The best cookbooks to kick off your year of cooking more
Tasty NY resolutions are the best NY resolutions!
A NOTE ABOUT MY LAST POST: In my last post, I decided to try my hand at some mathematics without consulting TWP’s numbers man AKA Alex and unsurprisingly got it wrong. This has now been corrected but to be clear, a TWP subscription costs £4 every MONTH or £45 if you wanna do a one-off payment and get access for a whole YEAR. That works out at less than 40p per post. So in answer to What Can You Expect from TWP in 2024? Bad maths.
Now onto today’s installment where I talk about 35, no 8, no 12 cookbooks you need on your shelf…
This list of cookbooks is by no means a guide to the manuals for a #healthylife or any restrictive new year, new you January-prompted diets, and it’s not exhaustive (she says looking at her groaning shelves of 60+ cookbooks). I could have called this post ‘My Most-Used’ or ‘My Go-To’ recipe books’; they’re the ones I’m forever referring back to or don’t even need to, I’ve cooked from them so often. It features some recent publications as well as older, in my case well-thumbed and sauce-splashed titles which focus on hearty, delicious, impressive dishes inspired by British, Indian, Italian, Middle Eastern and French cuisine. These cookbooks are the kind you’ll enjoy every page of, come back to again and again and be excited to plan weekly meals and dinner parties from. They’re not overly complicated - in most cases, just a few key additions to your spice rack will enable you to complete the full roster of recipes - or ultra-fancy. Each is packed with enough veg-centred recipes to make them a sound purchase for those who live and breathe (inhale?) plants. They are, in my humble opinion, simply the best and will serve you well whether you’re just embarking on a commitment to cook more at home or fell in love with chopping, stirring, sprinkling and serving long ago. Bon appe-reading!
Dishoom by Shamil Thakrar- The beauty of this beautiful community is there’s no need to pretend one of my most-used cookbooks isn’t from a restaurant that is now a chain (not a derogatory term!). I miss being a tube ride away from Dishoom and so cook their Mattar Paneer almost weekly, and the Bombay Potatoes, Black Daal and Chicken Ruby are regular guests when I have guests. There are still loads of recipes I want to try and none of them feature anything so elaborate that I can’t get them on the weekly Ocado or Amazon. A nice gift idea I’ve done for a couple of the chefs in my life is the Dishoom book plus all the key spices etc they’d need to get started such as deggi mirch, garam masala, chaat masala, urid beans.
How To Eat A Peach by Diana Henry - Diana Henry and Nora Ephron made me fall in love with the idea of food - the way they write conjures images of places and faces and feelings, it’s magnetic - and my desire to feed the people I love. In How To Eat A Peach, Diana Henry is focused on her obsession with menu planning (it’s comprised of 24 menus which include around 100 recipes) and showing love and marking memories via the art of throwing a great dinner party… even if that party ends with no cooking at all, just a bowl of peaches for diners to carve themselves because it’s too hot, as in Italy.
Taverna by Georgina Hayden - I have such happy memories of eating at restaurants ceilinged by vines in Cyprus as a kid and Georgina Hayden’s vibrant, inviting and straight-forward cookbook brings those to the fore. The photographs are lovely and the Marmalade-Baked Halloumi and Sausage & Pepper stew are regulars on our weeknight rotation.
Sweet by Yotam Ottolenghi & Helen Goh - My friends gifted me this one as a rather apt thank-you for baking their wedding cake (six tiers, double chocolate, Oreo and peanut butter truffles on top!). I don’t have many baking books and honestly after getting this, I don’t need any. Every recipe works perfectly and I like how they’re familiar with a twist. The Flourless Chocolate Tea Cakes (not tea cakes at all but mini bundts) are my FAVOURITE, and the Saffron, Orange & Honey Madelines and Apricot & Almond Cake with Cinnamon Top are incredible. Can I also sneak in a cheeky side rec? Flavour (also by Ottolenghi) is a fantastic cookbook for anyone interested in the art of pairing flavours and has taught me so much!
Nothing Fancy by Alison Roman - This is a cool cookbook. Alison Roman is cool. Not in a mean girl, inaccessible way. She’s clumsy and passionate and likes a shortcut as much as she hates pretentiousness around food. She’s got opinions aplenty. If you like to dip in and out of cookbooks, read them rather than use them, let them inspire little projects like pickled jars of things or a salty snack for sports Saturday, Nothing Fancy’s got your fuss-free name on it. I particularly love her Creamy Goat’s Cheese with Lemony Za’atar, Vinegared Apples with Persimmon and Cheddar and of course her idea for a Baked Potato Bar at a party. If you’re not a dessert person, her dessert book Sweet Enough is similarly fab.