My top 20 books to give your friends for Christmas 2017

You might think the last thing you need is another list of this year’s cookery books. but indulge me in this slightly different take - who would you give them to and why would you find them useful.

I've linked through to the Guardian bookshop where I can as it would be nice if you supported them - or a local bookshop - rather than the dreaded Amazon though we all succumb from time to time.

I’m overlooking some big names not because they’re not worth buying (in fact I think they’re on particularly good form) but because I’m sure you’re aware of them. Jamie Oliver's 5 ingredients is a good book to give to inexperienced cooks, Nigella’s At My Table is a great read and the best book she’s done since How to Eat and Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh’s Sweet is quite brilliant if you’re into desserts. I plan to come back to them in the New Year. But there’s one biggie I can’t leave out.

The Christmas Chronicles - Nigel Slater

I’m sure I recollect Nigel was anti everything to do with Christmas at one stage (indeed he described himself at one stage as a 'devout refusenik') but he’s certainly come round to it now. This is just the loveliest Christmas cookery book you’ll ever own - with day by day suggestions of what to do and what to eat (heavenly things such as fig and orange shortbreads and cranberry and butterscotch pudding) in the run-up to and days after Christmas. A book you’ll pull out year after year, you’d have to be an absolute scrooge not to be captivated by it.

For everyday and weekend cooking

Probably the kind of cooking for which we most need inspiration if it’s not to become drearily monotonous but here are four books that should inject pzazz into your - or your worn out friends’ - weekly routine.

The Art of the Larder - Claire Thomson

A trained chef Claire made her name as 5 o’clock apron through the simple, delicious meals she cooked for her three small children. This follow up - her third book - focuses on ingredients you should have in your freezer and store cupboard. The recipes such as a preserved lemon and chilli sauce and banana pain perdu with cardamom and buttermilk are actually quite sophisticated (I’m always massively impressed at what her kids will eat) but not overly complicated. A great one for young mums who want their kids to be adventurous eaters.

Elly Pear’s Let’s Eat

Elly Curshen (another Bristolian and a good friend) takes a similarly practical approach to the task, creating master recipes you can batch cook then adapt to different uses. Ideal for someone who has a frantic work schedule without much time to cook (in other words most of us) It includes the only recipe I’ve ever enjoyed for tofu (Five spice smoked tofu nuggets with a satay dressing). It’s only when you think about it you realise the book doesn’t have any meat in it. So, perfect for veggies (and pescatarians)

The Sunday Night Book - Rosie Sykes

Rosie focusses not on weekdays but Sunday evenings. This is a joyous comforting little book you need to be careful about leaving around or your friends may nick it. The recipes are straightforward and you think at first glance unillustrated but there are a couple of sections of enticing colour photos when you look more carefully. There’s a whole section of things on toast - Caerphilly with leeks and mustard sounds promising - and I love the sound of toasted spaghetti with red onions, almonds and raisins and the Jerusalem artichoke, hazelnut and goats cheese tart. Never mind Sunday I’d happily make that on a Saturday - or any other day of the week come to that.

Downtime - Nadine Levy Redzepi

It takes quite a lot for me to get over my aversion to cookbooks written by celebrity chefs wives so I wasn’t prepared to like this book by top Copenhagen chef Rene Redzepi’s wife Nadine, especially with its subtitle Deliciousness at home but it is in fact absolutely charming and full of interesting recipes. Each step has a comment along the way to make sure you get it right and a short congratulatory paragraph on mastering the trickier techniques. I’m not sure I’d make everything in it (home made crisps seem a bit too much of a faff but the dips that go with them sound terrific.) Not for total beginners maybe but for less experienced cooks who would like to make more exciting food. She holds your hand every step of the way

Cooking for friends

Feasts - Sabrina Ghayour

I was late to the party with Sabrina’s books - I confess I initially dismissed her as a poor man’s Ottolenghi and It was only when a friend of mine cooked her harissa and preserved lemon poussin (from her first book Persiana) with consummate ease that I fully appreciated her knack of producing delicious, do-able food with very few ingredients. Feasts is more of the same - I’ve already made her addictive saffron roast potatoes twice and there’s more temptation to come in the way of freekeh, tomato and chickpea pilau, garlic fenugreek and cumin flatbreads. and pomegranate bulgur wheat salad (perfect for Christmas parties). A big-hearted generous cookbook, like Sabrina herself.

On the Side - Ed Smith

You can usually think of a main course but what to go with it? Ed Smith of Rocket and Squash provides the answers in the form of this collection of imaginative, clever recipes. The two I’ve made - tomato tonnato - a tomato salad with the classic vitello tonnato sauce and baby aubergine, oregano and chilli bake have been absolute winners. There’s a brilliant glossary at the back listing possible sides for almost every dish you can think of. Even someone who has loads of cookbooks will appreciate this one.

Dinner - Melissa Clark

Melissa Clark is a New York Times columnist and a new discovery for me this year and this book which I haven't yet had time to get fully acquainted with is full - and I mean full, it's a big book - of irresistible sounding recipes. Like the sound of Sticky tamarind chicken, pizza chicken with pancetta, mozzarella and spicy tomatoes and herbed parmesan Dutch baby? Mmmmmmm, so do I. NB American measurements so maybe one for more experienced cooks rather than first-timers but they're not by any means difficult.

Hero ingredients

Butter by Dorie Greenspan

Who doesn’t like butter? Well, vegans obviously but for the rest of us it’s irresistible and who better to help us indulge than fellow devotee Dorie Greenspan who has written this charming small book as part of a series by Short Stack editions. I can’t wait to get stuck into miso butter double salmon rillettes, butter-browned onion galette and pear-cranberry crisp. Another book with American measurements, but hey, it's easy enough to look up a conversion chart. A fabulous addition to a keen cook’s Christmas stocking.

Citrus - Catherine Phipps

Books published earlier in the year tend to get forgotten at Christmas but I probably put more post-it notes in Catherine Phipps gorgeous bright, yellow book than practically any other this year. I'm ashamed to say I haven’t got round to making anything from it so far but top of my list are preserved lemon hummus, lemon pizzette (with fennel sausages) coconut, lime and lemongrass chicken salad, blood orange and rhubarb meringue pie. If you love citrus - and who doesn’t? this will give you about 100 new ways to enjoy it. Something to cheer you up during January.

Prime - Richard Turner

When we offered a giveaway of Prime to our subscribers we had the biggest response of any cookbook this year - not entirely surprisingly as it’s full of brilliant beefy recipes from chef Richard Turner of Hawksmoor, Pitt Cue and Meatopia fame. It’ll tell you how to cook the best steak you’ve ever eaten but also how to make some more exotic dishes like beef rendang (Rich’s favourite) and an ox cheek and IPA curry. There are also some great sides such as potato, parmesan and anchovy gratin. Lots of interesting stuff on beef breeds and beef welfare too.

Good causes

Hawksmoor - Restaurants and recipes

Rich also obviously had a hand in Hawksmoor. the second book from the restaurant which (declaration of interest) is co-owned by my son Will. It’s more than a recipe book - it’s the story of the restaurant and the people behind it and stunningly produced with glorious photography by Paul Winch-Furness. You may or may not want to cook from it - or just leave it to Hawksmoor if you’re a regular - but if you’re a reasonably ambitious cook I’d recommend having a go at the Brill and Roast Chicken Butter which is one of the best dishes I’ve eaten all year. And all the proceeds go to Action Against Hunger which makes it worth anyone’s money.

Syria: recipes from home - Itab Azzam and Dina Mousawi

A really lovely collection of simple homely recipes from Syrian women, mainly refugees who cook to recapture the flavours of home. Full of comforting dishes such as Syrian omelette, lentil and chard soup and turmeric pancakes - but also heartbreaking stories from some of the women who cooked them including Fedwa who has lost two of her five children. Part of the advance went to the Hands Up Foundation which the authors still support through pop-up suppers.

Bread is Gold - Massimo Bottura and Friends

A beautifully produced book that has come out of top chef Massimo Bottura’s soup kitchen project Refettorio Ambrosiano though not exactly, as the author - or publisher - states ‘easy and inspiring recipes for home cooks’ A lot of the recipes - which use leftover or discarded ingredients that would otherwise go to waste - are quite long and complicated (chefs’ idea of easy clearly differs from the rest of us) but there are elements of them like banana ice cream or burnt bread dip that you can take out and try on their own. And others like baked pasta alls parmigiana and rice pudding with cinnamon and chocolate are as simple and delicious-sounding as stated. Great inspiration for anyone working on a community project or who is trying to eat a bit more frugally.

Cooks who like to travel through food

Kaukasis - Olia Hercules

I was a huge fan of Olia’s first book Mamushka and this second book focussing on the food of Georgia, Azerbaijan and beyond doesn’t disappoint although slightly careless editing mars some of the recipes (khingal a pasta-like dish with spiced lamb really needs to be made with double zero flour and the lavash chicken and herb pie - a dish that could easily be adapted to leftover turkey is so good it would never serve six). Still, exciting flavours, ingredients and stunning photography make you want to jump on the next plane to this fascinating part of the world. And Olia writes quite beautifully - see also this marvellous article on borscht

Chai, Chaat and Chutney - Chetna Makan

I’m not sure I’d have picked this book up from the title or cover but was lucky enough to have been sent it and once I started leafing through I was hooked. It’s full of the incredibly moreish street food you come across in different parts of India (and modern Indian restaurants here) including some fantastic breads and chutneys (I can’t wait to try the coriander and spinach chutney to which she’s obviously addicted). One for friends who’ve mastered curries and want to go on to the next level.

A friend in the kitchen (and beside the bed)

Two Kitchens - Rachel Roddy

It says a lot about Roddy’s writing that I’ve dipped into her books* extensively without cooking anything from them. Not because the recipes aren’t tempting but because I intuitively know that buying my ingredients in Bristol I’m not going to get the same results as she does in Rome and Sicily. To me she’s a true successor to Elizabeth David. Lyrical. Passionate, a great story teller. I’d give this to a friend who loves Italy. It’s a book to keep beside the bed and to take with you if you're planning a self-catering holiday there.

* the other is the equally good Five Quarters

For culinary geeks

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat - Samin Nosrat

Having only just acquired this book on the recommendation of other critics I don’t really feel qualified to introduce you to it. but I can already tell from a quick flick through that it’s a real original - if an odd mixture of the cheffy (how to build flavours), the basic (how to cut an onion) and the poetic “season generously with salt until it tastes like the summer sea” It’s peppered with absolutely charming illustrations and diagrams from Nosrat's collaborator Wendy MacNaughton (there’s a wonderful ‘World of Fat’ flavour map which tells you which fat to use with different cuisines” but no pictures of the recipes which might daunt less experienced cooks. Take the claim that it "might be the last cookbook you’ll ever need" with a pinch of salt though. (Who ever has enough cookbooks?)

For wine lovers

Wine Dine Dictionary - Victoria Moore

Any regular visitor to this site is going to love this brilliant book which explores in Victoria's trademark elegant prose what to drink with what you eat - and the best food pairings for the world’s best known wines. Apart from being a really useful resource it’s also a terrific read - (of wines to go with five spice she writes “Overly clean wines don’t feel right with five spice; red or white, you want a bit of texture, a bit of rough (I don’t mean that in a derogatory way), a bit of jostle.” It’s also refreshingly unsnobby - there are wine suggestions for fish finger sandwiches with ketchup (a hearty red, Victoria suggests, though I would personally skip the ketchup, substitute mayo and drink Cava). Super-useful and fun.

My publisher would also of course consider it remiss if I didn't at least mention in passing my latest book Wine Lover's Kitchen which is all about cooking with wine. Make the sticky pork mac'n'cheese in which the pork is deglazed with tawny port, I beg you ...

For foragers, stargazers and gardeners

The Almanac - a seasonal guide to 2018 - Lia Leendertz

It’s always nice when a book you’ve helped to fund* arrives through the letterbox - still more so when it turns out to be even better than its original description. A really lovely little book which will take you through 2018 month by month telling you when the sun rises and sets, when to plant, what to cook, and what to look for in the sky. I’m looking forward to making the date, apricot and pecan sticky toffee pudding next month ....

