Product Description

This cookbook expands on the author's philosophy of using the freshest of home-produced ingredients, determined chiefly by season, and encourages the home cook to create wonderful, flavoursome dishes.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #586148 in Books
• Published on: 2000-10-18
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Richard Corrigan is a young chef who, having grown up in the Irish countryside, has made his reputation in London. His cooking, like the recipes he has published in The Richard Corrigan Cookbook, is strikingly imaginative and stylish, managing to encompass comforting simplicity and bold innovation. His philosophy, if that is the word, is indicated by his subtitle, "From the Waters and the Wild", a Yeatsian phrase emphasising the primacy that Corrigan places on fresh, seasonal produce (but which chef does not?). The book, which is full of intriguing dishes, is accordingly organised seasonally. The flavours are mostly British, with occasional touches of France, Italy, Spain, the Middle East, India, China ... The simpler ideas include winning items such as "Spring Vegetable Soup with Bacon Dumplings", "Young Turnips with Amontillado" or "Sorbet of Charentais Melons with Strawberry Sauce". Conceits requiring more skill and patience would include "Rack of Spring Lamb with Lamb Sweetbreads and Spiced Aubergines", "Sea Bass with Asparagus and Clam Vinaigrette", "Mallard with Pineapple and Pak Choi" or the brilliant "Saddle of Rabbit with Black Pudding, Roast Vegetable and Wild Mushroom Juice". Perhaps the most startling of Corrigan's innovations is the use of sweet tobacco-flavoured syrup (Old Holborn is specified) to accompany a fig tart. There is something very exciting indeed about this.

As with so many chef's cookbooks, one has to ask: is this really a practicable set of recipes for the home cook, or is it essentially an extended advertisement for the star's current establishment? The answer in this case appears to be that the majority of recipes are eminently feasible, even the difficult few having the virtue of not requiring an army of sous-chefs to carry out subsidiary tasks. It must also be said that it is ravishing to look at, adorned as it is by Francesca Yorke's beautiful photographs--mouth-watering pictures of food and Irish landscapes and slightly less mouth-watering shots of Corrigan at work in his restaurant kitchen. --Robin Davidson

About the Author
Richard Corrigan was born in Co. Meath, Ireland and now lives in north London. His Michelin-starred restaurant, Lindsay House, is in Romilly Street, Soho.

Customer Reviews

Fantastic and inspiring
This is a truly fabulous book filled with a multitude of beautiful recipes, which not only look good on paper, but also taste fantastic to.
Has a well organised layout which is easy to read, and follow, and is put very helpfully into seasons whcih far too many ppl seem to forget about these days.
In summary, this is GREAT book. It is modern and contemporary without forgetting things such as seasonality which is paramount to the end flavour of the dish, but also the suitibility for an event. It is clear and concisley layed out and is a great inspiration.

Flavours that last
This book gives you a good idea what you are in for if you are having a meal in lindsay house(Corrigans restaurant) Clear simple flavours with carefull cooking. This is type of book what`s not ment for people who judge dishes by their looks and pretend to know alot about food, because everything here is kept simple but the focus is on the best ingredients you can get and on best natural flavours you possible can achieve(well combined) in somebody`s review they had comment about the spring vegetable soup with bacon dumplings being dull and boring which makes me wonder A: did they ever cook this one? B: did they ever taste good vegetables from decent farm?(veg from your local supermarket is not what we are after here) C: did they ever eat any of those dishes in a book in restaurant of the author?(I have, and would like to think i`m starting to develope some sort of understanding what the book is about.) The book it self is very seasonal, giving you guidlines what`s good and when. The book is not about what you see it`s what you are about to eat!! having cooked several of the dishes i find it one of the most usable and correct cookery books around, so go and by it!

Nice to look at but a bit dull and uninspiring
This is a beautifully produced book, superbly illustrated, and with an interesting narrative about Richard Corrigan's career. Unfortunately, there are few recipes that excite or inspire. The recipes look easy on the whole, but that is perhaps because there seems to me a strong streak of Irish home-cooking in the book (vegetable soup with bacon dumplings, while no doubt delicious, does not exactly inspire). The tobacco syrup with the fig tart is, of course, intriguing, but in the context of this book appears rather gimmicky.

The layout of the book is also a bit gimmicky, not to say frustrating. Recipes are divided by season. Chefs like to say that they only cook what is in season, but here this gets a bit strained as not everything is particularly or uniquely seasonal. It's not really a reference book, and so you'd expect to be able to browse through, say, main course dishes, but they're split into four different sections in different parts of the book. Isn't it a bit patronising too, to be told that you only cook whatever in, say, the spring?

I was disappointed. The recipe content really merits at most one star, but I give it two stars for its beautiful presentation.

If you're after a modern take on Irish cooking, I'd suggest you should also consider seriously the Gourmet Ireland books by Paul Rankin: they don't have the production values of the Corrigan Cookbook, but there's much more of interest.