Good Cooking with Good Housekeeping (Good Housekeeping Cookery Book - Good Housekeeping Institute)

Member Name: xalala

Product:	Good Housekeeping Cookery Book - Good Housekeeping Institute
Date:	05/04/04 (324 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Comprehensive cookbook, suitable for a wide range of tastes and expertise

Disadvantages: Not much depth in some areas because it covers so much

The Good Housekeeping (GH) Institute was established in 1924 by Good Housekeeping magazine to provide women with expert consumer advice. Still going strong today, it test household products and equipment and creates and tests recipes for both GH magazine and its range of cookbooks, of which this is one.

With 448 pages, containing over 750 recipes, you’d be forgiven for thinking that this cookbook would be full of text, with nary a picture to be seen. Fret ye not, for it’s actually jammed with full colour pictures, illustrating every (or nearly every) recipe. Not only that, but there’s a picture index at the start. This can be very useful if you’re just browsing for inspiration on what to cook.

Each recipe includes the time needed for both preparation and cooking, the freezing instructions (including the stage if it can be frozen part way through) and the number of calories per serving.

The book is separated into chapters that, as in most cookbooks, revolve around the course or main ingredient. Helpfully, at the start of each chapter there is a section on general advice, cooking tips, how to choose your ingredients, and so on. The advice ranges from the useful to the surprising. I don’t know when I’ll ever need to know how to hang game until ready to eat, but at least I’ll know where I can find out should the difficulty arise.

The chapters, then, include an introduction that covers cookery notes, weights and measures, cooking utensils and equipment, followed by stocks and sauces, soups, starters, shellfish, fish, meat, poultry and game, eggs and cheese, vegetables, salads, vegetarian dishes, pasta, rice, grains and noodles, pies, flans and pizza, desserts, cakes and biscuits, breads and yeast baking, preserves and finally food storage. There’s a glossary at the back that can be usef
ul for looking up an unfamiliar term or ingredient, and an alphabetical index.

The picture index, while useful for getting inspiration as mentioned earlier, is pretty useless when it comes to finding a specific recipe. Fortunately the alphabetical index is much more helpful. It includes both recipe names and ingredients, as well as the reference information. This is differentiated by being shown in italics, which again is quite helpful as it makes it easier to either pick it out or ignore it (depending on what you’re looking for). I have always been able to find what I was looking for in this index, unlike those in some of my other cookbooks (Delia’s Vegetarian Collection springs to mind as being remarkably useless in the index stakes).

Recipes in the book range from 70s classics such as prawn cocktail to more traditional favourites like Beef Wellington or steak and kidney pie. There’s a relatively good mix of foreign cuisine, from Mediterranean to Indian or Japanese. Italian food seems to get the most coverage after “traditional” British fair, with a whole chapter devoted to pasta. Pizza also features, and many of the vegetarian dishes seem to have an Italian influence.

While the recipes are wide ranging, both in taste and in skill level required to make them successfully, there isn’t that much depth in some areas. Preserving – a new hobby of mine – barely gets a mention, surprising considering the originators of the book. Having said that, the desserts section more than makes up for it, being full of traditional favourites like crumbles and steamed puddings as well as fruit based options and the like. :o)

The recipes I have tried from this book, and there have been quite a few, have all worked well. It’s the book I turn to when I can’t remember the recipe
for crumble topping, despite it being the umpteenth time I’ve made it this year, or to remind myself of the right quantity of milk for making pancakes each Shrove Tuesday, or when we fancy a nice old-fashioned rice pudding like our mums used to make. Hrm, I’m seeing a dessert theme developing here! Nevertheless, the savoury dishes are good too.

It’s a book my other half has used with some success, despite being very inexperienced in the kitchen (well, he’s very good at washing up…). His shortbread was excellent, by the way.

It’s not a book I would turn to for dinner party entertaining – for that, I might use Jamie Oliver, or Delia, or check my scrapbook of favourite recipes. But it is a book for everyday cooking, something which in my reckoning is much more useful than a fancy cookbook by a designer TV chef that only deals with fancy food.

In my opinion, this cookbook is suitable for a fairly wide range of people. For the inexperienced or beginner cook, there is a wide range of simple recipes, including how to cook pasta or jacket potatoes. Basic cookery techniques are discussed and explained at the beginning of each chapter, meaning that with a little practice and confidence, the cook can make quick and easy progress to more demanding recipes. However, since the techniques don’t intrude on the recipes as they do in a Delia Smith cookbook for example, the book is also suitable for the more experienced chef or chefette.

There’s nothing especially earth shattering or innovative in the recipes here, but what there is, is good – hearty, traditional food, with a few more exotic dishes thrown in. The recipes are clear and well laid out, with pictures illustrating more complicated steps on most pages. If that’s the kind of thing you like, then this cookbook would sui
t you down to the ground.

Further info:

448 pages
Over 750 recipes
Lots of colour photos
Cover price £19.99, currently available on Amazon for £13.99
ISBN: 0091864941

Summary: