To be expect a recipe book just to have recipes clearly laid out and not a load of unecessary poncy waffle...

[bigmyrrhstrikesagain]

Am using the 'Crank's Bible' a vegetarian recipe book - there is a fantastic Mushroom Wellington recipe - but it is the worst cook book ever! The ingredients are laid out on a separate page to the method - there is a long waffly and completely unecessary introduction to each recipe. Giving the Authors personal history with each dish, very irritating not really enlightening, the method is not set out very well and has helpful instructions like 'add tarragon half way through cooking [the mushrooms]' without actually telling you how long to cook the farkin mushrooms!!

I like a recipe to a page, a nice pic and a clear method - end of!

The food is good, so it is a shame I want to toss the book out of the window!!!

and breath

Yes I like prep and cooking time too, there's nothing more annoying than getting half way through, guests are waiting and it says now marinate for 3 hours

Cranks is meant to be a very good restaurant, food, and recipe book, arnt they?
I made a mushroom and leek pie of theirs (veggie too)
BUT......if they dont tell you how long to cook the food for, what choice do you have but to throw it out the window?

But thats what all 'recipe' books are loke these days. I kept borrowing my mums original 1950s good housekeeping cooking bible till she found me one of my own at a car boot sale a few months back.
Tells you all the really basic things. Hmm but it also says things like '2oz butter, or margarine if butter not available' being written in post war years!

I am getting about 5 or 6 cook books for Christmas but somehow found myself buying Delia's Christmas one. I saw it in the window of the charity shop so it can be my good deed for the day.

The New Cranks book is similarly defective - I think the author has spent too long being poncey and delegating the actual cooking to the minions. The older Cranks books (mine date back to the Eighties) are fine.

i quite like simon hopkinson's roast chicken etc - he does teh poncey stuff first then the recipe. works for me.

I agree - Nigella is a terrible one for this.

I keep an A5 notebook with recipes I've tried and want to keep rewritten in basic '1oz sugar 2oz butter 3oz flour, mix, roll out, 15min 180C' form

Crank's Fast Food is a good one-- I bought it for my ds when she went through a veggie phase and stole it back when she gave it up.

Nigella's Express book has method and ingredients all on one page.