Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8268 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-21
• Released on: 2007-09-21
• Format: Illustrated
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

Synopsis
Taken from his much-loved columns in "The Independent", "Week In Week Out" brings together 52 stories about ingredients with their associated recipes. Each week Simon focuses on a particular seasonal ingredient, such as scallops, or a particularly apposite dish, such as Wintery Citrus Puddings or a favourite foodie topic such as the best dishes eaten on a recent trip to Paris. The recipes all take their lead from the time of year, and use the very best in-season ingredients. Simon Hopkinson's enthusiasm for robust, flavoursome and homely cooking and quality ingredients is infectious; his writing is warm and witty and his ethos - 'cook for pleasure rather than slavishness towards fashion' permeates the book. It is a book written to be used and used regularly in a working kitchen.

Customer Reviews

week in week out,,simon hopkinson.
im sorry to say i was very disappointed with this book,with a title like week in week out i was expecting a recipe book filled with slightly more basic recipes but found things like smoked eel!boiled salted ox tongue,roasted quails,braised pheasant,duck pilaf,chilli crab salad,poached lamb tongue and the photos were very old fashioned very 80's.i dont often find a cook book that i find uninspiring but this really left me cold.i really didnt find one recipe that i thought sounded nice.

Simon Hopkinson - one-time chef appeals equally to professional and home cooks.
His new book, Week In Week Out is a collection of 52 `seasonal stories'. It kicks off in winter with such dishes as Devilled Whitebait and Grilled Veal Kidneys with Creamed Onions and Sage. Spring offers Tomatoes stuffed with Crab & Basil, Summer makes the most of Broad Beans with Cream & Mint while for autumn he suggests Scallops with Verjuice & Chives. These recipes echo Simon's philosophy of `cooking for pleasure, rather than slavishness towards fashion'.

This book is not just for the complicated. Check out what he says about something as simple and foolproof as boiling new potatoes. Apparently it's just not good enough to plop them into boiling water, skin intact, as I always do. Oh no, you should take the trouble to scrape them all over which results in potatoes "of another texture". And do you know - he's right.

Simon is dismissive of modern food fads. A lot of restaurants, he feels, serve food to please the chef's ego rather than the customer. His `classic' recipes will stand the test of time simply because they make good - even the best - eating. It's worth remembering that his Roast Chicken and Other Stories, published in 1994, was recently voted the most useful cookery book of all time by Waitrose Food Illustrated.

Good cooking, clear concise recipes and strong flavours will out. And what makes Simon one of the greats is his attention to detail, his loving and understanding approach and, above all, the fantastic food that every home cook can create simply by following his instructions.

Good but not great
Simon Hopkinson;s books are fun and well-written, and this book is no exception. Recommended: a good Christmas purchase.

I did however buy, at the same time, Martin Lampen's debut book SAUSAGE IN A BASKET, published at exactly the same time as Simon's. This is a hilarious skewering of the ways food is served up to us in Britain, with all the attendant marketing gimmicks which the hapless British public seem to fall for time and again. Undoubtedly one of the laugh-out-loud funniest books about food I've ever read, and I strongly recommend it. A nice counterpoint to Simon's book (one I suspect Simon himself would enjoy), if you're in the market for two books. And it proves the essential fact that it is not only celebrity chefs who have a valid opinion about food in this country.