Favourite Cookery book

[Boo152]

What's your favourite everyday cookery book? For over 20-yrs we've been using the Good Housekeeping Cookery Book
'The cook's classic companion'
(their description).
Anybody else have a favourite recipe or cookery book they keep going back to?

[HarryFlatters]

Elizabeth David's "French Provincial Cooking".

It's a bit rambling in places but it certainly covers the classics.

[mattdaniels]

I have very few cookery books.

I have a laptop and http://www.bbc.co.uk/food on my favourites.

[Pferdestarke]

Simon Hopkinson's Roast chicken and other stories is good.

Also Phil Howard's The Square.

[Council Baby]

Larousse Gastronomique

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0600602354

[Melman Giraffe]

Council Baby said:

Larousse Gastronomique

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0600602354

I would have said that to, not for a beginner TBH

[Timberwolf]

I've got a fair few but if I had to keep just one cookbook it would be the Good Housekeeping New Step By Step Cookbook. It's not glamorous, not exciting, perhaps weighted a little too strongly toward good old-fashioned basics and emphatically not the book for people who like their cookbooks to dazzle visitors with the implied technical prowess of the owner... but everything in it works, tastes good, has clear, concise instructions, and doesn't have you trekking halfway round London for ethnic grocery shops to find ingredients that look, smell and taste suspiciously like overpriced spinach.

[mattdaniels]

Timberwolf said:

and doesn't have you trekking halfway round London for ethnic grocery shops to find ingredients that look, smell and taste suspiciously like overpriced spinach.

[21TonyK]

Thomas Keller, Bouchon or French Laundry, either would do

[madbadger]

Depends what I want to cook. Looking for something a bit different as an everyday dish either a Hugh or a Jamie normally or maybe the silver spoon.

For something more technical and 'foreign' something like Steins far eastern, complete Indian or Floyds India.

Edited by madbadger on Wednesday 17th April 18:36

[Davey S2]

The Silver Spoon - the Italian cooking bible.

[Hugo a Gogo]

I was given this years ago, and I've used it loads

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mary-Berrys-Complete-Cookb...

nothing too fancy, just 'normal' recipes


I've only recently found out she's the woman off the telly

[Tanguero]

"Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making" by James Peterson

That one book has done more to transform my cooking than all the others I own put together. And I have many, many books!

[copperman05]

'Moro' The cookbook, from the restaurant of the same name in Islington, London is my favourite, read my blog on cookery books. http://bitsonfood.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/an-addict...

[Tumbler]

Hugo a Gogo said:

I was given this years ago, and I've used it loads

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mary-Berrys-Complete-Cookb...

nothing too fancy, just 'normal' recipes


I've only recently found out she's the woman off the telly

Bought this for my 14 year old daughter, she is finding it very helpful, especially the know-how sections. I like that each section is also broken in to times, making it useful for planning her kitchen time.

It's a really good mix of traditional cooking with some more modern cuisine, hot chocolate souffles have become one of her firm favourites.

[Boo152]

Timberwolf said:

I've got a fair few but if I had to keep just one cookbook it would be the Good Housekeeping New Step By Step Cookbook. It's not glamorous, not exciting, perhaps weighted a little too strongly toward good old-fashioned basics and emphatically not the book for people who like their cookbooks to dazzle visitors with the implied technical prowess of the owner... but everything in it works, tastes good, has clear, concise instructions, and doesn't have you trekking halfway round London for ethnic grocery shops to find ingredients that look, smell and taste suspiciously like overpriced spinach.

These are exactly the reasons why I keep going back to the GHCB.
Many of the more sophisticated recipe books assume the reader already has good basic cooking knowledge, whereas the Good Housekeeping Books describe the basics in great detail which is very usefull for a novice like me!

Learning how to produce for example a perfect Victoria sponge or a full Sunday roast including yorkshire puddings is sometimes all that I need!

[Mobile Chicane]

I have literally dozens of cookbooks I mostly look at for fun and frolics. Plus there's t'interweb of course.

However those I'd consider authoritative reference sources are Jane Grigson's Fruit, Vegetable, and Fish Books, also Elizabeth David's French Provincial, and Hugh F-W's River Cottage and Meat Books.

[lauda]

Anything by Nigel Slater. Cookbooks written by a cook, not a chef.

Closely followed by the monthly magazine from Waitrose which always seems to deliver high quality recipes which are tasty and actually turn out looking something like the accompanying pictures.

[Griff Boy]

Delia smiths summer collection and winter collections -brilliant books.

Also pat chapmans curry bible! Pretty much every page is turmeric stained!