Cookbooks

If you thought chips, aka frites or French fries, were simply deep-fried chopped potatoes, Anne de la Forest's Frites (Jacqui Small) will introduce you to the intricacies of this old favourite.

She covers its history, the best sort of potato to use, the pros and cons of various oils, how to clean, peel, cut and fry the potatoes , how to make frites from other vegetables, sprinkles to make them extra crisp, even sweet versions, and, of course, sauces to dip them in.

There's pretty well everything here chip lovers might want to know.

 



Anna and Roger Wilde of Nelson have updated their Real Fresh Food (2009), now called Real Fresh Gluten-free food: Simple, healthy meals for everyone (New Holland) making all their recipes gluten-free with many also dairy-free and vegan.

They focus on plant-based foods and often include raw ingredients, particularly with the desserts and sweet treats, like zucchini chocolate no-bake cake or avocado chocolate mousse.

Most of the recipes are for plant-based dishes, such as vegetables, grains, pulses, but there are also some for seafood and meat.

A good book for anyone looking for healthy recipes.

 



Linda Turner and Diane Newsom decided to select recipes with ''bean'' in their title for their book Bean Cooking (New Holland).

This allows them not only to include recipes you might expect such as for butter beans, borlotti beans, kidney beans, green beans, and broad beans, but also for bean sprouts, and stretching things a little further, coffee beans and vanilla beans, these last two featuring in the dessert section.

However, most of the recipes are for savoury dips, salads, hot dishes, mains, sides and of course soups.

They are generally healthy recipes that can be used often, such as haricot bean dip with roasted garlic, carrot bean and ginger soup, lemon-garlic chicken with salsa verde and two-bean salad, or mini thyme bean cakes.

A useful book for those who want to include more of these healthy legumes in their regular eating.

 



 

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Seasons - By Alison Lambert  - Available for purchase now!

The Otago Daily Times and Alison have collaborated to bring you her first cookbook – Seasons.  

This book is the ultimate year-round cookbook. Seasons is filled with versatile recipes designed to inspire creativity in the kitchen, offering plenty of ideas for delicious accompaniments and standout dishes that highlight the best of what each season has to offer.  

 

$49.99 each. Purchase here.

$44.99 for ODT subscribers. Get your discount code here.