In-depth cookery book reviews.
“Taiwanese food, that’s basically the same as Chinese, isn’t it?” That’s the refrain I heard from quite a few people when we planned our two holidays to Taiwan. The answer is “yes and no“, but that “no” is no small thing at all. Yes, a large swathe of Taiwanese cuisine has similarity to Chinese dishes ... Read more »
Vietnamese Vegetarian by Uyen Luu follows on from her two previous books Vietnamese: Simple Vietnamese Food to Cook at Home and My Vietnamese Kitchen. I looked through both of these very beautiful books when they first came out but as a vegetarian, I found that even those recipes that looked as though they might be ... Read more »
Chetna Makan burst onto our screens in 2016, participating in and then winning series 5 of The Great British Bake Off. Since then she’s firmly established herself as a popular and successful food writer with a whopping 7 cookbooks under her belt and has amassed over 280,000 subscribers to her YouTube channel. Her seventh book, ... Read more »
I’m a big fan of Phaidon Press’ country-specific cookbooks. Their spring release, The Indonesian Table by Petty Pandean-Elliott is a colourful book sharing 150 recipes from across Indonesia, alongside personal recollections from her childhood and the culinary journeys she has undertaken since. As I explained in my review of Lara Lee’s Coconut & Sambal, Indonesia is ... Read more »
Growing Up In A Nonya Kitchen is an ode to author Sharon Wee’s mother. In it she shares her memories of growing up in a Peranakan Chinese family in Singapore, and a meticulously researched collection of recipes and cooking advice learned not only in her mother’s kitchen but from older relatives and experts in the ... Read more »
After two books focusing on British puddings (Pride & Pudding) and baking (Oats in the North, Wheat from the South), a special interest Downton Abbey Christmas Cookbook, and The National Trust Book of Puddings, Dark Rye & Honey Cake is Belgian food writer, culinary historian and photographer Regula Ysewijn’s first cookbook dedicated to ‘festival baking ... Read more »
If you read our review of Su Scott’s Rice Table: Korean Recipes & Stories To Feed The Soul, you’ll know we are enormous fans of this wonderful Korean cookbook, both for the delicious recipes within and for Scott’s beautiful and evocative writing. To that end, we were keen to find out more from Scott about how ... Read more »
It’s no secret, by the time I publish this review, that I adore Rice Table: Korean Recipes & Stories To Feed The Soul, the debut cookbook of award-winning food writer, recipe developer, and mother Su Scott. I’ve been raving about the book via social media for a good few weeks, and Pete’s made several recipes ... Read more »
In the 7.5 years since it opened, Hoppers – a Sri Lankan and South Indian restaurant in London’s Soho – has garnered a large and loyal customer base, a slew of favourable reviews from press and bloggers alike, and secured a Michelin Bib Gourmand in its first year. Two more branches followed the first, the ... Read more »
In his previous book Herb: A Cook’s Companion, Mark Diacono wove together detailed advice on growing your own herbs (and handling store bought), with a selection of recipes that show off those herbs beautifully. In Spice: A Cook’s Companion he provides advice on how to source and blend spices well, and how to make the ... Read more »