The Kitchen Diaries: Over 300 new recipes from Britain's best-loved food writer [Hardcover]

'The recipes sound uniformly delicious, rustic and tasty...but they’re also straight forward: easy to follow, easy to cook.’

'Nigel is a bloody genius.' Jamie Oliver

'The greatest cookery writer of them all.' Guardian

'The pick of the bunch … bubbling with ideas, suggestions, hints and personal opinions that genuinely help you to make your own mind up about how and what to cook.' The Times

'He's a genius.' Matthew Fort, Guardian

‘Slater remains the reigning champion, a writer incapable of uninspiring sentences.' Daily Express

‘No one writes more temptingly about food.' Independent

'My kitchen god' Red

'joyous'

'Slater wants his food, above all, to be uplifting. As a cookbook, The Kitchen Diaries succeeds brilliantly.'

'it's a collection of scrumptious recipes, somehow written in such a way as to make your mouth genuinely water.'

'...such a simple, elegant idea...all food writers must regret not having thought of it first...'

Following the success of ‘Real Food’ and ‘Appetite’, this is the tenth book from Nigel Slater, the award-winning food writer and author of the bestselling autobiography, ‘Toast’.

‘The food in “The Kitchen Diaries” is simply what I eat at home. The stuff I make for myself, for friends and family, for visitors and for parties, for Sunday lunch and for snacks. These are meals I make when I stop work, or when I am having mates over or when I want to surprise, seduce or show off. This is what I cook when I’m feeling energetic, lazy, hungry or late. It is what I eat when I’m not phoning out for pizza or going for a curry. This is the food that makes up my life, both the Monday to Friday stuff and that for weekends and special occasions.’

‘Much of it is what you might call fast food, because I still believe that life is too short to spend all day at the stove, but some of it is unapologetically long, slow cooking. But without exception every single recipe in this book is a doddle to cook. A walk in the park. A piece of p***.’

‘Fast food, slow food, big eats, little eats, quick pasta suppers, family roasts and even Christmas lunch. It is simply my stuff, what I cook and eat, every day. Nigel’s food – for you.’

Nigel Slater is the author of a collection of bestselling books and presenter of BBC 1's Simple Cooking. He has been food columnist for The Observer for twenty years. His books include the classics Appetite and The Kitchen Diaries and the critically acclaimed two-volume Tender. His award winning memoir Toast – the Story of a Boy's Hunger won six major awards and is now a BBC film starring Helena Bonham Carter and Freddie Highmore. His writing has won the National Book Awards, the Glenfiddich Trophy, the André Simon Memorial Prize and the British Biography of the Year. He was the winner of a Guild of Food Writers' Award for his BBC 1 series Simple Suppers.

www.nigelslater.com

I am mindful of the fish we should not use; those species that have been over-fished to the point where conservationists fear for their existence. That said, I do buy the odd piece of cod, haddock or monkfish, when it becomes a treat more precious to me than truffles. I dare say you could use any other white fish here. Haddock fits perfectly – its flavour is not so delicate as to be pushed into submission by the bacon, and it is currently a good price. It would be well worth trying it with hake, too. If you can’t find a lightly smoked bacon, then use green (unsmoked) bacon instead. Oh, and it needs a salad, by the way, something sweet and crisp like fennel, watercress and pear.

Roast haddock with bacon and parsley

olive oil or butter
haddock fillet – 400g
smoked back bacon – 190g
parsley – a small bunch (about 10g)

Get the oven hot. It should be on about 220°C/Gas 7.
Pour a couple of tablespoons of olive oil (or a thick slice of butter) into a shallow ovenproof pan that doesn’t stick.
Put it over a high heat, then when it starts to shimmer, season the fish on both sides with salt and black pepper and add it to the pan, skin-side uppermost. Fry for a minute or so, until the flesh underneath has turned a light, gold colour.

Turn the fish over and put the pan in the oven. Remove the rind from the bacon and cut each rasher into short, finger-thick strips. Warm three tablespoons of olive oil in a shallow pan, add the bacon and leave to sizzle for about five minutes, until golden and lightly crisp. Chop the parsley leaves.

Test the haddock. It is done when a single flake of fish will come away from the skin with one light tug. This should take about seven to ten minutes in the oven, depending on thickness. Transfer the fish to warm plates. Chuck the parsley into the bacon, stir, then tip parsley, bacon and oil over the plated fish.

Enough for 2