* through Unbound.

The best cookbooks to buy for last-minute Christmas presents

I intended to write this post about a month ago when most normal people do their Christmas shopping but hey, it’s suddenly December 22nd and only two shopping days to Christmas. There are however those who leave their shopping until the VERY last minute (I did most of mine at the weekend) and for you this guide may solve all your Christmas present dilemmas in one go.

The good news is that 2015 has been a bumper year for cookbooks so there should be a suitable title for everyone you know

For keen bakers

I hasten to say I’m not a baker which is maybe why the unorthodox but brilliant Honey & Co The Baking Book appeals, not least because its recipes work. I also like The Violet (I nearly wrote Violent) Bakery Cookbook by Claire Ptak. Chocolate croissant bread pudding anyone? Yup, I thought so.

For the adventurous cook

Mamushka
No need for any extra endorsement from me, this book has swept the board in almost all the 2015 book selections - and rightly. Its author, Olia Hercules, is as charming on the page as she is in person sharing family recipes (from the Ukraine) you almost certainly won’t have tried before. I’ve cooked about 4 or 5 dishes from it and all have been delicious.

Those who appreciate an encyclopaedic approach to food will love The Nordic Cookbook, the 768 page magnum opus from Magnus Nilsson of Faviken. It’s the Scandi equivalent of the Larousse Gastronomique - and frankly a bargain at £29.95 (or even less from you-know-who). Meatball obsessives will be in heaven.

If you follow Maunika Gowardhan’s mouthwatering instagram feed @cookinacurry you’ll know how good her food looks and sounds. Indian Kitchen: the secrets of Indian Home Cooking tells you exactly how to make it. Ideal for curry fanatics

And if you’ve always wanted to get your head round bibimbap, kimchi and other Korean specialities Jordan Bourke and Rejina Pyo’s Our Korean Kitchen will get you off to a cracking start.

For Hibernophiles
At least that’s the term for someone who love Ireland and all things Irish according to Wikipedia. If you know someone who falls into that category buy them Trish Deseine’s Home, a beautifully produced book that combines luscious photography with lyrical writing and some lovely recipes including this one for baked apple with porter cake crumbs and whisky custard

For the cash-strapped (or anyone who has been cleaned out by a visit to the dentist recently. *Speaks from bitter experience*.)

The Cornershop Cookbook probably wins the prize for the most delightfully left-field book of the year though I suspect not everyone has such generously stocked local shops as the authors. Good for an ambitious student cook. And given chicken is also not that expensive one of your loved ones (can't believe I'm using that term) may appreciate a copy of either A Bird in the Hand from Sunday Telegraph Cookery writer Diana Henry or Catherine Phipps Chicken: I’d say Phipps for the more cerebral cook who likes to get her/his head around techniques like making chicken brittle and Henry for the friend or family member who wants more colourful inspiration (the photography, as always with her books, is as inviting as the text).

For celebrity chef groupies
As ever there’s a book from all the big names this Christmas, from which I’d pick out four

Nopi
Even someone who has all Ottolenghi’s other books will want this one written with his head chef Ramael Scully. It looks utterly beautiful with its gleaming gold page edges too.

Simply Nigella
Nigella has come under fire for some of the recipes in her new TV series but who can complain about chicken traybake with bitter orange and fennel or tamarind-marinated bavette? A book to read as well as to cook from - Nigella on vintage form

More health-conscious friends may appreciate Gizzi Erskine’s Gizzi’s Healthy Appetite (loads of lovely recipes in this one) and Jamie Oliver's Jamie’s Everyday Super Food both written by chefs who actually enjoy their food and have retained a sense of balance about what constitutes healthy eating. (Even the clean eating brigade couldn’t complain about Jamie’s 100 calorie snack bowls. Though they probably will.)

If you’ve a chef-obsessed friend they’ll also love Carrie Solomon and Adrian Moore’s Inside Chefs’ Fridges, a compulsive read I suspect many will keep in the bathroom, infuriating family members by locking themselves in and pouring over it for hours. (You won’t be surprised Fergus Henderson has Fernet Branca in his. Fridge, not bathroom, obviously. Though possibly that too ...)

