Larousse Gastronomique

This book is very dear to me as it was a gift from my parents at Christmas in 1988. Larousse Gastronomique was a godsend for me as I didn’t know a huge amount about food at the time. I was living away from home and this book taught me so much. I read it every night before turning the light out. 

It’s literally an A to Z of everything to do with gastronomy. The way each letter of the alphabet is used to describe a food item, dish, wine or region is brilliant. And it is concise; full of incredible things and a fountain of knowledge. 

Every time I pick this book up, I find something new that fascinates me. It’s an encyclopaedia of all things to do with food, wine, eating and all sorts of culinary antics. I’m not sure students get this book at college, but I would insist on it as a tool for learning your craft.

The images are wonderful, from a time we have forgotten when chefs wore tall hats and everything had truffle and foie gras in it. A recipe that caught my eye recently was for thrushes stuffed with, you guessed it, truffles and foie gras. Sounds delicious. If you know someone who’s into cooking, they will devour this book.

Broths to Bannocks by Catherine Brown

It’s a proper cookbook this week. A traditional Scots book, with some incredible, historical stories of how we used to eat. Catherine Brown is a well-known cook and author who fascinated me for years. We finally met and I invited her to be a guest at Cafe to celebrate her food using local, Scottish, and old recipes. It was a wonderful evening. 

Broths to Bannocks is a book you can always refer to for different reasons. For recipes, but oh so much more. There are chapters about what was eaten in the past, including some from an another wonderful book I have, Mrs Dalgairn’s Practice of Cookery. Recipes like Caledonian cream from 1829, castle cake from 1874, and fried stag’s feet for breakfast (boiled for 6 hours, then rolled in breadcrumbs). Sounds alright actually. Also, traditional dishes like porridge and butteries, boiled salted mutton, and so on. This book is a compendium of what got us canny Scots through tough times and how we lived off the land, bartered, and survived.

Where do you buy certain items that would never be on a supermarket shelf? There’s a list in this book of places to try. It also has the very best old tales, told as if you were sinking back into your settle in a dimly lit pub on a stormy night with a flicker of a candle and a roaring fire. The Highland welcome was one that was warm and generous.

Catherine writes of a family in Edinburgh who spent a considerable amount on eating out, and drinking in Edinburgh taverns, gambling with cards, with tales of money lost on a game of golf at Leith. Falconry was enjoyed and deerhounds were used for hare coursing, and tackle bought for trout fishing at Cramond.

The gardens were full of pears, apples and plums, with apricot trees in the orchard and the larder a rich storehouse of hams, 15-pound Irish cheeses and salt-herring, sitting alongside anchovies and loaf sugar. Dried fruits like figs and prunes are next to spices. This is wealthy Ravelston in 1690. I really do enjoy this book as it takes us on a tour from 17th century Scotland to the present day. Get yourself a copy!

British Regional Food by Mark Hix

Someone once said that if there’s a heaven, they would want Mark Hix to be in the canteen. Mark’s commitment to cooking seasonally, and his knowledge of our island’s food is unrivalled. 

His book, British Regional Food is a belter. It covers the best of ingredients and dishes from the four corners of our land, highlighting what’s good to eat when, and where. Mark is a brilliant thinker, verging on genius, and has been very successful with his various restaurants over the years. I’m fortunate to have eaten in many of his places. I once ate gull’s eggs at his place in Soho, thinking, this is just great, as I dunked them into celery salt and sipped a good beer. Then I devoured a whole sole with wild garlic and little potatoes.

He cooks well and has trained an army of good chefs who understand the importance of seasonal, local food. From his early days at Le Caprice, Mark became friends with many artists, like Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin, and I admire his views on food and art. He’s had a big influence on many, me included. 

In this book, he suggests things like buying from a local smokehouse to create something simple at home. There’s a recipe for lardy cake (that old recipe, which reminds me to make some as we haven’t for a while) made with pork fat and dried fruit. Delicious. He heads north to Scotland for a mussel brose. 

He also steps back into the past and offers a great recipe for Lamb Cutlets Reform. A dish invented by Alexis Soyer at the Reform Club in the 1830s. Thinking of that makes my mouth water: sweet lamb in breadcrumbs, fried in butter, with a perfectly balanced sauce of beetroot, egg white, truffle and tongue. Yes, all in the same sauce. Absolutely fabulous. A lot of chefs will have this book as a reminder of what proper food is and where it comes from.

