Cookbook for novice cook.

[lizziemun]

My 12yr cousin has decided she wants to learn to cook.

Can anyone suggest a good cookbook for a novice to start with.

It would have to be varely plain food as she is a fussy eater.

I'm hoping that it will help encourage her to try different types of food once she get her conifence (SP) with cooking.

TIA.

bump

I would get her Delia's How To Cook book 1.

Starts with how to boil an egg .

Very comprehensive for the beginner. But does get on to some fairly fancy stuff like pastry and risotto.

Student cookbooks - full of quick, easy, cheap, tasty meals with easy ingredients/store cupboard basics.

Or "4 ingredients". Genius.

Real Fast Food or Appetite by Nigel Slater.

He is so very much my food hero, and i can imagine no-one better as a guide for a wary novice cook - he set me on the path to understanding real food.

Any of the Australian Woman's Weekly series are superb and also have lots of photos.
I leanrt to cook reading this magazine ans the books at a similar age.

Thanks. I have look.

Snigger i also like Nigel Slater.

i just get a bit annoyed because my Aunt and uncle won't encourage her.

I second Real Fast Food. It's more about flavours than techniques, which she can get from Delia / Leith's / et al later, but for now it sounds as if she wants to be experimenting with taste, in which case Nigel Slater is her man.

I picked up a copy of Tamasin Day-Lewis's 'Tamasin's Kitchen Bible' in a second-hand shop recently (a bargain, too!) and it's really impressed me. Full of delicious recipes, from very simple to more ambitious, and lots of excellent advice on the basics. Not specifically aimed at younger teens but I think it would fit the bill.

Jamie's Ministry of Food is great.

I would second Jamie's Ministry of Food. I'm not a very confident cook but find it easy to follow with great results.