Hospitality Action - Chefs at Home
This book is what I would describe as an all-rounder - it has a lot of different courses and cuisines by lots of different chefs (54 chefs in total) which is one of the things I love the most about this book. It was something I knew I wanted to buy as soon as I saw it advertised because I liked the idea that the sales from this book go towards a sector I feel so passionate about. I love restaurants (good restaurants anyway) and the hospitality industry has been totally decimated by COVID. I really did feel terrible that for the chefs, overnight that was that, no work, no money, their livelihood taken away just like that. The same goes for the restaurant owners, they had a huge burden, with rent and bills still to pay with nothing coming in just like that. With the constant changing rules and the wave after wave of COVID surviving became very very difficult.
There is a really sad story at the start about a chef who had just a few pounds in his bank account and how desperate he was. For anybody who loves restaurants the tragedy of how many have been lost is dreadful.
The book consists of a couple of recipes from the UK's top chefs (and a dud here and there) who have all given a couple of recipes and there are little ditties here and there that are lovely. The idea of these recipes is not that they are restaurant dishes, more that they are homely dishes to be cooked and enjoyed in your own home, that maybe the chefs did whilst they were at home. They were meant to be easy and things you could lay your hands on fairly easily. Some of the recipes did make me wonder because certain ingredients as we all know were incredibly hard to come by during lockdown.
I have made a few of the recipes and loved them but my favourite is Michael Cain's Lamb Koftas. Everybody has had koftas but oh my word these were delicious. Another favourite recipe is Clare Smyths Chilli Chicken. It is incredibly yummy, it has a nice kick and tasted really good. There were some quantity questions from the book club but I tweaked it and we loved it. Some of it I think has to be a little intuition, if an amount of something looks wrong then it probably is so follow your gut, even if you are fairly new to cooking.
The mixed bag nature of this book also means there are a whole range of skillsets needed, from the very simple to the fairly difficult. There really are no absolutely stand out dishes, more a collection of very delicious homely dishes.
The only thing I did not like was the index which is poor. Really really poor (this is a particular bug bear of mine) and so for instance if you looked up lobster you won't find the lobster Thermidor but if you look up shellfish you will find it. This is the smallest thing and the only negative about the book. There are some gorgeous recipes, some new and some you may have done before or may even have your own recipe for. The great thing about that is trying a new recipe for an age old dish and ether loving your find or reaffirming how good your own recipe is.
The book has a lot of recipes and, as it is for such a worthy cause it makes it a book to definitely have in your collection.
Recipes 6/10
Readability 8/10
Knowledge learnt 7/10
Total 21/30