The Sportsman by Stephen Harris

The Sportsman in Whitstable, Kent, is on my list of places that I simply must visit. You’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a run-of-the-mill pub by the sea, but they have been awarded a Michelin star, and many other accolades. 

Chef Stephen Harris’s wonderful cookbook illustrates his simple yet elegant approach to food.  The act of cooking simply, is not as easy as it sounds. Ingredients must be considerately bought, prepared, cooked and served, and this cookbook epitomises seasonal British cooking. 

Stephen is from the Mark Hix camp: take a few ingredients and serve them well. I so admire this approach. It doesn’t have to be Nordic-inspired or copied and pasted from another chef. No fancy frivolities here, just some old wooden tables and linen napkins. It all sounds perfect, and the light will be spectacular at all times of year. 

Harris’s recipe for greengage soufflé with greengage ripple ice cream almost brings a tear to my eye. I wish more places would do this. You will struggle to find something like this anywhere else. I must go there. Who said cooking is an emotional experience…

Patisserie by Michel and Albert Roux

The Roux Brothers have been at the vanguard of restaurants for many decades. The wealth of knowledge those guys had was astonishing. I was lucky to have worked with Michel at The Waterside Inn in Bray and met Albert a few times, who had Le Gavroche, and each restaurant had 3 Michelin Stars. 

My father always said, “work with the Roux Brothers”, they were culinary royalty. Totally focused on quality and determined to make food better in Britain in the early ’70s. Patisserie will always be a go-to for me, and thousands of chefs and cooks from my era and today. There are the simplest of recipes, and the basics are covered, but the more elaborate desserts are shown off very well too. This book stands the test of time, and even to this day, I go to it if I’m stuck or need to learn how to do something. 

The pastry section at The Waterside Inn was a separate area on the other side of the pass and it was so perfectly clinical. A showstopper was produced every day, and the chefs were so proud of their work. It was a tough kitchen to work in, and I was only there during a winter whilst working on the Royal Scotsman train, but I learned a huge amount. Alain Roux was my go-to guy, and he was wonderful to work with.

I love the photography in this book, even the cover is brilliant. They look so young! Step-by-step instructions with lavish photography so even the modest cook can make a mouth-watering confection after reading this book. To think Michel was Chef de Cuisine for the Rothschild family, and he offered me a business opportunity all those years ago based on me serving him white truffle risotto, foie gras terrine with brioche, and scallops with leek purée and black truffle. But, I don’t remember what pudding he had!

The Merchant House by Shaun Hill

I really admire this book from the great Shaun Hill, who I remember meeting many, many years ago at an event. One of the UK’s finest chefs and most renowned in the industry, he is up there in the world of chefs. Many look up to him and respect his ability to put a few ingredients on a plate and make it work so well. 

He became well known cooking at Gidleigh Park in Devon, and when he saw an opportunity to move to Ludlow to open the Merchant House he jumped at it, and went on to gain the second Michelin star of his career. I wonder if that cooking would gain a star now? I hope so. 

His recipes aren’t overworked, but spot on. A message to us all that simple food can be enjoyable, elegant and sophisticated. Sometimes it was just him in the kitchen and it’s amazing to think what he achieved. His recipe for caramel and apple tart is wonderful and so delicious. The pastry is just bang on. His boldness to cook a simple, whole partridge shows the intelligence of the man. 

Filled with great photography by Jason Lowe (who has received many an award and worked on many publications), this book is perfect for the home cook as most of the recipes are easy-to-follow. Shaun is still cooking at 77, at The Walnut Tree Inn in Abergavenny (made famous years ago by another great chef, Franco Taruschio), which shows how driven he is.

Hors d’oeuvre and Cold Table by William Heptinstall

This week I’m mentioning a book that has a very personal meaning to me. My father gave it to me in 1975 with a lovely inscription inside. Hors d’oeuvre and Cold Table by William Heptinstall, a chef of legendary status. He ran the Fortingall Hotel in Glen Lyon for decades that was quite famous in the 50s and 60s as the place to go. 

He left funds on his death so that every year, a sum of money—to help with transport and accommodation—would go to a young chef to further his career. I applied for this William Heptinstall Award in about 1989 and was sent to London to be interviewed by a group of very serious people in a boardroom at the International Food and Wine Society, near Harrods. I had a lovely lunch at Hilaire, where Brian Webb was cooking, and I still remember his cod dish. 