For cooks who like to read in bed

Five Quarters by Rachel Roddy
My other favourite book this year from one of the best young writers around. Very much in the Elizabeth David/Jane Grigson mould, you don't even need to cook from it to be able to taste the food and ingredients of her adopted Rome

And finally food geeks (and infographic fans) will love Laura Rowe’s Taste which gets over basic food science and culinary tips in a jazzy, snazzy way. A fun book for older, food-conscious teens.

There were many other good books published this year (Richard Turner’s Hog and Claire Thompson’s Five O’Clock Apron on feeding small kids among them) but if I don’t stop now you’ll never get to the shops in time, will you?

And let’s hope someone buys one of these for you.

Disclosure: most of these books were sent to me as review copies.

Book of the month: Mamushka by Olia Hercules

How often do you find a recipe book that offers a genuinely original selection of recipes inspired by a cooking tradition you’re not even aware of? For those whose shelves are bulging with Italian and middle-eastern cookbooks, Mamushka, by the talented young chef and food stylist Olia Hercules, offers a window into a different culinary world.

Hercules (it sounds weird to use that name of such a strikingly pretty young woman, so let’s call her Olia) focuses on the food of what her publisher astutely dubs the ‘wild east’ - her native Ukraine, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

She wrote the book, she says, to dispel the myths about her country - for one thing that it’s not cold and bleak but temperate - only an hour by air from Turkey. “Our winters are mild, our summers long and hot and our food a cornucopia of colour and flavour.”

The current conflict in the Ukraine prompted her to document family recipes, she was scared might be lost. “This is the stuff of my childhood, a life that I want to share with you… to give the messy geo-political mosaic a human face."

Divided into foods that are typical of the region including soups, some astonishing stuffed breads, dumplings, jams and pickles (there’s a great section on fermenting…) the book is packed with recipes you simply can’t wait to make.

She writes simply but so evocatively. "We grew up eating seasonally, as happily there was no alternative. I remember the aroma of the first prickly cucumber in May, my mother chopping it straight over the chipped enamel bowl then adding the tomatoes radishes and a whole bunch of chopped dill, all well seasoned and lightly dressed with smetana - the silkiest of soured creams. My favourite part of the meal was dipping a piece of bread into the pool of pink-stained leftover dressing speckled with dill fronds and watching the pink seep into the bread." (The moment I read that I had to make the recipe and even though I used yoghurt rather than smetana it was truly delicious as you can see from the somewhat messy photo above.)

Other recipes I tried over the same weekend were equally successfuL: a Georgian kidney bean salad fragrant with herbs, improved, I suspect, by using some excellent dried borlotti beans I'd brought back from Austria rather than a can and Azerbaijani chicken with prunes and walnuts - an exotic riff on roast chicken (I substituted brown breadcrumbs for some of the walnuts as I didn't have quite enough and cooked the bird a little longer than Olia suggested) perfectly matched with her Armenian roasted vegetables (the Armenian element being roast cabbage and dill). And I took advantage of the gooseberry season to make her gooseberry and strawberry conserve, a sharp, bright-tasting jam that brings out the best of both fruits.

I can’t wait to make her ‘Ukrainian narcotics’ - pork belly cured with salt and garlic, frozen then served from the freezer in wafer-thin slices, fermented tomatoes 'mindblowing' according to Olia), a celebratory dish of Azerbaijani rice and fruity lamb and practically everything in the bread section though I’m not sure I’ll ever achieve the gossamer-thin texture of the irresistibly beautiful Moldovan giant cheese twist. (One of the things I most like about the book is the mixture of very simple recipes with more challanging ones. And its practicality: Olia always suggests substitutes for hard-to-find ingredients.)

Sometimes I have to do a cull of my cookbooks to avoid them taking over the flat but this is definitely a keeper.

