About this Blog

The War On Cookbooks

 

I remember a scene quite a few years ago whilst trying to follow a recipe for a simple brie soufflé, where I ended up throwing hard rocks of brie in to the bin over and over again. I never even got around to beating the egg whites and in the end gave up and decided to do some brownies instead. It was years before I attempted the recipe again and unfortunately when I did I came out with similar results. My recipe had been written by a very famous and much respected chef and so despite my continuous failure I persisted, assuming that this was in some way my fault. How could I be getting this wrong, time after time, or how could this decorated chef be fallible on such a simple recipe?

 

Looking back I wasn’t alone. I remember my mother’s frustration at following recipe after recipe to the absolute letter. I remember her excitement before hand and her mild disappointment when serving her children or her dinner party something which was a distant cousin, twice removed from that which had appeared on the pages of her cookbook.  Still she persisted, unwilling to change that which was written in stone in the pages of her Delia smith cookbook. Still clinging to the promise of that gastronomic eureka moment that was almost certainly on its way, courtesy of the new hardback revised edition.

 

My Girlfriend Helen has also been victim to the post recipe comedown, only with her slightly temperamental nature this can sometimes result in me having bowls of pasta or stew flying past my head and going straight to telephone to order a takeaway. 

 

This had to stop.

 

Things are better in our house these days. Not just because Helen is a better cook and I now work full time with food and work in professional kitchens, but mainly because instead of reading recipes and cookbooks I now read about the food itself. What it is, how it cooks, why it cooks, how long it takes to cook at any temperature and in what way. To understand the nature of what your cooking and the science behind the method, means that rather than having to read recipes every time you want to cook something, you can almost work it out for yourself. And whilst you will almost certainly have to refer from time to time to books for inspiration and advice, you will take that advice for what it’s worth and not for what it says it is worth.

 

Learning to cook by copying Gordon Ramsey recipes will not make you the next Gordon Ramsey, just like learning to play the guitar by copying Jimi Hendrix songs will not make you the next Jimi Hendrix. 

 

So I'm going to look at some basic cooking techniques and recipes, but in little more detail than normal. I promise to never give you exact measurements, timings or temperatures for any recipes, except where absolutely necessary. But instead tell you about why the food should be cooked that way and so hopefully you can work that out for yourself, for your own oven and for your own ingredients. We all have different ovens, different environments and different farms on which different food grows and lives, so why the hell we all expect our different chickens to cook for the same amount of time is beyond comprehension. Food is cooked when it's done and not when it’s supposed to be.

 

I hope you enjoy some of what I write and if you have any suggestions of your own please send them in.

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Gourmet Chick]

Great premise for a blog

[Robert-Gilles Martineau]

Dear Neil!
Join the crowd!
I've been in it for quite some time!
LOL
Robert-Gilles

[Sarah Moore]

Bravo!

This is refreshing, and how I have always cooked and how I teach. We've lost touch with our connection with food, both buying and cooking.

Look forward to reading more.

Best
Sarah