Delicious: Quick Smart Cook
Valli Little
ABC Books $39.99
Alright, be honest.
How many times have you looked through a cookbook and salivated over the splashy photography and exotic list of ingredients but then not actually used a single recipe from the book in your own kitchen?
The problem with a lot of cookbooks is that the recipes are often just too hard. With too many ingredients and too many steps. It's little wonder that we end up just eating McDonald's rather than cook for ourselves at home.
Quick Smart Cook is what it purports to be.
Delicious food director Valli Little has assembled a collection of quick, smart and practical recipes that don't compromise on the wow factor that you would expect from something much more complicated. It covers many different cuisines without falling prey to lazy clichés.
Initially, it may be a little off-putting that the main ingredient of the Wonton Soup is a 220gm packet of chicken or prawn wontons, or that the Summer Pizza uses a pre-made woodfired pizza base. But if Little is all too willing to take shortcuts here and there, she adds enough clever twists and creative touches to push these dishes well beyond the ordinary.
Quick Smart Cook is beautifully illustrated and logically organised in sections, from "breakfast" to your variety of meats to "ices" and "chocolate". It even gives you menu ideas and a useful glossary at the back, as well as a set of brief "basics" recipes, for things such as Garlic Bread or crepes.
This is the kind of cookbook that you would keep in the kitchen rather than on the coffee table. These are recipes that are achievable but still able to impress at a dinner party.
The splashy photography might still make you salivate, but you can be sure that you'll be using these recipes or even be inspired to add twists of your own to them.
CHRISTIAN HARIMANOW
