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Review
British Produce at its very best
--Living etc - 13th july 2010 -
Skye is that rare thing - a genuinely original and creative cook. Her feel for spicing and flavour combinations is spot on. --The Bookseller, 30 July 2010
Gyngell presents a hearty and tasty menu of dishes
--Image Interiors, September 2010
One of our most elegant chefs reveals her home-cooking secrets --You magazine (Mail on Sunday), October 3 2010
This collection of seasonal recipes is Gyngell's third book, and her best
--Culture, The Sunday Times, November 28, 2010
--Living etc - 13th july 2010 -
Skye is that rare thing - a genuinely original and creative cook. Her feel for spicing and flavour combinations is spot on. --The Bookseller, 30 July 2010
Gyngell presents a hearty and tasty menu of dishes
--Image Interiors, September 2010
One of our most elegant chefs reveals her home-cooking secrets --You magazine (Mail on Sunday), October 3 2010
This collection of seasonal recipes is Gyngell's third book, and her best
--Culture, The Sunday Times, November 28, 2010
Product Description
Skye Gyngell's skill in combining ingredients in a way that heightens their freshness and flavour is second to none. Her cooking at Petersham Nurseries has won many awards and her previous two books have been highly acclaimed. Now, Skye turns her attention to home cooking. In How I Cook she focuses on the food she cooks for friends and family, with an original collection of over 100 recipes based around meal occasions - breakfast, Sunday lunch, alfresco eating, afternoon tea, simple weekday dinner, late night supper and celebrations - such as Christmas and Easter. Skye's home cooking is influenced by the seasons but it is also the sense of occasion that inspires her creativity. The layers of flavour that typify Skye's dishes are evident throughout, but recipes are more straightforward and based on ingredients that are easy for the home cook to obtain. All techniques are carefully explained and illustrated, and Skye reveals the secrets of her success, based on her years of experience in the kitchen. In addition, Skye provides menu suggestions throughout the book to create beautifully balanced meals. The final chapter 'Time to spare' presents a lovely selection of original preserves and other food that can be prepared ahead to enjoy later.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Completely great, just like her other books, but for slightly different reasons. Gyngell is a restaurant chef and sometimes her dishes are slightly too complicated for (my) normal everyday cooking. Consequently I don't end up cooking from her other books as much as I'd like. This book aims to plug that gap, with sections on the ordinary day : breakfast, sunday lunch, outdoor food, afternoon tea, simple weekday dinners, late night suppers and special occasions.
Some readers get annoyed with recipe books that offer them yet another recipe for ratatouille / dauphinoise / scrambled egg / marmalade, saying "I already know how to make that, offer me something new". They think that means they have wasted their money. I am in the other camp, absolutely delighting when a great chef offers me their own take on a familiar recipe, so I can see how they interpret and make it their own.
If you are in the former group, this book might be best avoided, as it does definitely err on the side of simple dishes (though there are some DELICIOUS original things like Creme Caramel with Ximenez sherry, for example, that you still might not be able to live without). On the other hand, if you are like me you will delight in this book. Enjoy being reminded to cook shortbread, or how to make the best ever potato salad, corn on the cob, or bread and butter pudding. Gyngell is a great and creative chef and her tips alone are worth having, let alone the actual recipes.
If I have any criticisms at all its that I could have lived without the rather glib non-recipe bits which I suspect have been written to her publisher's orders to make it more supermarket friendly or something - "Cutlery and crockery need not be matching - sometimes they are more charming if they are not", etc.
Panzanella, steak and mashed potato, tomato salad, baked vacherin, citrus tart, cucumber sandwiches, meringues, roast chicken, christmas pud and bouillabaisse - tons of usable recipes. A book which will be splashed with food within weeks: high recommendation.
Some readers get annoyed with recipe books that offer them yet another recipe for ratatouille / dauphinoise / scrambled egg / marmalade, saying "I already know how to make that, offer me something new". They think that means they have wasted their money. I am in the other camp, absolutely delighting when a great chef offers me their own take on a familiar recipe, so I can see how they interpret and make it their own.
