Do you have a favourite recipe book or website?

Morning Glory

Morning Glory

Obsessive cook
Staff member
Joined
19 Apr 2015
Local time
11:58 AM
Messages
48,218
Location
Maidstone, Kent, UK
Is there a cookery book you keep going back to? Or maybe a recipe website that you use a lot. I think I've 200 plus cookery books but I'm a dipper and diver and if I get interested in an ingredient I'll look it up in many recipe books to compare. I don't follow recipes often. Its the same with websites.

What about you? Do you have a cookery book or website you use a lot?
 
Definitely. There are a handful of cookbooks that we routinely fall back to. One dedicated to vegetarian soups (Soups for all seasons, Nava Atlas), had that since 1994/5 I think. Another called Veggiestan by Sally Butler (vegetarian food inspired by recipes from Persia and the 'stans) Mango Soup by Jenni Malsingh (vegetarian & vegan Indian) and This cheese is nuts by Julie Piatt.

After that the most used is my scrap cookbook known as the blue book (it's a blue hardback lined Banner Notebook).

As for website, the main one I use time and time again is Tasty & Easy Vegan Recipes - Full of Plants .

I've also found that the UK vegan magazine I subscribe to has loads of interesting recipes in out, so they are actually being kept rather than the odd recipe torn out and recycled.
 
Although I don't use them much these days (because I've almost exhausted the recipes therein) Madhur Jaffrey's "Indian Cookery"and Mridula Baljekar's "Complete Indian Cookbook".

91024

​
Another favourite is "The Complete Hot and Spicy Cookbook" edited by Emma Callery.

91025

Websites? I use a multitude but when I find a dish that I like or have adapted to one I like, I write it up on my own website(s) and/or add it to my page on "Food.com".
 
Last edited:
kaneohegirlinaz said:
I generally look for specific recipes online, compare, and then cobble together my own version.
I will transfer the recipes to a website, Copy Me That, where I can refer back to.
Click to expand...

This is what I do, most of the time, too.

I guess my favorite book about cooking is Ruhlman's Twenty, by Michael Ruhlman. It focuses on twenty techniques that cooks should learn, and then adds recipes that use those techniques.

Screen Shot 2022-10-04 at 10.12.26 PM.jpg


CD
 
I think this is the one I've used the most - had it almost 20 years and have cooked well over 40 different recipes from it, many multiple times (most of my cookbooks I think I usually try out a max of 5 before I lose interest and buy new ones - I really should stop that...)

Very accessible, sticks mostly to the classic ways of doing things without getting too fancy, good photos and easy to follow.

51Y41J1xVnL._AC_SY580_.jpg


Close second would be this one, for its treatment of how British Indian Restaurants batch cook and prep. I think I've cooked at least 25 of the recipes in here.

bible.jpg
 
91032

I may or may not be addicted to (cook)books.. This is about half of what I have :laugh:

Cookbooks I return to are definitely the Hairy Bikers books, the Hairy Dieters (The Hairy Dieters - Shop - Hairy Bikers) has awesome flavorful low calorie recipes I like to make. Also their great curries (The Hairy Bikers' Great Curries - Shop - Hairy Bikers) is wonderful, and of course they made a cookbook where my recipe was featured in and my name was mentioned which I posted about on here before. That book is called 'everyday winners' (The Hairy Bikers Everyday Winners - Shop - Hairy Bikers) and the recipe is goat's cheese & apple salad.


Another favorite of mine is Nigel Slater's A cook's book, (Nigel Slater - A Cook's Book) it's a wonderful read and the recipes are delicious. And Nigella Lawson's How to eat (HOW TO EAT | Books | Nigella Lawson) has the same kind of reliable recipes I'm always comforted by and which aren't too difficult to make.

As for websites, most food websites I follow are Dutch so not very relevant for here. But I do like The Pioneer Woman – Recipes, Country Life and Style, Entertainment for American recipes.
 
Whilst I have quite a collection of cookbooks, I don't use them as often as I should and I don't think I've got a particular favourite amongst them.

My favourite cookbook isn't actually mine...its my mum's :happy: As long as I can remember she's had an old Good Housekeeping cookbook....not sure of it's age, but she's had it at least 40 years (probably longer). Its a fat hardback with a green material binding (I suppose it probably had a dust cover at one point, but I've never seen it) and some of my favourite childhood recipes came from that book. My sister and I regularly argue about who's going to inherit it :giggle:
 
Viana La Place "Verdura" and "Pasta Fresca". Madhur Jaffrey´s "A Taste of India" and "Eastern Vegetarian Cooking". Julia Child "The Way to Cook". Armando Scannone " Mi Cocina" (the classic book on Venezuelan cuisine).
 
MrsDangermouse said:
As long as I can remember she's had an old Good Housekeeping cookbook....not sure of it's age, but she's had it at least 40 years (probably longer). Its a fat hardback with a green material binding (I suppose it probably had a dust cover at one point, but I've never seen it)
Click to expand...

There are lots of vintage Good Housekeeping books available for sale (usually very cheaply) - it might be worth a search to see if you can find a copy. I've bought two or three of them in good condition. Just do a Google 'shopping' search for -good housekeeping vintage cookbook. There are some really old ones which are quite pricey too.
 
I have several, however I doubt I will precisely quote the titles,as I am in a cafe, waiting for my daughter to finish her sports...one of my earliest ones was Indian cooking themed, very thin, I bought it while being a student in Germany...a vegetarian one with easy dishes,also bought back when in Germany...a very recent one of very modern recipes by a local chef...and my own handwritten notes in a notebook, probavly since I joined this forum and released my cooking passion to be cultivated and improved...
Oh yes, a cake recipe book, barely illustrated at all, my mom's, no idea what the title was...
Oh well, not much of a helper , am I...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom