Simple, straightforward recipes for traditional British cooking with not a hint of fusion cooking in sight, thank goodness.
Each recipe has a short introduction putting it in context, clear list of ingredients and concise instructions. A big plus is that all the recipes use readily available ingredients,most of which one would have at home, and most do not have a lot of ingredients so are not expensive to make. What one gets is plenty of tasty recipes for comfort food: Cream of Mushroom Soup, Glamorgan Sausages(heavenly), Steak and Kidney Pudding(much better than pie), heartwarming Lancashire Hotpot, the best Potato Salad, Cauliflower Cheese, Bakewell Tart, Sticky Toffee Pudding and a Rice Puddding that remeinds me of my Grandma's. There is a short section on baking with such homely stalwarts as Drop Scones, Gingerbread, Hot Cross Buns and Victoria Sponge. The final section gives such simple recipes for Horseradish Sauce, Mint Sauce, Sage and Onion Stuffing that there is no excuse not to make your own.
Some of the recipes are interesting revivals of retro or older dishes such as Prawn Cocktail and Mulligatawny Soup, Pease Pudding, Potted Shrimp, Cabinet Pudding and Brown Bread Icecream. Cheese Pudding, a sort of savoury bread and butter pudding was new to me but lovely to eat. In fact what struck me in reading this collection of recipes is how economical they really are and how suitable in the present economic downturn.
In short Brian Turner provides some of the most delicious versions of British cooking I have ever tasted and if only the weather here were colder I'd have cooked the recipes from cover to cover. Highly recommended.