Sarah Raven's Garden Cookbook [Hardcover]

I bought this book because my husband gardens enthusiastically by Sarah Raven's The Great Vegetable Plot, a present from his daughter.

I have a lot of cookery books on my shelves. But having just browsed through Sarah Raven's Garden Cookbook, I can tell you at once that I will be using this book often. Some of her recipes I have already used; she is generous throughout with other people's ideas (and acknowledges them). It is tremendously useful to have, gathered together in one volume, so many things to do with the sometimes over-abundant produce of the potager. And indeed to showcase those first delicate broad beans, asparagus spears, peas and new potatoes.

The emphasis here is on vegetables and fruit, but the book is not vegetarian. Where a few slivers of raw ham will make things more delicious, there they are. And delicious the recipes look. Ms Raven's days working at the River Café shine through her use of fresh garden produce.

But if you have no garden, the book will still give you plenty of ideas. And I mean plenty. This is not one of those cookbooks with only one recipe to a spread. There are lots, and lots. And the introduction to each fruit or vegetable contains still more ideas, often simple and quick, always mouth-watering.

The book is well produced with thick pages and two ribbon markers (already in use chez moi - and the book only arrived here where I live in rural France with the postman around midday today).

The index looks excellent (really important if you are searching for a way of using a glut of a particular herb, or lesser ingredient). I would have enjoyed a bibliography, but the generous acknowledgement of sources throughout the text adequately replaces one.

I have resisted writing a review until now, as by and large I think this is a wonderful book and I am in agreement with many of the positive reviews. However, I have experienced my fourth "disaster" using recipes from this book today and I really had to say something. I am a fairly experienced cook but this book really does not explain things as well as it should / could. I made the "Mushrooms with polenta" which says that you need to allow the polenta to "cool completely" before cutting it into wedges to fry. However, given the quantities of water required in the recipe in proportion to the polenta (1.5L water to 140g polenta), there is NO WAY you are ever going to "cool completely" enough to be able to cut it into wedges from just cooking it a "few minutes" as Ms Raven suggests, unless you subsequently put it in the deep freeze overnight. This I knew from experience, but I gave Ms. Raven the benefit of the doubt. The result: completely liquidy polenta and hours wasted boiling down and a ruined saucepan. I have had other similar episodes: The "Meringue roulade with raspberries", delicious though it was, was not deemed a success due to the recipe's direction: "Place the tin fairly near the top of the preheated oven" - now, my oven is not a very expensive one - it has, as its heat source at the top, an electric grill even in an oven setting. This means that if you put things too close it will inevitably brown quicker than normal ovens. Which is exactly what happened to my meringue, browning the top and the almonds but not cooking the inside, leading to a mushy meringue. I would have appreciated an explanatory note for different kinds of ovens. The "Mint and apple compote" was another one. As the recipe does not specify what kind of apple, I presumed unwisely that it must be cooking apples. How wrong I was. Cooking apples do not disintegrate adequately for you to be able to push it successfully through any "coarse sieve". As a result my husband spent the better part of half an hour pushing the stuff through the sieve, which probably would have been done quicker in a mouli which is another implement Ms. Raven suggests apart from a coarse sieve but unfortunately we don't possess. Yes I know, I should have read the recipe properly where I would have learned that you need to push it through a sieve i.e. cannot use cooking apples, but we don't always have time for that. Sometimes all you have time for is a quick 5 minutes scanning through cookery books and writing a shopping list from the recipes. The same with the "Courgette souffle tart", which sounds delicious but was a watery mess, completely inedible, because nowhere in the recipe does Ms Raven explain that one needs to salt and squeeze the water out of the courgettes beforehand. Normally I never salt courgettes / aubergines etc and they turn out fine but admittedly I had never cooked courgettes in a tart before. Again, this is explained at the beginning of the courgette chapter, but I had not read this - and I would have thought it essential advice to give in the recipe itself, as one doesn't always have time to leisurely read recipe books from cover to cover. Having said all of this, I have made lots of other delicious and wonderful meals from this book, and it is packed with information on sowing, harvesting and cooking methods. You will not regret buying it but read each recipe carefully and if you are not sure about something, ask an expert.

I nearly didn't buy this book - but I'm very glad I did. All the recipes I have used have worked well,and some have become real household staples. Many of them, however, seem to be for huge quantities, and I frequently find myself dividing by two or four to get a mangeable dish. The book is organised on seasonal lines, but everything seems to come into season before the book says it should - global warming perhaps? I did find myself wondering if the author really grows all these vegetables - you'd need a garden the size of Gloucestershire. I also found the persistent name dropping irritating - is there anyone this woman doesn't know? These carpings should not, however, detract from a book which has proved to be an excellent investment.