If you are in the former group, this book might be best avoided, as it does definitely err on the side of simple dishes (though there are some DELICIOUS original things like Creme Caramel with Ximenez sherry, for example, that you still might not be able to live without). On the other hand, if you are like me you will delight in this book. Enjoy being reminded to cook shortbread, or how to make the best ever potato salad, corn on the cob, or bread and butter pudding. Gyngell is a great and creative chef and her tips alone are worth having, let alone the actual recipes.
If I have any criticisms at all its that I could have lived without the rather glib non-recipe bits which I suspect have been written to her publisher's orders to make it more supermarket friendly or something - "Cutlery and crockery need not be matching - sometimes they are more charming if they are not", etc.
Panzanella, steak and mashed potato, tomato salad, baked vacherin, citrus tart, cucumber sandwiches, meringues, roast chicken, christmas pud and bouillabaisse - tons of usable recipes. A book which will be splashed with food within weeks: high recommendation.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
Skye Gyngell is the head chef at Petersham Nurseries restaurant. I confess, that until Amazon Vine offered me this book to review, I had never heard of her. Having tested some of her recipes in my amateur way however, I would be more than happy to try her food for real. There are some delicious ideas in the pages of this book.
The book is well presented with beautiful photography, clear text and most impressively, three book marks, so that if you are cooking several things at once you can keep tabs on them all as you go without having to turn the pages down. The recipes are broadly organised into meal categories, and a special occasions section at the end. Within each category Gyngell offers you meal ideas, with say, roast chicken with anchovy sauce alongside the vegetables and dessert she would serve with it. This gives the reader nice ideas, although it does make the book difficult to navigate if you are looking for a particular recipe. I tested the book extensively, and used the index at the back constantly.
The recipe instructions were for the most part fine, although there were a couple of moments mid recipe when I had to reread an instruction. In one cake recipe she uses the word cream as a verb, and it is not entirely clear. I had a moment's panic when I thought I had left a key ingredient out of the mixture, which was not terribly helpful.
The book is an odd mix of recipes. It claims to show how Gyngell cooks at home, which may explain why there are recipes for tomato salad (which I was amazed even needed a recipe) next to bouillabaise, and simple roasted fillet of beef next to how to prepare a lobster. It is not an ideal book for the amateur chef, nor for anyone curious to recreate Gyngell's restaurant fare. Having said that there are some lovely things in this book, and things I have not come across in other books. I am most keen to try the Italian Easter cake made with risotto rice and candied oranges for example.
Some of the ingredients will be out of the question for the average chef, like the drink which requires you to pick seventy or eighty peach leaves, and for which she rightly acknowledges you will need a peach tree. There are several ice cream recipes too, all of which look delicious, but which require you to have an ice cream maker. It is possible to make ice cream without one, I know, but the recipes do not address that, simply telling you to put the mixture in the ice cream maker.
I made the pound cake, the chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting, the green beans with roasted tomatoes and olives, potatoes dauphinoise, caramelised carrots cooked in honey and butter, sauteed leeks, rice pudding and the pulled bread. The results were tasty, although with my temperamental oven, the cooking times were much different from advertised.
An interesting book.
The book is well presented with beautiful photography, clear text and most impressively, three book marks, so that if you are cooking several things at once you can keep tabs on them all as you go without having to turn the pages down. The recipes are broadly organised into meal categories, and a special occasions section at the end. Within each category Gyngell offers you meal ideas, with say, roast chicken with anchovy sauce alongside the vegetables and dessert she would serve with it. This gives the reader nice ideas, although it does make the book difficult to navigate if you are looking for a particular recipe. I tested the book extensively, and used the index at the back constantly.
The recipe instructions were for the most part fine, although there were a couple of moments mid recipe when I had to reread an instruction. In one cake recipe she uses the word cream as a verb, and it is not entirely clear. I had a moment's panic when I thought I had left a key ingredient out of the mixture, which was not terribly helpful.
The book is an odd mix of recipes. It claims to show how Gyngell cooks at home, which may explain why there are recipes for tomato salad (which I was amazed even needed a recipe) next to bouillabaise, and simple roasted fillet of beef next to how to prepare a lobster. It is not an ideal book for the amateur chef, nor for anyone curious to recreate Gyngell's restaurant fare. Having said that there are some lovely things in this book, and things I have not come across in other books. I am most keen to try the Italian Easter cake made with risotto rice and candied oranges for example.
