Cook book recommendations

I am thinking of buying a cook book and was wondering what tters would recommend. I have three things I really want to learn how to make:

- Stir fry in a wok (because I own a wok I don't know how to use)
- Cupcakes (US style with frosting )
- Lasagne

I am up for all suggestions of cook books and don't need to limit myself to the three things above

joyce goldstein - the mediterranean kitchen. from north africa via the middle east to southern europe. hundreds of recipes and ideas, so always something to enjoy yourself or impress your friends with. probably the most thumbed cookbook in our kitchen.

Just checked her out, looks like some good stuff.

Good Housekeeping Step by Step
It's really easy to follow, comprehensive, and all the recipes are good.
I've had mine for nearly 20 years now, and I always go back to it.
This is an updated edition, I'm quite tempted by it myself, actually...

Its focus is not really outlandish snazzy stuff. It's more focussed on classic recipes (such as the 3 you listed).

Mine favourite is
Eat Shrink and be Merry. by Janet and Greta Podleski. They are two Canadian women who have written 3 cookbooks the others are called Looneyspoons and crazyplates.
I use this book all the time

This is all good stuff, keep the recommendations coming!

Nigel Slater - "30 minute cook" or "Real Fast Food"

titles say it all really. but recipes good enough to impress people with and easy too!

The French Kitchen by Joanne Harris - the author of Chocolat. It is well illustrated and she adds the history of the recipe in. It feels very personal.

The Avoca Cafe cookbook by Hugo Arnold - delicious, honest, not overly-complicated food.

The recipies are used daily in the Avoca cafes around Ireland; these cafes are fantastic at homemade breads, desserts, delicious salads and gourmet dishes.

nigel slater has some great books. i have 'real cooking' or 'real food', can't remember which and i had a flick through 'appetite' at a friend's house the other week which i thought was fantastic. he's got a very individual style of relaxed cooking with good quality, flavoursome food.

my favorite is "Das großtes Pastakochbuch". Cost me €15 and has some really good, easy recipes. In German though.

I also have Jamie Oliver cookbooks. They're nice to look at.

Nigella Lawson's 'Feast' (I suspect that the recipe for 'love buns' could be everything you're looking for in a US style cupcake), lovely photos and whole menus for every occasion you can think of.

Also Nigel Slater's "Real Food" and "The French Kitchen" by Joanne Harris and Fran Ward. I got mine at Hugendubel Bookshop For Euro 10 - bargain.

I wouldn't go near Delia. Never been able to make any of her recipes work.

I think one of the best cookbooks I've ever bought is FIFTY WAYS TO COOK EVERYTHING . It has 50 chapters, each with 50 recipes on how to cook different things. A random sample:
17. Fifty Ways to Fight Fat
18. Fifty Ways to Beat the Heat
19. Fifty Ways to Clean Out the Refrigerator
20. Fifty Herbs and Spices and How to Use Them
21. Fifty Chicken Breast Recipes for Every Pot
22. Fifty Chicken Leg Recipes for Every Pot
23. Fifty Ways Out of the Ground-Meat Grind
24. Fifty Recipes for Twenty-five Fish
25. Fifty Recipes for Any Fish

What I like about it is that all the recipes are compact and easy to follow. You can follow them religiously and then after a while, get a feeling for what sort of flavours go well with what sorts of food. I think it's excellent.

And Bubble Gum, Chapter 10 is "Fifty Wonderful Muffins", Chapter 6 is "Fifty Stir-Fries, East and West"

Only thing is, it's out of print, so you have to order it through vendors. Amazon.com, the link above, has several listed. The cheapest one is only $3.99

I borrowed that book off Showem, and I liked it so much that I bought my own copy.
It's not easy to get hold of, mind.
And it hasn't got any pictures, so if you like seeing piccies of what you're gonna cook then it's not for you.

Oh, and it's only available in the US version, so all the measurements are "cups" and such.

But other than that, it is indeed fab.

Dear Bubblegum,

I can show you personally how to make a lasagna.
Another TT lady asked if I would show her how to bake a cheesecake.
So if you want, we could make it a Lasagna-Cheesecake Night..hey, and we could all show our shoes off at the same time!

If you want to get into wok cooking, try to get a hand-hammered wok. They need a while to be seasoned, but are the best. I believe you can get one at Manufactum (spelled with a K or a C?) anyway.. have fun!

. That could get dangerous though, a shoe night.

true...hehe..
maybe we should leave the shoes out of it and just go barefoot.
Barefoot lasagna night..now that sounds interesting

Regarding wok cookery, you might find this article helpful. There are lots of Asian recipes on that blog, btw, so you might want to explore it a bit.

@BG check out the Food Network its a free and easy database with recipes from various chefs that have appeared on the food network's cooking shows. The recipes usually have pictures, difficulty ratings and some come with video links.

Its not a substitute for a good cookbook but if you look for the specific dishes you want to make, then you can compare the different chefs recipes before you go and buy one of their cookbooks.

My Gastronomy by Nico Ladenis. Fantastic book, but more of a general rant about the restuarnat industry, and some relatively complicated recipes (nico has loads of those michelin stars)

Larousse Gastronomique is the ultimate reference book. REcipes, yes, but its more of an encyclopedia of gastronomy.

The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan is a great italian reference book.


Was given to me as a present. I don't really rate it very highly, but maybe because I know alot about French fodder already. For a good french recipe book, you cannot go wrong getting your hands on a copy of French Country Cooking by Elisabeth David. Written years ago, its still 100% relevant to today.

Great British Classics by Gary Rhodes is also worth a read, if only to dispel the myth that there is no cuisine of note anywhere in the British Isles.

Lasagna recipes BTW are like pizza recipes. 50000 variations on a theme, lots of pontification about whether certain ingredients are "allowed" (think about some peoples reaction to sweetcorn on a pizza for example). Some peoples lasagnas turn out like crap because their meat ragu sauce has not been cooked long enough, their bechamel is weakly flavoured, or they decide to dump 4 kilos of cheese on top of it, which then splits a bit, and the whole dish turns into a grease fest.

I can only back up this statement. Very very good cookery book that has restored the faith in English cooking for a lot of foreign friends of mine

"Mastering the Art of French Cooking" by Julia Child is one of my favourites. Lots of the recipes take a fair bit of time, but the instructions are clear and I have always had good results from it. Volume I covers everything from making an omelette up to Lobster Thermidor (if you are brave enough). As it was written for the US market, it does require a set of measuring cups.

You can also try uktvfood or BBC Food. Both offer a search function and feature recipes from their TV shows and also hints and tips on e.g. seasonal ingredients.

Don't go near Delia though. Her recipes (also available on her website) are ok, if you're after a bit of inspiration, but are way too awkward to follow til the end.

I also like Tony & Giorgio's cookbook, which was published following their TV series, as it's includes British and Italian recipes. (I've tried Giorgio's lasagna recipe and it's lovely...)

Getting hungry now. Time for lunch...

I love How to Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food, by New York Times cooking writer Mark Bittman.

It's an enormous book (over 900 pages), but it's got a chapter on what you really need for cooking (utensils, pots & pans, etc.) and how to buy them, menus in the back, sources for mail order, and special sections called "The Basics of . . . (quick breads, oil-based pasta sauces, beef kebabs, etc.) There are 1500 recipes, which is a pretty good value for a book that cost me $25 about 6 years ago.

It's a really really good source for both recipes and cooking technique, buying guides, where cuts of meat come from, etc. Can't recommend it enough.