Following the familiar format of these little cookbooks Tagines & Moroccan Dishes offers a wide selection of recipes many of which appear to be single dish meals. The format for those not familiar with this series of books is a simple and clear layout of the recipe (list of ingredients and then the instructions) on one page with a full colour photograph of the finished dish on the facing page.

While this works adequately with most of these cookbooks, I find in this case it is is not enough. My lack of familiarity with Moroccan cuisine leaves me wanting more information - my only clue as to what the final dish will be is to look down the list of ingredients - how much more helpful it would be to have a few explanatory words about the dish, and what else one might serve with it, if anything. Of course this is a criticism that can be levelled at all the books in this series, but here it seems to matter more.

Many of the recipes do look very appealing, and there is a good balance between all vegetable dishes and meat dishes. Among the latter there are a good number of lamb, chicken or rabbit recipes, the predominant feature of which is slow cooking; the introduction to the book recommends looking for meat with a good fat content to avoid the risk of the meat drying out.

Putting aside my reservations at the price this is still very good value, and its modest size makes it very convenient to use it taking up very little of the valuable space in the working kitchen, and it is not too precious to worry about it getting a little messed up! ( )