Some of the ingredients will be out of the question for the average chef, like the drink which requires you to pick seventy or eighty peach leaves, and for which she rightly acknowledges you will need a peach tree. There are several ice cream recipes too, all of which look delicious, but which require you to have an ice cream maker. It is possible to make ice cream without one, I know, but the recipes do not address that, simply telling you to put the mixture in the ice cream maker.
I made the pound cake, the chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting, the green beans with roasted tomatoes and olives, potatoes dauphinoise, caramelised carrots cooked in honey and butter, sauteed leeks, rice pudding and the pulled bread. The results were tasty, although with my temperamental oven, the cooking times were much different from advertised.
An interesting book.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
I'll start by admitting I have never come across Skye Gyngell before, but now that i have read and tested out some of her recipes and ideas in 'How I Cook', I will most definetly be looking out for more of her work.
'How I Cook' is a beautifully illustrated (though not every recipe is pictured), intelligently written, and highly inspirational cook book, which goes beyond the ubiquitous formula of listing starters, mains and puds. Instead, Skye offers her own personal ideas for menus, for every occasion. Not didactic in any way - if any of the menu she describes might not suit your tastes, there are suggestions for alternatives.
Recipes range from the simple Parsnip Puree to the more complex Belly Pork. Clever hints and tips abound within recipes for delights such as Shortbread (I love the illustration showing how to cut up the mixture), and Cucumber sandwiches (de-skinning, de-seeding and salting the cucumber).
There is something in here for all occasions, all tastes and all abilities. Despite lacking a few photographs for some dishes, I had to give this delightful and delicious book 5*. Highly recommended.
'How I Cook' is a beautifully illustrated (though not every recipe is pictured), intelligently written, and highly inspirational cook book, which goes beyond the ubiquitous formula of listing starters, mains and puds. Instead, Skye offers her own personal ideas for menus, for every occasion. Not didactic in any way - if any of the menu she describes might not suit your tastes, there are suggestions for alternatives.
Recipes range from the simple Parsnip Puree to the more complex Belly Pork. Clever hints and tips abound within recipes for delights such as Shortbread (I love the illustration showing how to cut up the mixture), and Cucumber sandwiches (de-skinning, de-seeding and salting the cucumber).
There is something in here for all occasions, all tastes and all abilities. Despite lacking a few photographs for some dishes, I had to give this delightful and delicious book 5*. Highly recommended.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Not for me
I'm a big fan of cook books though I'm not the greatest cook. I'm more of a Jamie Oliver level than a Gordon Ramsey level though I will cook Gordon Ramsey stuff for special... Read more
Published 4 days ago by Binka
Loved it !
I really enjoyed this cookery book, you get around 120 recipes but the difference is they are not just evening meals ! Read more
Published 12 days ago by Michael Scott
Might be how she cooks but its not how I cook.
Some cookery writers your get some you don't. I have long ago given up thinking it is anyone's fault. Skye and I don't click. Read more
Published 2 months ago by doublegone
Nice, but rather uninspiring
This is a very "nice" book to look at - polished, aspirational, lots of well spaced text and lovely pictures and rather too much non food padding for my taste. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Constant Reader
Uninspring and full of unusual ingredients.
I gave this to my wife but she found it an uninspiring cook book. The recipes were either well covered else where or involved ingredients that were hard to source in the UK. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Sam Moore
Delicious family food
Skye Gyngell has, in her words, attempted to produce a cookery book to reflect how she cooks at home for her family. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Phil Robertshaw
Let's Get Cooking
A new take on well-known dishes, arranged around meal times. There's nothing revolutionary here but it is a handy reference for creating popular meals with relative ease. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Dudley Serious
A really excellent and inspiring read
A really fabulous book, full of ideas and inspiration. I prefer this book to any of Skye Gyngell's others, simply because it seems like the most user-friendly offering and gives me... Read more
Published 11 months ago by Gabrielle O
Great fun!
I'm not really an aspiring chef, and I found this book very useful and highly inspirational to put my apron on and try it all. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Klingsor
Home cooking polished up
I was attracted to this book as I cook daily, but I'm always looking for some new, interesting takes on old favourites. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Dinah93
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