Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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143 of 144 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Just as much fun......, 16 Aug 2004
...cooking for one!
(This text refers to the hardcover + D/J-1985 version)
'In 'One is Fun!', Delia has brought her thorough, detailed and commonsense approach to the problems of shopping for, storing and preparing food for one. No longer will single cooks have to wrestle with dividing ordinary recipes for four (how do you cope with a quarter of an egg anyway?).
Here is a treasury of specially devised, ready-made recipes for one.............This imaginative collection will positively encourage you to get cooking.
It goes without saying that it is also a book for all Delia's other followers. It is simplicity itself to adapt these recipes for up to four people, making them a valuable addition to all those that have become family favourites throughout the country.'
224 high quality, shiny pages, split over 10 chapters:-
Solo Soups
Simply Eggs
Fun Fish
One Man's Meat...
Prime Pasta and Rice
The Lone Vegetarian
Singular Salads and Sauces
Vegetable Variations
Super Snacks
Happy Endings
sandwiched between conversion tables, an intro, equipment, ingredients, notes on healthy eating and an index.
Unfussy format, easy to read text, with a handful of full page, colour plates along with some black and white ones.
Each chapter opens with some relevant text written in the typical unpretentious `Delia' fashion, passing on, at times, the tips of other famous food writers, e.g. :-
`Fresh Root Ginger :
This I have used extensively in this book, as it has such a wonderfully pungent and fragrant aroma. Buy it in small quantities: it keeps well in a cool place, wrapped in cling-film, for about a week.
If you want to store it for longer, Elizabeth David in her book `Salts, Spices and Aromatics' recommends peeling it then storing it covered with sherry in a small screw top jar. I have used this method and it works like a dream for several months. I keep mine in the fridge and just grate off as and when I need it.'
The recipes are clearly laid out with an opening note, a list of ingredients and the method, along with any serving notes and additional relevant information.
A taste of the recipes within, all fully tested:-
Ten Minute Stock
Scrambled Eggs with Bacon and Mushrooms
Eggs baked in Smoked Haddock
Chilled Salmon with Tarragon Sauce
Foil-Baked Fish with Lemon Sauce
Gratinée of Prawns with Avocado
Braised Steak au Poivre
Piquant Liver with Sherry Sauce
Kofta Kebab
Stuffed Pork Chop with Fennel
Chicken Chasseur
Gammon Steak with Honey and Mustard Sauce
Poulet Basque
Spaghetti in the Mediterranean Style
Vegetarian Moussaka
Risotto Vongole
Mushroom Curry
Vinaigrette
Cheese and Onion Rosti
Crumpet Pizzas
Poached Pear with Caramel Sauce
Individual Bread & Butter Pudding
Chocolate Mocha Mousse
Muesli Biscuits
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118 of 132 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Terrific, it taught me to cook, 27 Jan 2000
By A Customer
I bought this book fifteen years ago when I first started living on my own. I'd been through the whole student experience of living out of packets and wanted to start cooking some decent meals. After using this marvellous book for while, I suddenly realised that it had stealthily taught me to cook. There are recipes that show you how to make a white sauce, choux pastry, a soufflé, soups, chocolate mousse and lots more. The recipe for chicken in preserved ginger sauce is my favourite dish and I serve it to everyone when they come to dinner for the first time. I love this book so much that over the years I've given countless copies to friends as presents (in fact I think I paid for that conservatory that Delia cooks in on TV). My own copy is well-worn and splashed from much use. Even today after all these years, most of my weekly menus come from 'One is Fun!' Viva Delia!
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The only recipe book you need - no matter how large the family, 2 Nov 2008
Seventeen years ago, when a posting to the North-East meant that I had the opportunity (and the necessity) to cook for myself every evening, this book pretty much taught me how to cook. The redoubtable Ms Smith has produced books teaching cooking from the very basics, but I found the eight pages of introduction at the beginning of this one, plus the recipes themselves, to be all I needed to produce excellent meals from day one. (Perhaps my mother deserves some of the credit too, for dragging me into the kitchen to stir the gravy or custard so many times in the past!)
Moreover, while one of the reasons that Delia wrote it was that she recognised that it was difficult to scale-down recipes for four or more people, it is very easy to scale up recipes written for one, and my wife still cooks many of my favourites for the family. Just one word of warning, though: you may have to allow more cooking time: the first time I did "Lamb chops baked with aubergines" for a dinner party the joke was that the lamb was still bleating, it was so rare.
Tonight, because my wife is unwell, I have reached for it and have chosen steak with mustard and juniper sauce, and am looking forward to getting started.
One bit of basic cooking instruction that this book does contain is how to do "basic rice". Delia is a fan of the absorption method, and if you follow her directions you will produce excellent rice without clouds of steam or the need to sieve it before serving.
In my experience it takes about one hour from start of preparation to sitting down to eat one of the dishes, which is certainly not as fast as some "cooking for one" recipe books, but this is not about particularly quick or easy to prepare meals - they are mostly of moderate complexity. Nor are they particularly economic recipes, and if you use this book you will end up with a vast collection of herbs, spices and other bits and pieces - like juniper berries and mustard powder, for example!
I think that this book is hard to fault, but there is just one thing - and it would be useful, albeit it would take up a little additional space - in all recipe books. It would be very helpful if the author could provide a timeline, working back from H Hour (sit down and eat) for each of the preparation stages, along the lines of:
T - 30 Crush juniper berries, peppercorns, slice steak, onions
T - 20 Heat oil in pan
T - 19 Start rice
T - 17 Fry onion
T - 12 Add mushrooms
T - 7 Add steak, turn up heat, add peppercorns & berries
T - 6 Mix mustard, lemon, wine
T - 2 Add sauce and cook for one minute
T - 1 Stir in mushrooms & onions, stir in cream
T = 0 Serve
The publishers could even leave a box beside each action to pencil in the time. If there isn't room in the book this is the sort of material that could easily be added via a website, with the added benefit that it would be possible to combine timelines for different recipes, which would be invaluable for ambitious dinner parties. If you know of any recipe books that do this already, do let me know!
My copy has long lost its covers and the pages are stained with many an ingredient - turmeric seems to predominate judging by the colour. I shall have to order a replacement copy.
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