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A Cook's Book: The Essential Nigel Slater [A Cookbook]
The beloved author of Eat and Tender presents 150 satisfying and comforting recipes based on his favorite childhood food memories and culinary inspirations, accompanied by reflective personal essays.
A collection of more than 150 delicious, easy, and gratifying plant-based and meat recipes, A Cook's Book is the story of famed food writer Nigel Slater's life in the kitchen. He charms readers with the tales behind the recipes, recalling the first time he ate a sublime baguette in Paris and the joy of his first slice of buttercream-topped chocolate cake.
From the first jam tart he made with his mum, standing on a chair trying to reach his family's classic Aga stove, through learning how to cook on his own and developing his most well-known and beloved recipes, readers will be delighted by the origin stories behind Slater's work. Slater writes eloquently about how his cooking has changed, from discovering the trick to the perfect whipped cream to the best way to roast a chicken.
These are Nigel Slater's go-to recipes, the heart and soul of his simple and flavorful cooking. Chapters include:
A Bowl of Soup: Pumpkin Laksa, Spicy Red Lentil Soup, Pea and Parsley SoupBreaking Bread: Soft Rolls with Feta and Rosemary, Blackcurrant Focaccia, Large Sourdough LoafEveryday Greens: Cheesy Greens and Potatoes, Spiced Zucchini with Spinach, Herb Pancakes with MushroomEveryday Dinners: Beet and Lamb Patties, Pork and Lemon Meatballs, Mussels, Coconut, and NoodlesA Slice of Tart: Mushroom and Dill Tart, A Tart of Leeks and Cheddar, Blackcurrant Macaroon Tart
This is by far Slater's most personal book yet, and with gorgeous photography featuring Slater in his London home and garden, readers get a peek at his inspirations, motivations, and thoughts on the food world today.
A collection of more than 150 delicious, easy, and gratifying plant-based and meat recipes, A Cook's Book is the story of famed food writer Nigel Slater's life in the kitchen. He charms readers with the tales behind the recipes, recalling the first time he ate a sublime baguette in Paris and the joy of his first slice of buttercream-topped chocolate cake.
From the first jam tart he made with his mum, standing on a chair trying to reach his family's classic Aga stove, through learning how to cook on his own and developing his most well-known and beloved recipes, readers will be delighted by the origin stories behind Slater's work. Slater writes eloquently about how his cooking has changed, from discovering the trick to the perfect whipped cream to the best way to roast a chicken.
These are Nigel Slater's go-to recipes, the heart and soul of his simple and flavorful cooking. Chapters include:
A Bowl of Soup: Pumpkin Laksa, Spicy Red Lentil Soup, Pea and Parsley SoupBreaking Bread: Soft Rolls with Feta and Rosemary, Blackcurrant Focaccia, Large Sourdough LoafEveryday Greens: Cheesy Greens and Potatoes, Spiced Zucchini with Spinach, Herb Pancakes with MushroomEveryday Dinners: Beet and Lamb Patties, Pork and Lemon Meatballs, Mussels, Coconut, and NoodlesA Slice of Tart: Mushroom and Dill Tart, A Tart of Leeks and Cheddar, Blackcurrant Macaroon Tart
This is by far Slater's most personal book yet, and with gorgeous photography featuring Slater in his London home and garden, readers get a peek at his inspirations, motivations, and thoughts on the food world today.
Short Excerpt Teaser
Introduction
I am a cook who writes. You could measure my life in recipes. Each one a letter to a friend, a story of something I have made for dinner, the tale of how it came to be on my table. A salad tossed together with fava beans, salted ricotta, and the first white-tipped radishes of spring; a roasted chicken, its crisp skin served with a fat jug of its roasting juices on an autumn day; or a gloriously messy platter of grilled eggplant, hummus, and torn flatbread shared with the best of friends.
That letter might accurately chronicle the details of a cake with which I am quietly pleased, tell the reader of a quince that has simmered peacefully in lemon juice and orange blossom honey on my stove on a winter's afternoon or mention a pillowy dumpling I have just lifted from a steaming bamboo basket. Sharing food with those at your table-passing around a bowl of late autumn raspberries or a slice of sugar-encrusted blackberry and apple pie-is heart-warming enough, but a recipe posted in a newspaper, ephemerally on social media, or in more lasting form in the pages of a book, has widely. It is just a recipe, a suggestion for something you might like to make for others, but it is what I do.
The first recipe I encountered-for a Christmas cake-belonged to my mother. Handwritten on a piece of ruled Basildon Bond notepaper, it lived in the bowl of the electric mixer that only saw light of day once a year, when I helped her make The Cake. The first cooking I did on my own was a baking sheet of jam tarts-black currant, marmalade, and raspberry. The ghost of them lingers still, me standing on a stool in an attempt to reach the kitchen table, rolling out scraps of pastry into a craggy rectangle with a red-handled wooden rolling pin, pressing Mum's crinkle-edged cutters into the pale dough and filling the little tarts with jam as bright and clear as jewels. The jam boiled over and glued the tarts to the pan, but peeling off the chewy crumbs and eating them was a delight.
There is something-and this is the point really-that goes hand in hand with making something to eat, that transcends putting the finished dish on the table. Cooking for me at least-is about making yourself something to eat and sharing food with others but is also-whisper it-about the quiet moments of joy to be had along the way. Watching the progress of dinner as you stir onions in a pan, at first crisp, white, and pungent-you may have shed a tear-then slowly becoming translucent gold, darkening to bronze, all the time becoming softer, sweeter. Take them too far though, and those sweet onions will turn bitter. And that is where a good recipe comes in and partly the point of what I do, to guide a new cook toward a pleasing dinner, and for those who have been cooking for years, to share a recipe that they may not know.
