What are your favourite recipe books you heavily use?

[treeindigo]

I love browsing recipe books for inspiration but find most of the ones I have I only like a few of the recipes. I'm not the most experienced of cooks so tend to like simple meals, don't really do fish. I have a few Jamie Oliver and River Cottage ones, wondering if Joe Wicks would be a good shout for simplicity.

What do you like?

Persiana - Sabrina Ghayour.

It's my go to when I have any kind of get together. Any selection of mains and salads from it makes a tasty and really attractive buffet-style meal. And you can do most things in advance.

Fast800 cookbooks - even if you aren't doing Fast800! Super easy and tasty - just add carbs

I've got over 90 books, but for so many of them I just use 1 or 2 recipes.

The ones I return to time & time again are The Hairy Bikers (think I've got 14-16 books).

They cover a wide range of cuisines, the recipes are well-written, & simple to follow,

Ottolenghi is good when I want to impress guests. Madhur Jaffrey is good for Indian food.

A lot of the TV chefs may be entertaining to watch (i.e. JO, NL, NH, RS ) but their written recipes often disappoint - & DS can be disastrous.

Ottolenghi, can be bit of a faff but tis worth it

Madhur Jaffrey, fantastic food some very simple super tasty we love Indian food loads of her recipes are go-to family favourites

Nigella for cakes

Mostly make stuff up/do things I've done for years tbh.

But books wise Hairy Bikers here too (vegetarian, dieters & Everyday Winners probably most).

Jamie's 45 15 minute meals too.

Also like Persiana but not for everyday stuff, more of an occasion thing.

Youngest dc keen on trying random recipes from Instagram and YouTube shorts too.

I have a whole shelf of cook books, but 99% of the time- I used google! I look up what ingredients I have or at least the main one- chicken, green beans, garlic for example- and lots of recipe options come up.
I tend to find things on the BBC recipe site often. They have basics on how to prep certain veg/fruit/meat and explanations such as 'what does saute mean, how to grill' etc

If you want an actual cookbook, something aimed at students might be good. Books with lots of photos, especially step-by-step can help too.

Pip Payne books - so easy to follow and delicious recipes! The Slimming Foodie they are called.

Alistair Little "Keep it Simple". You can tell from the shocking state of most of the pages.

Pip Payne (The Slimming Foodie), LaToyah Egerton (Sugar Pink Food) and Two Chubby Cubs. They've all got several books to choose from.

Madhur Jaffrey
Delia
Hairy Bikers
Diana Henry, she does really tasty straightforward recipes. Love her Oven to Table book.

Made in India, Meera Sodha - everyday Indian food

East, Meera Sodha - everyday vegetarian food inspired from across all of Asia

Mezcla, Ixta Belfrage - exciting flavours, can be everyday but great for weekends/entertaining

Short & Sweet, Dan Lepard - baking basics to semi-fancy, explains fundamentals and role of each element (flour, butter, sugars....)

Sift, Nicola Lamb - might be usurping Short & Sweet as my baking bible, covers the science and is full of great base recipes to show stopping deserts and viennoiserie

You can tell from the shocking state of most of the pages.

That's how I should have worded it, "what's your grottiest recipe book!" Reminds me of my mum's dairy book of home cookery, our bible growing up and very, very worn!

Thanks everyone, some great ideas.

I love Ottolenghi Simple, most of Jamie Oliver and recently Dominique Woolf for easy tasty Asian inspired food.

For baking, definitely Mary Berry's Baking Bible.

If you want simple I would recommend Nigel Slater. Learned to cook from his books, especially “Appetite” and “Real Fast Food”.

I also recommend RecipeTinEats website - not a cookbook but better IMO, as the recipes have reviews and more explanation than you get in a book. And you can save your favourites to a personal list. In fact this site is the source of most of my go-to family meals.

Ottolenghi isn’t simple. Not even his “Simple” book - it’s just less insanely complex than his others.

Veg Box Companion byAbel & Cole. I buy a fruit and veg box each week and this gives a ton of info about making the most of fruit and veg.

I agree with PPs that Ottolenghi is brilliant, but largely not ideal for everyday cooking, though his new book Comfort might be more so? If you are interested to get a feel for his cooking he shares alot of recipes for free on his website, on the Guardian website, and on the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen YouTube channel.

Ottelenghi Simple
Persiana Everyday - Sabrina Gahyour
Mary and Delia 🙂

Nothing beats Delia at Xmas although I've lots of random ripped out pages from magazines in there too

Joe Wickes is good although his quantities are a bit dodgy and some recipes are 🤢. However as would say the good ones are banging.

My old Marcella Hazan BBC book for Italian and Mireille Johnston for French never let me down

Camellia Panjabi 50 great curries is also good

I was going to say the Dairy Diary book of home cookery. I have a few of them and they are wonderful in their simplicity. My favourite, from the late 80s, is just falling to pieces with the pages all stuck together. I used it a couple of weeks ago for a lemon meringue pie.

I like the Hairy Bikers and Jamie Oliver ones.i don't buy cook books anymore but do subscribe to BBC good food mag - I love getting it through the post every month. I have to stop it every so often so I can go through the older ones!

The roasting tin books - we have Quick, Green, Sweet and Around the World and all are excellent

Nigel slater real food

Jane Hornby Fresh and Easy

River cottage Veg

And always Diana Henry, her food is just beautiful

Pinterest these days.

This is a brilliant and beautiful book - I haven't looked at it in a while so thanks for the reminder.

I'm also a big fan of Nigel Slater.

I do look online but good god if I have to scroll past another 20 page life story of the author describing their journey to that recipe before getting to the actual information I might just scream. I love BBC Good Food but there's something about browsing a book, especially if loaded with photos (even if mine never look the same!)

I was going to say the Dairy Diary book of home cookery. I have a few of them and they are wonderful in their simplicity. My favourite, from the late 80s, is just falling to pieces with the pages all stuck together. I used it a couple of weeks ago for a lemon meringue pie.

Absolutely, it's my go to for classic meals. Mine is trashed!