Simon Rimmer

I was not sure what to expect from the title, and I almost passed it by, but in fact this is well worth a look. It is packed with hearty no-nonsense recipes, the impression gained from browsing the pages is that of good hearty food, I can't help thinking back to the 1960s there being nothing here that resembles the over fussy recipes frequently suggested today. That is not to say it is stuck in the past, there are enough contemporary influences in some recipes that make it clear this is very much of today.

The recipes are varied, and that is perhaps the message of the title, with a mix of very meaty dishes along with vegetarian, and concluding with a few desserts. There is a chapter with all recipes including coriander leaf, so if you are one of those like me for whom coriander leaf tastes like soap you'll either be giving that chapter a miss or experimenting with alternatives to coriander. But what does appeal to me is the number of recipes for duck, whereas most cookbook might offer the one token recipe, here there are a full half-dozen, more than there are for some other meats.

The book is well produced, the layout is clear and easy to follow without being clinical. Each recipe has a few introductory remarks and most are illustrated full page. The overall impression is of a friendly, chatty, unpretentious cookbook with many practical recipes.… (plus d'informations)

http://legoquescribo.blogspot.com/2008/09/vegetarian-joy.html

This book promised some yummy sounding food, N got particularly excited by it, because none of it sounded too much like vegetarian food. As a result I tried recipes from it with a great deal of enthusiasm.

Unfortunately, I have had a few problems.

Firstly: The instructions are not especially helpful, it lacks details where details would be really helpful. And when I say "lack of detail" I may be seeking a more charitable way of saying, "gets stuff wrong" or "misses stuff out". Example: I made some onion gravy to the letter of the recipe, but had to fiddle with it a lot to make it edible (i.e. something one pours rather than slices - this coming from someone who likes thick gravy)

Secondly: A lot of the recipes require you to deep fry, and even where it says one can shallow fry, you would need to be a better man than me to get a satisfying result. (As opposed to an oily mess) Generally speaking shallow frying is rarely a good replacement for deep frying, as I haven't got a deep fat fryer that closes a lot of doors to me.

Thirdly: One can kind of tell it is a restaurant cookbook, there is a feel to a lot of the recipes that they would be quite practical if you had a restaurant kitchen, but someone with a small range of high quality domestic apparatus might struggle a little. So for instance I have had to discount most of the recipes that require a deep fat fryer, the recipes are not designed to be easily scalable, and even simple dishes have relatively complex recipes.

Finally: The dishes themselves sometimes tended towards a trap all too common with vegetarian food, especially as found in restaurants. Chefs seems to panic, and worry that vegetarian food is too boring, sometimes they are right to do so, but that does not mean one needs to layer flavour upon flavour. A good meal should have three or four good flavours, no more than two very rich ones, with a couple of more subtle background notes. So pasta, with a rich tomato sauce, basil and cheese is, from a flavour perspective, perfect. Something swimming in a rainbow of Jus is not.… (plus d'informations)