is so packed with natural preservatives I doubt it would ever go off. Has a wonderful smokey, fruity flavour with a warm chilli kick.

Other recipes - there is a blue cheese dressing that is a must with celery sticks. Always served with buffalo wings in our house.

I have made the clam chowder - always used the water from cooking the clams as the stock for the chowder.

There is a recipe for a red onion marmalade that includes wine vinegar, anchovies and parsley. Used as a side dish for roast lamb, it also makes the best cold roast lamb sandwich I have ever tasted.

There is a recipe for brine that is used to cure a pork chop before grilling. The result is amazing succulent meat.

I want to try the jerk seasoning recipe. Jerk is a marinade made from scotch bonnet chilli, with allspice, garlic, spring onion and a lot of other ingredients. I can buy the paste in a jar (Walkerswood), but it is very spicy and can easily make a dish inedible.

Thanks Minder; that def enough to keep me going; I was just thinking of making some chilli too

rockbeer

dudara wrote: »

The Cafe Paradiso cookbooks ( whether you're vegetarian or not, it doesn't matter)

And I third this. Can't think of any other books I would trust if I was trying a recipe for the first time and had to serve it to company. Everything in them just works, you can count on it.

dudara wrote: »

TBH, most of the TV chefs books are fairly poor.

Couldn't agree more. I'm a bit disturbed by how many people here seem so taken with Nigella's books. Can she actually cook? I have serious doubts watching the way she waves her knife about. And I know it has nothing to do with her cooking abilities but I just can't cope with that absurd, relentless little grin she wears the whole time. Does anyone here prance around the kitchen grinning to themselves?

The Sweeper

I'm not a Nigella fan. I'll watch her on television in a sort of food voyeurism, but I remember reading through one of her books where she describes coming in starving and mixing a cold chicken breast with a handful of blanched almonds, which she toasts, and some rocket or somesuch. I remember thinking "...that isn't a recipe."

The River Cottage Meat book, just as an encyclopaedia, currently working my way through James Oseland's book on the spice islands, like anything by Madhur Jaffray (sp?).

Minder

I watched a few minutes of the latest Nigella offering this week - the self proclaimed kitchen goddess was showing the world how to cheat it's way to a quick ragu sauce. She explained how she was far too busy to wait for onions to sweat down and how she didn't have time to chop celery and carrots. The camera closed in on the finished product as our kitchen porn queen ladled the ragu into a bowl. As I looked, I saw what suspiciously looked like a diced carrot sitting in the sauce. Now come on Beeb - have you learned nothing from the telephone competitions scandal? - the public don't like to be hoodwinked - if the undercooked gloop is less than photogenic, you can't substitute it for 'here's one I prepared earlier'. That is copyright material, a la Deila.

Oh, and another thing - Nigella love - If you want to come across as a domestic goddess showing us how you do your ironing - here's a tip - it helps if you plug the thing into an electric socket!!

SlummyMummy

Nigella is absolutely woeful; I'm embarrassed for the lady; cann't stop watching though its so comical !!

olaola

To be honest she looks demented these days...
Stepford wife-ish!

Scoobydoobydoo

I have a bit of a collection....
Mary Berry is the old reliable!
Jamie Oliver is ok but a bit basic
Heston Blumenthal's Family Food is good to get kids interested
Avoca 1 & 2 have some great stuff
Paradiso cookbooks are nice, a bit complicated -the ones I've chosen to make anyway, and also either really awful (beetroot soup) or really great!
I love Rick Stein's books at the moment because I'm trying to cook a lot of fish and he makes it interesting.
I watch an odd Nigella programme but I'm not sure I'd bother with a book.
Rachel Allen, are you serious?!!! Sorry, it's just that I can't stand her and the way she speaks, like ah=ven (oven). I just can't abide her so none of her books near my kitchen thanks!

The Sweeper

Rachel Allen is funny. She has a couple of good tips and I'll always support anyone who promotes alcohol to get a party going (I like that about Nigella too, I have to admit).