Mamushka by Olia Hercules is published by Mitchell Beazley at £25. If you want to try Olia’s food before you buy the book she is cooking at Carousel from July 28th to Saturday 1st August 2015. You can book here

6 non-student cookbooks to take to uni

Most advice on cooking at uni is directed at freshers but the first few months at university is almost certainly the least likely time you’re going to be in the kitchen. You may well be in hall or a block of student flats that have very few facilities, certainly not for making anything ambitious.

Come the second, third or postgraduate years, however, when the realisation sinks in that if you want to eat healthily you have to cook yourself you may well move to a shared house with some sort of working kitchen. You might even, if you enjoy cooking, have friends round and cook for them.

You might also need inspiration beyond the pages of a student cookbook though I would hope the ones I’ve written - the Beyond Baked Beans series and The Ultimate Student Cookbook (co-authored by three students two of whom, Signe Johansen and James Ramsden, have gone on to write their own books) would still prove a helpful resource.

Although one or two of my selection are recently published don’t feel you have to buy new books for your embryo cookery library. You can often pick up secondhand copies of Jamie Oliver's, Nigella's, and Nigel Slater's books for example in charity shops and second hand bookshops or online from amazon or abebooks.co.uk

I’ve made my choice on the basis of books that don’t include too many expensive cheffy ingredients (hence, perhaps, why they’re all written by women!) One or two may surprise you ...

A Girl Called Jack

Blogger Jack Monroe made her name by devising recipes you coud make on a £10 a week food budget, made from the cheapest supermarket ingredients. If you’re really strapped for cash it’s a brilliant book to base your cooking on. You can see my full review here

Try: Jack’s creamy salmon pasta with a lemon kick - made with a jar of salmon paste (truly)

Best price: £6.49 paperback, £6.02 kindle

PS Jack has a new book coming out this month which sounds great too so check that out if you see it.

Gastrogeek: Rejina Sabur-Cross

A clever book divided up by occasion (e.g. parties), situation (hard up and hungry) or type of guest (vegetarian) with wacky strip cartoons to get over the point. Some good affordable, accessible recipes with lots of original twists

Try: Regina’s pea, parsley and mature cheddar dip

Best price: 0.54 + p & p on Amazon

Riverford Farm Cook Book Guy Watson and Jane Baxter

If you get a veg box delivered or have a street market nearby this is an invaluable handbook on how to use in-season fruit and veg. Lots of basic cooking tips and simple, delicous, mostly veggie recipes from Jane - also author of the excellent Leon Fast Vegetarian.

Try: Jane’s French beans with tomato sauce and fried breadcrumbs

Best price: £12.91 or £6.87 on Kindle.

The Kitchen Orchard, Natalia Conroy

Devoting an expensive (£25) hard back book to the art of fridge foraging might seem seem a touch perverse but former River Café chef Natalia Conroy’s inspiring book, creating delicious recipes from a few scratch ingredients is perfect for the student lifestyle. (OK, your fridge might not be as well stocked as hers but the recipes contain impressively few ingredients.) One of the best of this autumn's crop of cookbooks.

Try: Natalia’s fresh mint ice-cream

Best price: £17. £13.99 on Kindle

The Recipe Wheel, Rosie Ramsden

An ingenious and practical book from food writer Rosie Ramsden (who, as it happens is James's missus) who gives a set of core recipes such as roast chicken, risotto and (mmmm) potato gratin then shows you how to vary them. The recipes are divided into categories like ‘night in’, ‘leftover love’ 'feeding friends' and 'cook to impress'. No pics but some charming illustrations painted by Rosie herself.

Try: Rosie’s spicy sausage and radicchio risotto

Best price: £12.91 on Amazon £6.99 on Kindle.

The Pressure Cooker Cookbook, Catherine Phipps

I have to confess I’m not a pressure cooker fan but I know people, including Catherine obviously, who swear by them and If you’re short of time and space, which most students are, they’re the perfect solution. Your mum may well have an abandoned one in a back cupboard though it's best to give it a road test before you go back to uni. Or you can buy a new one for as little as £30.

Try: Catherine’s Caribbean mutton curry (no reason why pressure cooker recipes should be dull.)

Best price: £12.91 amazon.co.uk

If you're a current or a recently qualified student what non-student cookbooks do/did you find most helpful and/or inspiring?