Jamie Does.. Spain, Italy, Sweden, Morocco, Greece and France book cover

After weeks (and several small forests worth) of election pamphlets being forced through our letterbox, Kelly and I have stopped running to the door each time we hear another sheaf of paper being delivered. Pointedly ignoring the front-door for several hours, it was a nice surprise to find that Jamie Oliver’s new book “Jamie Does..” was sitting there waiting for us.

Narrowly avoiding lower back damage (it’s a whopping 360 pages – remember, lift with your knees) we sat down and took a look.

What’s in the book

Published to complement the “Jamie Does..” series on Channel 4, the book is a culinary tour of Spain, Italy, Sweden, Morocco, Greece and France. The recipes come thick and fast – Jamie’s versions of classic recipes from the regions and countries that he’s visited – from Moorish Pork Chops to Greek Lamb Fricasse to Spaghetti Vongole.

Jamie is a bit over-the-top for me sometimes (too many “pukkas”, “bootifuls”, and “yeah, mans”) but he does make very good television – “Jamie’s Italy” and “School Dinners” are two of the best and best-intentioned programmes I’ve ever watched – and good cookbooks too. They always seem to be perfectly pitched at the home-cook: the recipes are tasty and not too demanding, the dishes range from rustic mid-week family meals to recipes that could be used for a dinner party, and the ingredients can usually be tracked down even here in Northern Ireland. This book is no different, and it’s filled with some of the best food photography I’ve seen – it just makes you want to cook!

Obviously you’re not going to get an in-depth look at the different cuisines here, but “Jamie Does..” is a very good introduction. I really like the “essential ingredients” features where he introduces some of the ingredients that define the cooking in the different countries. The Spanish section, for example, includes pictures and descriptions of jamon, pimenton, green olives and chorizo, while the Swedish ingredients include mustard and dill, salmon and pickled herrings.

I know I didn’t know much about Swedish cooking before, but I’d be tempted to give some of these recipes a go.

Job done Mr. Oliver.

Details

• Title: Jamie Does.. Spain, Italy, Sweden, Morocco, Greece and France (hardback)
• Author: Jamie Oliver
• Pages: 360
• Publisher: Michael Joseph
• ISBN: 978-0718156145
• Cost: RRP. £26 (now £10.49 on Amazon)
• Where to get it: From www.amazon.co.uk

Our Verdict:

You should buy it.

The recipes are good, the book gives you an easy introduction to some very diverse cuisines, and the photography will make your mouth water.

Useful as a cookbook, and wouldn’t look out-of-place on your coffee table.

Other information

You can find out more about the author by visiting the Jamie Oliver website.

Willie's Chocolate Factory Cookbook

Willie Harcourt-Cooze is an eccentric entrepreneur, the star of the Channel 4 series Willie’s Wonky Chocolate Factory, and on a mission to teach a nation of chocoholics how wonderful real chocolate can be.

Twelve years ago, Willie and his wife Tania sold everything they had to buy a cacao farm in the Cloud Mountains of Venezuela. Recently Willie and his family have returned from the rain forest where Willie learned how to grow, harvest, and process their own cacao beans, to the hills of Devon, building a small chocolate factory to makes his 100% cacao bars.

Willie’s Chocolate Factory Cookbook is in two parts: The first half of the book is an autobiography and tells the story behind his goal to produce the very best chocolate in the world; the second part has a range of recipes that use his cacao as an ingredient.

What’s in the book?

The autobiography

The first half of the book is all about his upbringing and the trials and tribulations of producing his chocolate bars.

His parents lived a very alternative lifestyle and believed in self-sufficiency long before it became the trendy thing to do. Much of his childhood was spent on a small island in the South-West of Ireland where he learned to salt fish, make cheese and youghurt, and to pickle fruit. When he grew up he knew that he wanted to follow this lifestyle.

So, when he was shown a cacao farm on his travels through Asia and South America, he knew he had found his calling and managed to buy the farm. And it was here that his real struggles began – to introduce a high-cacao chocolate bar to the British market.

The recipes

We’ve grown up to think that chocolate is a treat, and a sweet one at that, when in actual fact the real thing is a very versatile ingredient used in both savoury and sweet dishes. Overcoming this conditioning takes some doing, and some of the recipes don’t appear to be that exotic or worthwhile at first glance.

The cacao bars have been difficult to get in the past but we persevered and managed to make a few of the recipes in the cookbook.

Like salt or pepper, just a small amount of Willie’s 100% cacao can enrichen the flavours in food, adding depth and body. Willie’s recipes show how the ingredient can be used in a wide range of dishes, from Tiramisu and Venezuelan Hot Chocolate to Chicken Mole and Porcini, Gazpacho soup, and Chocolate Risotto.