I don't know, is it just me or does anyone else feel a bit ripped off when they see a celebrity chef doing a 15 minute slot on how to cook a steak? Not a steak in anything special, mind, just "warm your griddle pan, marinate the meat, oil the meat and not the pan, chuck on griddle".

Minder

Scoobydoobydoo wrote: »

Rachel Allen, are you serious?!!! Sorry, it's just that I can't stand her and the way she speaks, like ah=ven (oven). I just can't abide her so none of her books near my kitchen thanks!

Coos coos? What the blue blazes is Coos coos? Something pigeons do!!
My Berber father-in-law pronounces it cus-cus.

Agreed on the Rick Stein books. Food Heroes have a great selection of recipes across many regional styles - and they all work.

rockbeer

Minesajackdaniels wrote: »

I'll always support anyone who promotes alcohol to get a party going (I like that about Nigella too, I have to admit).

Does alcohol really need promotion?

What sort of parties do dear old Rachael and Nigella imagine we go to?

Scary.

The Sweeper

Yeah but they do it in terms of "things to drink on a Sunday morning before brunch" and "cocktails your grandmother will initially refuse, but then drink two of and start giggling".

And I used to mod the beer/wine/spirits forum, so there's probably no point trying to convince me that alcohol is baaad mmkay?

Minder

I have yet to see Nigella advocate the consumption of booze in the latest series. The consumption of seven meals a day, yes!!

I'm sooo busy that I have to eat my second breakfast on the bus on the way to work. I have three lunches on the go while i juggle the kids, my creative writing, family life and a career. Then get home, prepare dinner with my coat on, before the children starve to death. Eat with them while my daughter does her homework. Then finally I can relax in the kitchen by making myself a quick dinner and a dessert that I will cram in the fridge and consume in a gluttonous raid on said fridge when the rest of the world is asleep.

Badly written, badly acted and ill advised. Yet somehow compulsive viewing. Frankie Boyle....no don't go there.

mikep

Back to the main issue:

My favourites are:

Madhur Jafferey: An invitiation to eastern cookery (1000 + pages of all types
of eastern loveliness

Anthony Bourdain: Les Halles Cookbook

also I am constantly referring the most of Nigel Slaters books..

Mike

SarahMc

It depends if you are talking favourites in the gastroporn variety (to look at drool over)....

Nigella's Feast is my favourite in this category. I don't think I have ever cooked a recipe from it, but it is beasutiful to look at, and is as much a book about the sociology of food as a recipe book. Niegel Slater's rates second place in this category.

Or a real recipe book where the pages are sticky and stained from ingredients due to over use...

1st prize goes to the Ballymaloe Cookery Course, 2nd to the Good Housekeeping Collection.

Minder

Delia for the sort of recipes that I can't find anywhere else.
Week in Week out (Simon Hpokinson) for the sort of meal that I want to cook as soon as i read the recipe.
Cradle of Flavour for the exotic adventure of it.
The Book of Jewish Food (Claudia Roden) because it is new to me in so many ways and I love the personal history.
Anything by Diana Henry
But if I could take only one book to a desert island it would have the Dean & DeLuca just for the sheer diversity of the recipes.

Overheal

I found this one ancient looking one in the house called 101 Square Meals - piss easy recipes that no college student should live without: vrom veggie burgers to cheesecake

Minder

Minder wrote: »

Delia for the sort of recipes that I can't find anywhere else.
Week in Week out (Simon Hpokinson) for the sort of meal that I want to cook as soon as i read the recipe.
Cradle of Flavour for the exotic adventure of it.
The Book of Jewish Food (Claudia Roden) because it is new to me in so many ways and I love the personal history.
Anything by Diana Henry
But if I could take only one book to a desert island it would have the Dean & DeLuca just for the sheer diversity of the recipes.

and how could I forget - Tamasin Day Lewis!!

Tree

in the line of gastroporn, green and blacks have a new chocolate cook book out. looks fab, but i own at least four choc based cookbooks as it stands

The Sweeper

Shill, la la la la la la...