Product Description

In an age when everyone can literally shop around the world for ingredients at supermarkets, where they can buy instant meals or their salads and vegetables ready prepared, when every other shop in the high street is a take-away or fast food outlet. "Delia's How to Cook" returns to the roots of cooking to rediscover the joys and simple pleasures of food. In this, the first of two volumes, Delia starts at the very beginning, explaining in detail the staple ingredients of all cooking - eggs, flour, potatoes, rice and pasta. Here, she guides beginners through many of the basic techniques that will serve them for a lifetime of cooking, right from boiling and poaching an egg, through bread and pastry making, to sauces and cooking all kinds of rice perfectly every time. For those who have mastered the techniques - and for those who are already accomplished cooks - the book provides a collection of recipes, incorporating new ideas such as fat-free white sauces, chips you don't have to fry and souffl s that don't collapse.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2984 in Books
• Published on: 1998-10-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 240 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Delia's How to Cook Book One is aimed at beginners: people whose staple diet comprises heat-and- serve or take-away meals. Television cook and bestselling author Delia Smith's aim is to equip her readers with the basic techniques of cooking which, after some practice, will help them discover the pleasures of home-made food. With the aid of very detailed instructions that accompany her recipes, readers are taught how to work with the staples: eggs, flour, rice, bread and pasta. But the book goes beyond boiled eggs and baked potatoes. There are recipes and photographs which will inspire: moussaka with roasted aubergines and ricotta, wild mushroom tartlets with poached quails' egg and apricot galettes with amaretto. Many of the recipes have several extra photographs which show the dish at various stages of preparation--these are useful if the recipe includes a gravy which needs to be "thickened" or if potatoes need to be cut into "chunks". Healthy options, like fat-free white sauces and chips you don't have to fry, are also included.

Review
In a simple-to-follow cookery course for all ages and abilities, Delia returns to the very roots of cooking to look at the techniques and staple ingredients that form the basis of preparing good food. (Kirkus UK)

Synopsis
In an age when everyone can literally shop around the world for ingredients at supermarkets, where they can buy instant meals or their salads and vegetables ready prepared, when every other shop in the high street is a take-away or fast food outlet. "Delia's How to Cook" returns to the roots of cooking to rediscover the joys and simple pleasures of food. In this, the first of two volumes, Delia starts at the very beginning, explaining in detail the staple ingredients of all cooking - eggs, flour, potatoes, rice and pasta. Here, she guides beginners through many of the basic techniques that will serve them for a lifetime of cooking, right from boiling and poaching an egg, through bread and pastry making, to sauces and cooking all kinds of rice perfectly every time. For those who have mastered the techniques - and for those who are already accomplished cooks - the book provides a collection of recipes, incorporating new ideas such as fat-free white sauces, chips you don't have to fry and souffl s that don't collapse.

Customer Reviews

Delia really is the best
I already had several of Delia's books, and I didn't really think I needed another. I received this book as a gift at christmas, and like many of the other reviewers have already said, it really is fantastic.
Her recipes are as always easy and simple to follow, written in such a way that inspires, even the most novice of cooks.

Sod Nigella!
This book is fantastic- does exactly what it says on the tin and more. Delia does more than teaches you how to cook- she understands WHY you can't cook, and steers you away from a pitfall before you walk into it. We've all tried to follow a recipe and it's screwed up, but delia explains the techniques properly to begin with. I've never made one thing out of this book that has gone wrong.

The difference between this and all the other cookery books i've read is that Delia doesn't say "beat the egg whites"- she tells you HOW to beat the egg whites correctly and warns you against scenarios where you make a mess of it, so that you can continue with the recipe. I couldn't cook anything before I read this book, and i couldn't understand why, but delia's simple hints made me realise potentially disasterous things i was doing wrong, that were resulting in my cooking being dodgy at best!

Her recipes are simple and down to earth and with as much scope for making a quick snack as for making a 3 course meal. Her ingredients are not obscure, and unlike Nigella, does not expect you to have a huge american fridge with an ice crusher to hand, letalone a walk in larder full of delicacies you discovered on your year out in italy whilst at Oxford. Delia'd recipes are for real people and focus on mastering basic ingredients like eggs, flour and potatoes, and the recipes are made with things youre likely to have knocking about the house.

Incidentally, I just made her 3 cheese souffle omlette- it i did it at midnight and it took me 10 mins at the most- that's how convenient a lot of her recipes are. Like others, i credit delia with teaching me how to cook. This book is wicked- buy it! that's all!

From Start To Finish
I read this book along with the two other parts and although I already know how to cook this book taught me some things that I didn't previously know. It doesn't just cover recipes, but it goes into detail about different types of ingredients and freshnesses and when to use certain ingredients. One of my favourite parts is how to check the freshness of an egg in water and what they are best used for at each stage.