There are so many dishes in this book that I don’t know where to start. I love the chapter on flesh and meat with variants of hard-boiled eggs and instructions for so many things like smoking and pickling. It’s a good book for the budding cook or gourmand, and I particularly enjoy his terminology: salade de pieds anyone? (made with calves’ feet, pigs’ feet and sheep’s trotters). This is a rare book and one I hold very dear in my collection.

Charlie Trotter

Charlie Trotter was a legend. A dynamic, new age, American chef who had an incredible career. He displayed a modern way of thinking about cooking that was light, technical and complicated—something new and not seen before. His book, simply titled Charlie Trotter was one of many he published, but I used to pine over this one and think: one day I will work there. He was intelligent, with a degree in political science, and he ate out a lot, learning his craft by watching and eating. 

Sadly, I never managed to eat or work there but a few friends did. He was a hard chef, who ruled the kitchen with a firm but fair approach, but what was being produced looked incredible. I was so lucky to launch one of his cookbooks with him (when I was cooking at the Atrium in Edinburgh, gosh, almost 25 years ago) along with dear Clarissa Dickson Wright of Two Fat Ladies fame, who also owned The Cooks Bookshop in the Grassmarket, here in Edinburgh. 

Charlie seemed a quiet man, with an air of seriousness about him. He signed my books and told me to cook in the moment, something I shall never forget. Plus, he quite liked the canapés I had made him. Sadly, Charlie passed away a few years ago, but I was honoured to have met such a great man who cooked food with a bold, new approach but retained classical integrity. 

A lot of chefs have this book, they will read it and drool over the photography by Tim Turner. The image of ‘A Study in Apricot’ will always haunt me as I have contemplated making it, but then saw the prep list…

Cooking by Jeremy Lee

It's is a new addition to my collection this week, but trust me, there are plenty of books to go. Cooking by Jeremy Lee is a great book with wonderful recipes. There are no pretentious, silly little things that take weeks to prepare here; it is just proper food, well-sourced and simply served. From his chicken, leek and tarragon pie, sardines on toast with a fried egg, to some very good baking and delicious-sounding biscuits plus instructions on how to create a steam pudding. 

Jeremy is a fellow Scot. He hails from Dundee and is an absolute hoot: larger-than-life, full of energy and very loud. He has a great personality. He’s chef/proprietor at Quo Vadis in Soho, London and dusts a sprinkle of Scottishness on his menus. I went to Terra Madre with Slow Food in 2006 and he was part of our group, and we shared many happy times and meals. An ex-chef of mine, Calum, who comes from Clachtoll up the west coast, is now cooking with him at Quo Vadis.

I am new to the book so haven’t tried any of the recipes yet, but the classics are there. This book covers a lot, and it is a book you will use, with beautiful photography and illustrations.

Roast Chicken and other Stories by Simon Hopkinson

This book is an all-time classic, and multi-award winning garnering the André Simon Award in ‘94 and Glenfiddich Award in ’95. Many good cooks and chefs will have this in their bookshelf or in their kitchen. 

Roast Chicken and other Stories by Simon Hopkinson is a real find. A quintessential cook’s cookbook. Simon cooked at Bibendum, then at Hilare on Brompton Road in London. A place I fondly remember eating at when I was in London being interviewed for the William Heptinstall Award, many years ago.

There are simple dishes to be made from this book, and others a bit more technical, but overall, it’s a book for everyone. He has a chapter on sweetbreads, a long forgotten and utterly delicious part of an animal that’s so hard to find these days. But I adore a veal sweetbread, breaded and fried with a tartare sauce. There’s also a fabulous lamb sweetbread blanquette recipe. Another chapter focuses on parsley, with a few stories on the origin of curly parsley with a couple of recipes. It is brilliant.

There’s a delicious recipe for omelette Arnold Bennet—created at the Savoy—containing hollandaise sauce, béchamel, smoked haddock and cream. It’s so rich, but wonderful. I ate this omelette a few years ago after I was asked to cook a private dinner at the fabulous hotel. 

I think if I was starting out in a restaurant kitchen, I would have this book by my side as a guide. I will take it to bed tonight for inspiration. I love the bit about making a brine using rainwater or mineral water, a recommendation from Jane Grigson. Simon was the first of the proper cooks.