Is there a thread for 'recipes from cookbooks which are fab' and

[oxocube]

recipes which are crap and you shouldn't be seduced by? If not, can we start one? I mean specific things like 'in Jamie Oliver's Naked Chef 2, the smashed chick pea dip is fabulous' and Nigella's brownies, page blah, blah of How to Eat don't work.

Have spent my weekend cooking/baking and thoroughly recommend Delia's pitta bread in How to eat 3, her lentil and scallop dish in the same book, and said JO dish above.

It just strikes me that loads of us are keen cooks and have lots of popular cookbooks and that we could maybe combine forces to recommend the best dishes from them all as well as outing the duds

Any takers?

yes, I recognise the need for this thread!

Can I question the wisdom of Rachel Allen insisting on using plain flour for her chocolate & vanilla marble cake in 'Bake', and ask why she splits the strange plain-flour cake mixture into two bowls and then adds cocoa to one of them as well as all the flour, resulting in the chocolate part of the marble being rock hard?

[obviously if you haven't got this book then you have absolutely no idea what I'm wittering on about. But it bothers me!]

However, I do have to say that Nigella's brownies in 'Domestic Goddess' work like a charm for me, anyway.

good thread idea

my fave is Nigel Slater. Think he cooks like I do (i.e. not enormously complicated, not necessarily loads of ingredients).

I once baked a plum and almond cake of his and nearly wept at how nice it was

also, I don't like fish and find nearly all his fish recipes make fish taste good iyswim

Best baking book by MILES is Mary Berry's Ultimate Cake Book. Have never needed another it's so brilliant.

Okay -

Feast by Nigella:
Chocolate Guinness Cake is pure culinary nirvana.
The veggie chilli is good.

How To Be A Domestic Goddess:
flapjacks and brownies were a disaster
I liked the sconey oniony pie thing.

Madhur Jaffrey 'World Vegetarian'
the muslim sweet orange rice is good, so is the chilli, so are the lentils in a sauce and various other things I can't remember.

Dp loves to make Jamie Oliver's beef stew in Newcastle Brown.

I can't get Nigella at all, which is a shame as some of her stuff looks quite nice.

Can't get like unobtainable? Or like 'I just don't get her'? Cos if it's the former, there are lots of recipes from the books on nigella.com

Cooking Like Mummyji, Vicky Boghal - fantastic, if time-consuming, samosas.

Fatty Pork and Lentils from Nigel Slater's Real Food.

And am addicted to the Breakfast Bars from Nigella Express. Never had a problem with the brownies (DG also).

Fox, which book is Nigel's plum and almond cake in?

I can't quite get her recipes. Can't make a lot of them work tbh and that makes me not want to try more but am a hideously impatient cook

will check the plum and almond cake recipe as have a few books of his...hang on...

it's this one

it is truly divine. Like orgasmic divine. I made it without the walnuts.

(sorry Juwesm, I meant can't get as in don't get rather than can't obtain but thanks for website tip off! didn't know so much of her stuff was online)

Love Nigel Slater too, both the recipes and the way he writes. Will look up the Rachel Allen cake as I have a couple of her books. Agree TOTALLY with fox about the Mary Berry book. Simply fab. I love Nogellas borwnies in DG but find they take twice as long to cook as she says.

that would be Nigella, actually. Oh and brownies

have just googled the plum cake, fox, and will try later today, based on your recommendation

i don't tend to use recipe books much, although i have a handful of nigels/nigellas, but i've cooked at least half a dozen things from the leon cookbook in the last couple of months and they've all been pretty impressive, although the cauliflower curry needs less liquid and more cauliflower. the houmous is great - it's a really basic recipe but for some reason i've never bothered to make my own before and now i doubt i'd ever buy it again. oh and the butter beans with chorizo is amaaaazing

ooh it's good oxocube. You obviously like v similar recipes to me (I linked the plum cake further down, just in case your recipe not the same!). I feel vicariously excited about you making it!

that's interesting about the Leon cookbook heartofgold. I have a Leon restaurant near me at work but still haven't gone there. Is their stuff really good?

foxinsocks - I find Nigella very tiresome except for her Christmas recipes and some of her very trad stuff revisited for food processors and Italianisation (very inspired IMO). Her cakes are always too sweet.

I love, love, love River Café Easy and River Café Two Easy.

Domestic Goddess courgette cake
Has never failed me yet

haven't tried those River Cafe books Anna. What sort of recipes do they have? I am starting to feel a big cook book session coming on!

(if we all keep talking about cakes Olivia, do you reckon the thread will inspire a massive bake today ?)

The River Café Easy books are (as you would expect!) very easy recipes with a modernised Italianate flavour using really high quality fresh ingredients.

I love them so much and find them so reliable that I "cook blind" for dinner parties from them ie I will cook a new untried recipe when people are coming round for dinner.

thanks Anna. Will go and have a look at them. This thread is making me hungry!

ooh def go to leon (have never been to one, but the recipes are good). is healthy food, but not health food iyswim. e.g. wholemeal breakfast muffins sweetened with maple syrup, banana and apple sauce, delicious and not too sweet. lots of pulses but with meat for added flavour. strong mediterranean influence - tapas, mezze, etc. most of the recipes do have quite a lot of ingredients, but i reckon it's worth it.

Don't have the River Cafe books, Anna, but do love the earlier JO ones which take much inspiration from his time working at the River Cafe. May have to order. Tell me a couple of your fave recipes from them to inspire me please .

I love to read Nigella but find almost EVERYTHING needs adjusting. Made her jam doughnuts yesterday from Feast but needed to add much more flour as dough was way too sticky. Tasted v good in the end though (if not for the health conscious!!)

Am looking for good but easy books for mezze type dishes at the moment, hence trying out the houmous and pitta recipes yesterday. Nothing with ingredients I have to order specially or spend days trying to find.

Oh have just realised I DO have River Cafe Easy . Had forgotten about it until I googled on Amazon and recognised the cover! Off to browse through it now

Fox thanks for plum cake link. I may stash that away for when the Brogdale plums arrive in autumn.

The list of cakes I need to bake is rapidly increasing!

I have heard very mixed reports about the Nigella brownies recipe. There is a recipe in the DG book for roast chicken and tagliatelle which is really easy and great for feeding a group (informal rather than posh dinner party)

Madhur Jaffrey's Ultimate Curry Bible - the potato and pea curry is amazing, and very simple/cheap to make (though I cook it in a low oven for several hours rather than on hob).

Also the red salmon curry in the same book.

Though she always calls for grated tomatoes.
I have never yet managed to grate one sucessfully (I finely slice them instead).

Also I have tried making a few of the breads in the book and they were simple but turned out fantastically.

The lentil recipe I mentioned earlier requires grated tomatoes: I just rubbed them over the grater until i had a little bowl of mush and some crumbly skin bits which I chucked. I hate pieces of tomato in things, so grating them to slush was a good thing!