Real Cooking – Nigel Slater

My copy of this book has seen a lot of action in my kitchen; many of the pages are now smeared with oily thumb marks. I love this man’s approach to cooking, that the difference between mere fuel and something that is a joy to devour is an understanding of the little things that make something especially good; the golden savoury goo that builds up under a pork chop you have left to cook slowly in the pan; the intense flavour of the bits of lamb that have caught on the bars of the grill. There’s nothing complicated about his cooking. Nothing that is not within the grasp of a novice cook. He works from the premise that if someone can make a cup of coffee then they can probably roast themselves a chicken. You can’t go wrong with Nigel Slater, pick any of his books, I chose this one because of one sentence that stopped me in my tracks the first time I read it –

‘We are not chefs chasing Michelin stars here – we are simply making ourselves something to eat’.

Brilliant.