Cooking: Simply and Well, for One or Many

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It's time for another review from our series of Home Cooking Cookbooks. Jeremy Lee Cooking cookbook is the first book from one of the UK's most treasured chefs. Lightly oil and season the skin side of the sardines, then lay them in the onion pan, skin side down, and cook undisturbed for 3-4 minutes, until the flesh turns pale. Flip and cook for no more than 1 minute on the other side. Peel and core the apple, halve it, slice the halves thinly and toss in lemon juice. Lay these concentrically and fairly evenly over the pastry. Brush the apple with melted butter. Evenly sugar the apple slices. (These keep remarkably well in the fridge if necessary.) Insert a small knife into the cake for doneness; there should be no resistance. Remove the cake from the oven, press down lightly with a frying pan one last time, then let sit for 5 minutes.

You will be so immersed in reading Good Things in England that it will be bedtime before you even think to put the kettle on. Recipes were gleaned from all over Britain and made practical. I like the salmagundi, an amazing salad incorporating fruit, vegetables, meat and fish, and was a favourite in the Renaissance court. Her soups made with spinach and celery are great, too. We follow with little chocolate turnovers and a creme caramel – a soothing, cooling custardy respite from all the cakes and pies. Look out for more yuletide recipes over the weekend. 1 Mincemeat meringue tart (main photo)

Jeremy Lee Cooking: Simply and Well, for One or Many

The recipes in Cooking are arranged by favorite ingredients and occasions and include an introduction emphasizing the importance of the quality and provenance of ingredients. From plum compote with ricotta and hazelnuts to perfect anchovy dressing, this stunning collection of recipes is a love song to simple dishes crafted with the finest ingredients. You’ve done some TV (Great British Menu obviously but I also remember a magazine programme on Channel 4 I think to which you contributed recipe demonstrations including what I recall as an historic version of mushrooms on toast – hope I haven’t misremembered that!) but isn’t it high time you had your own series? Could Cooking be the perfect springboard for that? When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 130C fan/gas mark 2. Spoon the marmalade over the bottom of the tart case. Heap the frangipane in little clods over the marmalade. Strew the chocolate over the frangipane. Mayan gold and yukon gold potatoes cook a treat in this recipe, king edwards work very well, and good results were also enjoyed with baking and roasting potatoes.

When ready to bake, roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface. Lift it up and swiftly drape the pastry on the tart tin, pressing gently until fitted snugly within. Refrigerate. There is one curious result to these leaps and bounds of progress: the potential to move so far ahead that one loses sight of what went before. For sure, some of these books are of their time and of interest to only a few. But it is worth, now and again, just sitting at a table, in a rare quiet moment, looking once more at a book, even without photographs, which might have inspired the mother of a cook to tap-tap-tap at a recipe and set to in the kitchen. Jeremy Lee’s favourite five Ah, you are too kind. This was a greatly appreciated gong. Oh golly, so many factors contributed to the time taken, not least building the confidence to realise that not all had been written about food as food evolves constantly as does cooking, ingredients and seasons. It took so long finding the path that would include, Mum and Dad, childhood, home, becoming a chef and the extraordinary learning curve required to acquire the knowledge to run a kitchen, write menus and find the produce with which to furnish the kitchen to produce the dishes. The book was not so different. It was also hugely impactful learning that writing a book and running a kitchen were not the easiest of bedfellows, played a considerable role in a lengthy delay.In a large bowl, beat together the whole eggs, then add the egg yolks. Slowly pour the milk on to the eggs, stirring gently with a wooden spoon, keeping any froth to a minimum. Let it stand for while, then pour the warm custard through a fine sieve. Spoon away any foam sitting on the surface.