I am not a chef and never have been. The word means "chief" and is therefore somewhat inappropriate. It is no secret that I ran away from the heat of the professional kitchen. The stress and frenetic speed of the work, the dedication required to be really good at what you do, and the relentlessness of that life simply wasn't for me. I wanted to cook for a living but without the seasoning of stress and adrenaline. I fell into writing about food by accident-while working in a rather lovely café-so it is odd to think I have had a food column for nigh on thirty years, written ten cookbooks and penned a memoir (that itself spawned a film and stage play). My respect for professional chefs not only remains undimmed, but I find myself in awe of what they do. It just wasn't my thing.
How I cook
I am a home cook. I have cooked for half a century and still love every slow turn of the wooden spoon. Simple food, nothing fancy. Just something to eat really. Yes, I go out to dinner or bring home a tray of sushi; I will phone for gyoza or biang biang noodles but even then I will probably have cooked lunch at home. I once described my cooking as "straightforward, everyday stuff, the sort of thing you might like to come home to after a busy day." I still stand by that.
Making a few ingredients into something good to eat continues to give immeasurable pleasure. Making dinner for others even more so. I love the deep reassurance that comes from cooking and eating something familiar, a dish I know well, but I also possess an endless curiosity with the new-an insatiable hunger for what is to come. I am never going to be someone who repeats the same old dishes year in year out as if on some sort of culinary treadmill. There is far too much fun to be had for that.
As cook and writer I have got things right, wrong, and somewhere in betwee...
I am a cook who writes. You could measure my life in recipes. Each one a letter to a friend, a story of something I have made for dinner, the tale of how it came to be on my table. A salad tossed together with fava beans, salted ricotta, and the first white-tipped radishes of spring; a roasted chicken, its crisp skin served with a fat jug of its roasting juices on an autumn day; or a gloriously messy platter of grilled eggplant, hummus, and torn flatbread shared with the best of friends.
That letter might accurately chronicle the details of a cake with which I am quietly pleased, tell the reader of a quince that has simmered peacefully in lemon juice and orange blossom honey on my stove on a winter's afternoon or mention a pillowy dumpling I have just lifted from a steaming bamboo basket. Sharing food with those at your table-passing around a bowl of late autumn raspberries or a slice of sugar-encrusted blackberry and apple pie-is heart-warming enough, but a recipe posted in a newspaper, ephemerally on social media, or in more lasting form in the pages of a book, has widely. It is just a recipe, a suggestion for something you might like to make for others, but it is what I do.
The first recipe I encountered-for a Christmas cake-belonged to my mother. Handwritten on a piece of ruled Basildon Bond notepaper, it lived in the bowl of the electric mixer that only saw light of day once a year, when I helped her make The Cake. The first cooking I did on my own was a baking sheet of jam tarts-black currant, marmalade, and raspberry. The ghost of them lingers still, me standing on a stool in an attempt to reach the kitchen table, rolling out scraps of pastry into a craggy rectangle with a red-handled wooden rolling pin, pressing Mum's crinkle-edged cutters into the pale dough and filling the little tarts with jam as bright and clear as jewels. The jam boiled over and glued the tarts to the pan, but peeling off the chewy crumbs and eating them was a delight.
There is something-and this is the point really-that goes hand in hand with making something to eat, that transcends putting the finished dish on the table. Cooking for me at least-is about making yourself something to eat and sharing food with others but is also-whisper it-about the quiet moments of joy to be had along the way. Watching the progress of dinner as you stir onions in a pan, at first crisp, white, and pungent-you may have shed a tear-then slowly becoming translucent gold, darkening to bronze, all the time becoming softer, sweeter. Take them too far though, and those sweet onions will turn bitter. And that is where a good recipe comes in and partly the point of what I do, to guide a new cook toward a pleasing dinner, and for those who have been cooking for years, to share a recipe that they may not know.
I am not a chef and never have been. The word means "chief" and is therefore somewhat inappropriate. It is no secret that I ran away from the heat of the professional kitchen. The stress and frenetic speed of the work, the dedication required to be really good at what you do, and the relentlessness of that life simply wasn't for me. I wanted to cook for a living but without the seasoning of stress and adrenaline. I fell into writing about food by accident-while working in a rather lovely café-so it is odd to think I have had a food column for nigh on thirty years, written ten cookbooks and penned a memoir (that itself spawned a film and stage play). My respect for professional chefs not only remains undimmed, but I find myself in awe of what they do. It just wasn't my thing.
How I cook
I am a home cook. I have cooked for half a century and still love every slow turn of the wooden spoon. Simple food, nothing fancy. Just something to eat really. Yes, I go out to dinner or bring home a tray of sushi; I will phone for gyoza or biang biang noodles but even then I will probably have cooked lunch at home. I once described my cooking as "straightforward, everyday stuff, the sort of thing you might like to come home to after a busy day." I still stand by that.
Making a few ingredients into something good to eat continues to give immeasurable pleasure. Making dinner for others even more so. I love the deep reassurance that comes from cooking and eating something familiar, a dish I know well, but I also possess an endless curiosity with the new-an insatiable hunger for what is to come. I am never going to be someone who repeats the same old dishes year in year out as if on some sort of culinary treadmill. There is far too much fun to be had for that.
As cook and writer I have got things right, wrong, and somewhere in betwee...
