Delia Complete Cookery or... what?

[HarrietJonesFlydaleNorth]

Looking for a starter cookery book for DS. Preferably one with techniques and info rather than just recipes.

I had the Delia How to Cook, at a similar age which was a good start. Plus a Madhur Jaffrey, and a couple of those St Michaels thin recipe books, but I'm thinking they are a bit outdated now.

I was pondering the Delia's Complete Cookery Course book but wondering how relevant it is now. I have cook books from my Nana, and whilst they are useful some of the recipes are definitely outdated!

So, if not Delia then who? Any recommendations?

What I wanted at uni was instructions on how to make my favourite meals from home. So I wanted to know not how to make beef casserole, but how to make the beef casserole we had at home. Not how to cook rice but how to do the exact nice basmati rice with spices etc that we had at home. Etc.
So I’d suggest copying all your family favourites and others that you think he’d like, and get them in a book or folder. And I agree with the bbc good food app too.

edited to add - quite a few of these recipes for me were from Delia complete cookery course, and I was v pleased to get a copy in a charity shop while at uni - and also it was a clear point in my now DH’s favour when I found he had a copy too! But it does feel a bit dated in places. Not a bad one to have on the shelf though.

Another vote for Nigel Slater Real Fast Food. Not as the first book, perhaps, but as a great second one.

I love Julia Child and her recipes are very detailed and reliable, but I don’t think they are for beginners. At least I wouldn’t have been ready for them at the start.

Delia's CCC is my Bible and my kids have learnt to to cook from it - they will definately be getting their own copies if they ever leave home 🙄

I also rate Nigels Real Fast Food, but it has less of the how to part.

Yes absolutely this, my mum passed her curry recipes to all of us, plus I make an exact copy of her lentil soup just absorbed from watching.

And then many of my first recipes would have been Delia or some kind of BBC cookbook as that's what she had. I think the first books I owned were more dictated by who was new and most popular at that time. Hence Nigel, Nigella.

I second this, it's my go to for reliable, every day cooking. If I want inspiration I might go to my cheffy books, but as a reference source of "how do I cook X or Y" it's invaluable.

My children , my nieces , my young friends have all been given copies of Delia when they moved out .
I buy second hand copies in charity shops to always have one in stock.

The other great book , which is out of print , is sainsburys book of food. It has pictures and how to prepare instructions of all the weird and wonderful fruit , veg, meat etc . The only problem is , it is so useful that second hand copies are really expensive , so always look out in second hand book shops for them .

Thank you so much everyone. 😊 I think I will get Delia's CCC and have a look at Nigel Slater too.

Good call with Hairy Bikers and James May, I think these would be received well.

And, yeah, I've been meaning to write down some of my family recipes, so maybe this will be the year I actually do that! 😆🤦🏻‍♀️

They will probably get a lot of information from the internet. Recipetineats is a really good website, and the recipes all have YouTube videos.