The Conran Cookbook - Terence Conran

I always tend to buy Terence Conran books, whether he's writing about design or food. It's aesthetic stuff and really makes you want to get in the kitchen and get creative. A lot of the recipes are just traditional french recipes - he seems to go for simple effective food rather than fussy time consuming dishes, which is what I like. He embraces all those wonderful continental values associated with cooking too, encouraging family and friends to get together in the kitchen and talk instead of losing out on valuable time. Also informative. Tells you origins of food, how to prepare food properly and loads of stuff you feel you should know but ...  Read the complete review

Okay, as a guy who loves his food, I went through a real spate of buying in every cookbook I could find, I'm now the proud owner of around 70 cookbooks from the famous to the ordinary. The Conran Cookbook has to be one of the best I have found for reference purposes. It has some great recipes, some very traditional - roast chicken, lasagne, sherry trifle (yum!), to the slightly extravagent - Pheasant with Chestnuts, Galantine of Duck, Red Mullet en Papillot and Cherry Clafoutis. It covers roast potatoes, glazed carrots, custard, bread, ice creams and sorbets, fish, shellfish, game, soups, meat, tarts, chutneys and preserves, dips, rice and pulses ...  Read the complete review