To make the meringue, in a clean bowl, whip the egg whites into stiff peaks. Beat in half of the sugar until stiff peaks appear once more. Repeat with the rest of the sugar. With bold strokes, heap the meringue on the tart, creating a riot of swirls. After working for a few years in a Scottish country house hotel, Jeremy made the move down to London and landed a job at one of the most exciting restaurants of the 1980s. ‘Terence Conran was starting to take his restaurant business very seriously and had the brilliant idea to choose Simon Hopkinson as his head chef and partner at Bibendum, a restaurant on Fulham Road housed inside the old Michelin UK headquarters,’ explains Jeremy. ‘Cooking with Simon was a revelation; at the time, everyone was beginning to understand produce and we saw the birth of British cooking. After that I got to cook with Alistair Little, who worked in a very different style in a very different kitchen. He’s been a great friend ever since.’ Ah, years of writing columns for the Guardian, other broadsheets and a fair few journals had taught me much. The most important quality was a genuine and honest approach avoiding myriad pitfalls. Most importantly, taking nothing for granted and ensuring a place in the finished manuscript. There were too a wealth of memories from years watching my Granny and my Mum in the kitchen cooking for her family which were easily tapped being buried deep in our, my siblings and my subconscious. For his spirit boundless spirit alone, Lee should be classified as a national treasure. Likewise, this book is one to treasure. It's not going to be a destination restaurant, just a bloody good pub” - Tom Kerridge on The Butcher's Tap ChelseaAs anyone who has seen him laugh and charm his way through the room at Quo Vadis would expect, Lee is as generous in prose as he is when talking about the book, heaping praise on the close team who helped bring it all together. Lee and friends shot the photographs for the book at his home, for a true reflection of his cooking – the chocolate tart is a little spilled, the pastry a little blond, the plates and cookware his own. “It’s all very real,” he says. “We’re keen on that.” On a lightly floured surface, roll out the pastry large enough to line a 25cm x 2.5cm tart case with a removable bottom. Pop this into the fridge until required. From the Davids, the Grigsons and the Childs, another generation of women food writers blossomed, restoring an interest in regional cooking to an English-speaking readership. Alice Waters championed the local, seasonal movement in California and influenced future generations of American cooks, and many more besides around the globe. Arabella Boxer, who was an early champion of British and seasonal cooking, helped tear up the rigours of publishing with her extraordinary two-volume set of First Slice Your Cookbook, then, A Second Slice. Caroline Conran’s beautiful editing of four seminal chefs, Michel Guérard, Roger Vergé and Jean and Pierre Troisgros, finally loosened the tired grip of France’s haute cuisine. Lindsey Bareham’s books have a glorious approach, championing the potato, the onion, soup or tomatoes in a clear authoritative voice full of wit, charm and warmth. My parents liked to read, cook and eat, quite liked their brood and made efforts to have us all at the table every day. In the kitchen, a small pile of cookery books (pulled from laden shelves), with a pad and a pencil for notes, awaited my mother’s interest. In his first book, Jeremy Lee welcomes you into the kitchen to rejoice in simple home cooking. Whether for a table set for one, or for the descending hordes, here you'll find over 150 recipes, bursting with ideas for good things to eat.

Peel and finely chop the shallots and garlic. Place in a pan with the anchovies and olive oil. Sit this upon the gentlest heat and warm until the shallots have softened and the anchovies have melted. The book is arranged with a chef’s eye for ingredients, and favourite things to eat throughout the seasons, rather than in courses or meals. A chapter on blood oranges sits between Biscuits and Breadcrumbs, while Impromptu Dinners provides meals (such as a perfect pork chop and pan juices) that can be made for one or scaled up; and there are simple, joyous meals to feed a crowd (little meatballs, or fennel and lemon spaghetti). When Jeremy Lee received the very first copy of his new cookbook from his publishers, he immediately threw it in a drawer, then cycled from his home in east London to get on with his day at Soho’s Quo Vadis, where he is chef-patron. The book, Cooking: Simply And Well, For One or Many, was the result of many years of work, on and off, and he wasn’t quite ready to face its reality. Oh Telly…well thank you, you certainly know how to make a cook blush. I love telly and think often of Michael Smith, Claudia Roden and Madhur Jaffrey who presented cooking with such ease, charm and style. Should the stars align, perhaps something charming in the loveliest kitchen with the glorious family we made when turning a manuscript into a book? Jeremy turned Quo Vadis into a must-visit restaurant, with everyone from foodies to celebrities wanting to experience the clean, simple, flavourful food that celebrated the seasons. Over the years he has developed close relationships with suppliers, meaning he has access to the very best produce. ‘Keeping an eye on your supply chain is a full-time job, so we tend to look to a very good greengrocer who knows where to get things like the best lemons from Sicily,’ he explains. ‘But closer to home it’s easier to talk to people – we know we want crabs from Dorset, smoked herring from the east coast and razor clams from Orkney. The fishermen are great and a focus on vegetables is the next huge revolution in cooking. Foraging is great but oh boy do you need to know your stuff, and I think if you’re going to charge a spectacular amount of money for a leaf on the plate you better make sure it’s brilliant.’From a lifetime of cooking with some of the UK's greatest chefs – as well as lessons from his mother – Cooking is a book about good food honed from good ingredients, whether it is a particularly good bundle of asparagus or a great box of artichokes. The ingredients invariably spark the idea of what to cook next. Place the fillets of hake in a deep ovenproof dish, lightly season with salt and white pepper and lightly dress with a soup spoon of olive oil. Pour in enough cold water to cover the bottom of the dish. Place on the baking sheet in the oven and bake for 45 minutes. Lift the lid and remove the foil. Press the cake down lightly with the bottom of a frying pan, then cook for a further 30 minutes, until the edges of the cake have coloured deep gold. A beautifully written instant classic that is every bit as exuberant and delicious as the man himself!’ Nigella Lawson To prepare the pears, peel and core them, then chop into small randomly shaped pieces and toss in the lemon juice to avoid browning. Put a pan on a medium heat and add the sugar. Let the sugar begin to colour and start swirling the pan until the sugar has caramelised. Tip in the chopped pear dressed in the lemon juice. Take care as the sugar will sputter. Toss the chopped pear in the caramel and cook until it softens. Set aside to cool.