You do have to remind yourself that the cacao isn’t chocolate-y, so there won’t be that distinctive flavour that you’re expecting. But it’s great stuff all the same.

Details

• Title: Willie’s Chocolate Factory Cookbook (hardback)
• Author: Willie Harcourt-Cooze
• Pages: 224
• Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
• ISBN: 978-0340980514
• Cost: RRP. £20 (now £12.87 on Amazon)
• Where to get it: From www.amazon.co.uk

Our Verdict:

Kelly and I loved the TV series – it was really compelling viewing, and through all of the set-backs and struggles we were rooting for Willie and his family to pull through.

Although you don’t have to have seen the series it did whet our appetite for the cookbook and we were both looking forward to some amazing recipes.

As far as the cookbook goes, while I think that it’s a very interesting read, the book itself isn’t really worth the price-tag.

The autobiography makes up half the book, is “read-once-never-read-again” in the way of most autobiographies, and was essentially already covered in the TV series.

Which leaves the recipes: the best of these are traditional South American dishes and you can easily find the recipes online with a little effort.

In short, I’m glad I had the chance to read Willie’s story again, but I haven’t picked up the book since.

Other information:

It has been difficult to get Willie’s chocolate in the past – but the good news is that Co Couture on Chichester Street in Belfast are now stocking them!

You can also buy the cacao on Willie Harcourt-Cooze’s website: www.williescacao.com.

Leon - Ingredients and Recipes

“Leon” was founded by Allegra McEvedy,Henry Dimbleby, and John Vincent, and voted the “Best New Restaurant” by judges Rick Stein, Gordon Ramsay, Nigel Slater, Heston Blumenthal and Jay Rayner in the 2005 Observer food awards.

The restaurant, now part of a 9-strong chain of London-based eateries, was created to provide customers with fast-food that looked good, tasted good, and made you feel good.

The Leon: Ingredients and Recipes book attempts to bring this philosophy into your home, to make it part of your day-to-day lifestyle.

This book has two separate elements: the first half of the book looks at selecting the right ingredients; and the second half lists the recipes that make use of your carefully chosen ingredients.

The Ingredients Book:

“The Ingredients Book” is great, being detailed enough to give you everything you need to choose the best possible ingredients without being boring or preachy. The sections include:

• Fruit
• Herbs
• Vegetables
• Dairy
• Fish and Shellfish
• Meat and Poultry
• Stores (which includes things like flour, oils, pasta, rice, salt, and spices)

It’s a great reference: in the “spuds” section, for example, you get pictures of some of the different potato types, information about the distinct flavours, and how best to cook the various types; with other vegetables, you’re told which vitamins occur in which veg; the “beef” section shows you the different cuts and the relative merits of these cuts – from the fillet to brisket to oxtail.

What I particularly like is that everything is approached from this “good for you, good for everyone” perspective – so “organic”, “free-range” and “sustainable” are all terms that you will see. There is a great “open-out” section on page 90 that tells you everything you need to know about chickens, for instance – what all the different parts of the bird could be used for, the difference between intensive-, free-range-, and organic-farming, and which type of chicken to choose for your recipe.

There is also a pull-out guide, a wheel of ingredients in their seasons, and tips for buying the best ingredients in the appendix.

The Recipe Book:

“The Recipe Book” has over 140 recipes, and helps you put those ingredients to use.

Many of the recipes are from the menus of the Leon restaurants, while others have been contributed by friends and family, and they all sound delicious:

• Chicken, asparagus and lemon cassoulet
• Ham hock, savoy cabbage, and rosemary soup
• Moroccan meatballs
• Butterbean and chorizo tapa
• Leon Better Brownie
• Gooseberry and elderflower fool
• Leon Better Brownies

The recipes have been selected so that there’s nothing that’s too high on the glycaemic index – leaving you feeling satisfied for hours after you’ve eaten, rather than needing a sleep.

This isn’t a health-food book – if it was, I don’t think it would have made it through our front door! – but it does have your health at heart. The Leon philosophy is one based on balance – cook and eat with the best ingredients available and have a little bit of what you like for a healthy, fully-rounded life, or “the right to treat yourself without guilt” as the book says.

Details

• Title: Leon: Ingredients and Recipes (hardback)
• Author: Allegra McEvedy
• Pages: 295
• Publisher: Conran-Octopus
• ISBN: 978-1-84091-502-0
• Cost: £20
• Where to get it: From www.amazon.co.uk

Our Verdict:

This book has everything I like in a cookery book – there’s plenty of personality and quirkiness, without taking anything away from the food.

There’s a lot going on, but it’s really well organised – some nutritional facts about your ingredients, lots of interesting and varied recipes, and plenty of miscellany held in pull-outs, open-outs, and so on to keep you interested.

The fact that there is also a strong “healthy” undercurrent is hardly noticeable – but it’s also reassuring that it’s there. If you’re cooking for your family, it’s an important aspect, and one that isn’t part of many other cookbooks.

This is a fantastic book to have – not for the bookshelf – it should be on your kitchen table.

The River Cottage Family Cookbook

“This is a cookbook for everyone in the family to pick up and use.”

The River Cottage Family Cookbook is exactly that – a cookbook that everyone in the family can use – a how-to guide for good cooking. More than that though, the recipes are perfect day-to-day eating, having a heavy emphasis on good food and healthy, satisfying rustic grub. No fancy or sophisticated dishes here, just good staple dishes that are good to have in your repetoire.

The book is broken down into clearly defined sections: Flour; Eggs; Fruit; Vegetables; Fish; Meat; and so on. Each chapter comes will useful insights and recommendations, as well as a selection of reliable recipes intended for frequent use, such as:

• Creamy fish pie
• Spaghetti Carbonara
• Chicken Curry
• Roast Chicken
• Eggy Bread
• Custard ice-cream
• Gooseberry Crumble
• Your own ice-lollies

Another theme in the book is getting your kids into the kitchen and getting them involved in cooking. The recipes are designed so that 10 to 12 year olds can make them, with help – while older children should be able to make most of the dishes on their own.

The recipes aren’t just a list of ingredients either, but give the reader a full explanation of how and why things are done. The cookbook is well worth getting for this reason alone – inexperienced and/or young cooks can learn a lot, and there are plenty of photos throughout the book for reference.

The book also comes with lots of useful extras – I particularly like the step-by-step projects and how-tos:

• Make your own sausages
• Experimenting with steak
• Building a campfire for outdoor cooking
• How to make bread
• Making your own pasta
• Growing tomatoes

Details

• Title: The River Cottage Family Cookbook (hardback)
• Author: Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall & Fizz Carr
• Pages: 415
• Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
• ISBN: 0-340-82636-3
• Cost: £20
• Where to get it: From www.amazon.co.uk

Our Verdict:

The River Cottage Family Cookbook manages to be both a cookbook for the inexperienced and a way to involve children in cooking – and succeeds in both areas without patronising either group.

A great resource for everyone – and a useful source of inspiration for feeding the family. Highly recommended.

Other Information:

You can read more about River Cottage at: www.rivercottage.net

Les Halles Cookbook

Les Halles Cookbook begins by saying that it’s not really a cookbook – not very helpful then, you might think!

Although the book DOES contain plenty fine recipes, it’s much more than that – it’s also an insight into the dark world of running a professional kitchen, and a French bistro in particular. And it’s an excellent read at that. I find that lot of recipe-books are dry instruction-books – but Bourdain’s dark-humour pervades this book with asides, anecdotes, and observations (“if you can’t properly roast a damn chicken then you are one helpless, hopeless bivalve in an apron”). Mild abuse aside, Bourdain clearly enjoys the hectic, stressful life of a New York chef, leading his team into battle at the bistro every night – and in Les Halles Cookbook Bourdain treats you as if you’re in the same fight, his latest recruit.

Like every drill-sergeant from every war movie I’ve ever seen, Anthony Bourdain takes his new recruit through basic training before getting into the ‘fight’ proper. Although told from the perspective of his own bistro kitchen, this basic knowledge is just as important to the amateur cook: the importance of preparation; knowing which ingredients are in-season; how to find a good supplier; the types of knives you’ll need to work properly; and how vital a good stock is.

You won’t find any of those ethereal, delicate, haute-cuisine-type dishes in this book – but what you will get are plenty of good rustic, satisfying and flavoursome classic French meals: onion soup; vichyssoise; moules marinieres; rillettes; coquilles saint-jacques; boeuf bourguignon; coq au vin; cassoulet; boudin noir with potatoes; rabbit with olives; creme brulee; and cherry clafoutis. There’s also a section on preparing basic components like pastry dough, bearnaise sauce, and sauce gribiche.

Details

• Title: Les Halles Cookbook
• Author: Anthony Bourdain
• Pages: 304
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• ISBN: 0-7475-8012-X
• Cost: £15.99
• Where to get it: From www.amazon.co.uk

Our Verdict:

Les Halles Cookbook isn’t an everyday cookbook – but it is a very enjoyable read, a “no-holds-barred” look at the realities of life as a professional chef, and a fantastic resource for hearty, satisfying French dishes. Not a “must have”, but a “should have”.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Other Information:

You can read more about Anthony Bourdain at: www.anthonybourdain.com
You can visit the Les Halles website at: www.leshalles.net