Some years ago, Niki Segnet wrote a book called The Flavour Thesaurus – as it sounds, a compendium of food flavour pairings which has become a standby of both chefs and home cooks. Now she has produced an equally tantalising companion volume, designed to help creative cooks develop their own recipes. Don’t’ be scared off by this. The framework is a set of basic recipes which, when you’re familiar with them, become infinitely adaptable according to what’s in your fridge or what’s in season, or what you feel like making. Usually it just involves a tweak or two in the method or the ingredients. To give an example, if you can get your head around flatbreads then the book will take you along the continuum – crackers, soda bread, scones and their variations and how to improvise on the basic recipes. Niki’s writing is entertaining and inspirational, delightfully opinionated, and always draws on her deep knowledge of culinary science and history. Even Yotam Ottolenghi is raving about this book, and he has said “as a cookery writer, I am pretty jealous of this achievement”.
Share on Twitter Share on Facebook