Dish up delights for your FESTIVE FAMILY BUBBLE
From Nigella to Jamie and Mary, the year’s best cookbooks — plus the pick of gardening and some right royal revelations
COOK, EAT, REPEAT by Nigella Lawson (Chatto £26, 342pp)
COOKING, Nigella says, ‘ can be a safe space for the frenetic soul’. With essays on topics ranging from rhubarb to a defence of brown food, this quirky book is mostly wonderful (celeriac and anchovy gratin, chocolate peanut butter cake) with a dash of weirdness (black pudding meatballs). Its real strength is that Nigella is such a pleasure to read.
THE VEGETARIAN KITCHEN by Prue Leith and Peta Leith (Bluebird £25, 256pp)
IN COLLABORATION with her niece Peta, a professional chef, Prue Leith’s first ever meat-free cookbook is reassuringly undogmatic and is designed to win over even the most ardent carnivore. With soups, pasta, hearty main courses and inventive salads, this is satisfying vegetarian (and some vegan) fare for those who don’t want anything too radical.
SIMPLY by Sabrina Ghayour (Mitchell Beazley £26, 238pp)
THE names of the dishes may be unfamiliar, but most of these Persian recipes are surprisingly straightforward to make, provided you have a well- stocked spice cupboard. Comforting family meals such as spice-seared lamb, crispy cod wraps and courgette and oregano pancakes could be just the thing to get you through winter. This is an elegantly written cookbook, with especially mouth-watering photographs.
CHETNA’S HEALTHY INDIAN VEGETARIAN by Chetna Makan (Mitchell Beazley £20, 208pp)
BAKE OFF semi-finalist Chetna Makan has become one of our most reliable writers on Indian food, with a knack for unfussy yet flavoursome recipes. Her latest book, inspired by Indian home cookery, covers canapés, soups, salads, chutneys, curries and rice dishes, with each dish lovingly photographed. Dip into this and you might never need to order a takeaway again.
HOME COOKERY YEAR by Claire Thomson (Quadrille £30, 414pp)
IF YOU want a cookery book full of pretty pictures, this substantial book probably isn’t for you.
With sections including ‘midweek dishes’, ‘on a budget’ and ‘treat yourself ’, it’s aimed squarely at confident home cooks who are hoping to broaden their repertoire. The 200 clearly written and inventive recipes have Italian, Asian and South American influences, so there’s something here for everyone.
THE ROASTING TIN AROUND THE WORLD by Rukmini Iyer (Square Peg £16.99, 238pp)
A PIONEER of the ‘put everything in a roasting tin and shove it in the oven’ school of cookery, lawyerturned-chef Rukmini Iyer’s fourth cookbook features tasty, no-fuss dishes from across the globe.
From Malaysian roast chicken to Creole crab tarts, most recipes can be cooked in under an hour. This is my best-thumbed cookery book of 2020.
NADIYA BAKES by Nadiya Hussain (BBC Books £22, 255pp)
BAKE OFF winner Nadiya returns to her first love — baking, of course — with this cornucopia of bakes. Alongside savoury favourites such as quiches and tarts, there are tooth-achingly sweet concoctions such as cola cake and a ‘scone pizza’. Nadiya’s chatty asides — ‘there is always room for pudding, in our hearts, in our kitchens, on our plates!’ — are part of the fun.
7 WAYS by Jamie Oliver
(Michael Joseph £26, 317pp) JAMIE says he’s been listening
closely to what his readers have been asking for, so here are 120 savoury recipes based around everyday i ngredients such as potatoes, chicken, eggs, avocados and sausages, showcasing seven different ways to use each of them. With its uncomplicated instructions, this is perfect for anyone stuck in a cookery rut and in need of some inspiration.
A TABLE FOR FRIENDS by Skye McAlpine (Bloomsbury £26, 314pp)
ACKNOWLEDGING that cooking for a dinner party can be nerveracking, seasoned hostess Skye McAlpine reveals her favourite no- stress recipes, and how to make your dinner table l ook glamorous with little effort. The dishes, mostly influenced by Italian cuisine, include ossobuco with sage and lemon, panzanella with tuna and anchovies, and coffee mascarpone biscuit bake. A classy guide to relaxed entertaining.
THE HAND AND FLOWERS COOKBOOK by Tom Kerridge (Bloomsbury £40, 426pp)
TV CHEF Tom Kerridge runs a two-Michelin starred pub in Buckinghamshire and this mighty tome contains 70 of the pub’s best recipes. Tackling them requires advanced cooking skills and patience: his chocolate ale cake, for instance, has to be made over three days.
A masterful book which will allow ambitious cooks to fully flex their culinary muscles.
HOW TO RAISE A LOAF AND FALL IN LOVE WITH SOURDOUGH
by Roly Allen (Laurence King £12.99, 111pp) FORGET banana bread — making sourdough was the real lockdown craze. This enjoyable little book shows you how to make your own golden, airy loaf, as well as sourdough rolls, pizza base and even sweet bread. From creating your starter to achieving a really good crust, you’ll learn everything you need to know about mastering this versatile dough.
TOWPATH: RECIPES AND STORIES by Lori de Mori and Laura Jackson (Chelsea Green £27, 287pp)
TOWPATH is a popular cafe on London’s Regent’s Canal; actress Keira Knightley, a regular, calls it ‘a dream of a place’. Interspersed with anecdotes about the cafe’s customers, this is a guide to its best- l oved r ecipes s uch as Chicken Marbella and olive oil cake. A heart- warming read with a collection of appealingly stylish dishes.
SIMPLE COMFORTS by Mary Berry (BBC £26, 302pp)
IN DIFFICULT times, who better to turn to than Dame Mary Berry, for whom cooking a family meal is ‘a wonderful way of expressing love’? Her food isn’t cutting edge, but almost every dish is tremendously appealing and Mary’s i nstructions make everything sound simple. From duck salad with hoisin dressing to her posh baked potatoes, you know you’re in very safe hands.
THE BATCH LADY by Suzanne Mulholland
(HQ £20, 256pp)
I F YOU’RE worn down by churning out f amily meals every day then try this book, which is full of time- saving t i ps, f r om batch cooking and freezing to using the same bases for different dishes. It even shows how to whip up ten meals in just one hour.
The recipes aren’t particularly inventive, but busy parents will love it.
FLAVOUR by Yotam Ottolenghi and Ixta Belfrage (Ebury £27, 316pp)
OTTOLENGHI is a culinary magician, transforming everyday vegetables, grains and pulses into exotic dishes.
There is the usual smattering of obscure ingredients — gochujang chilli paste, bkeila, smoked cascabel oil — but most of the recipes don’t require anything too outlandish.
TABLE MANNERS by Jessie Ware and Lennie Ware
(Ebury £22, 287pp) BASED on the popular mother/ daughter foodie podcast, this is a delicious mixture of namedropping — singer Ed Sheeran had four helpings of the sausage casserole—and favourite family recipes.
From pasta with smoked salmon, vodka and caviar (you can use black lumpfish instead of caviar, they suggest), to brother Alex’s orange pistachio cake, this lovely book is a real winner.
FAKEAWAY by Chris Bavin
(Dorling Kindersley £14.99, 192pp) INSTEAD of cooking fresh food, too many of us are addicted to calorieladen takeaways.
In this breezy book, TV chef Chris Bavin gives healthy( i sh) versions of more than 100 favourite takeaway dishes, from Indian, Chinese, Thai and Japanese to Middle Eastern, Italian, Mexican and American diner food.
Follow these recipes, he promises, and you’ll ‘ save your money and your waistline’.
FALASTIN by Sami Tamimi and Tara Wigley (Ebury £28, 352pp)
A GUIDE to Palestinian cuisine as well as ‘its produce, its history, its future, its people and their voices’, this is an engrossing read.
The recipes, such as pomegranate cooked lentils and aubergines, and lemon chicken with za’atar, are pleasingly exotic, and there are great sweets as well.
If you want to try something different, Falastin provides plenty of culinary inspiration.
UNDER THE OLIVE TREE by Irini Tzortzoglou (Headline £25, 320pp)
WINNER of MasterChef 2019, Irini’s first book is aimed at ‘the curious, ambitious and playful 21st-century cook’.
She shows there is a lot more to Greek food than the traditional taverna fare, with sophisticated di s hes s uch as s quid and sun- dried tomato orzo, loin of venison with chestnuts, and cheese and cinnamon tart. A sunny, satisfying read.
A LOVE FOR FOOD by Carole Bamford (Square Peg £30, 384pp)
IN THIS fully revised edition of her 2013 cookbook, Lady Bamford — who founded the pioneering organic Daylesford Farm — credits her team of chefs for many of these recipes.
The seasonal dishes are hearty and mainly uncomplicated, with excellent meat recipes and a particularly original selection of pies and tarts, like Jerusalem artichoke and cavolo nero tart.