Copyright HarperCollinsPublishers 77–85 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, London W6 8JB www.harpercollins.co.uk First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2014 FIRST EDITION Text © Lorraine Pascale 2014 Photography © Maia Smend, 2014 A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library Lorraine Pascale asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work Jacket layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014 Jacket photograph (front) © Hamish Brown Food styling: Annie Rigg and Joanna Farrow (Cover) Props styling: Tony Hutchinson BBC logo is the copyright and trademark of the British Broadcasting Corporation and is used under licence. Devised and presented by Lorraine Pascale and produced by BBC Bristol All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books. Find out about HarperCollins and the environment at www.harpercollins.co.uk/green Source ISBN: 9780007489688 Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2014 ISBN: 9780007489695 Version: 2014-08-26 Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Introduction Canapes & Cocktails Starters, Snacks & Soups Salads Mains: Chicken Mains: Pork, Beef & Lamb Mains: Fish & Shellfish Vegetables & Sides Desserts, Cakes & Treats Tips & Tricks More from Lorraine Pascale List of Recipes Acknowledgements About the Publisher Introduction It’s never too late to learn to cook. I am living proof! I didn’t start cooking until I was in my thirties. And now I’ve taught absolute beginners to make some tasty, impressive dishes in one day. They’ve gone from only being able to boil an egg (just!) to working on a street food stall. Anybody can cook – and I mean anybody. It just takes some enthusiasm and a little practice. So if you’ve always wanted to be able to entertain friends and treat them to a delicious celebration meal or you just want to rely less on ready-meals in your day-to-day family life, this book is designed for you. Before you know it, you’ll be dishing up delicious, simple meals with confidence. The first thing you need to learn is my mantra: ‘It’s all fine!’ That’s the secret weapon. It’s all in your attitude. If you can relax and just take it easy, you’ll be fine. Learning to cook is a process and you might make some mistakes along the way, but you’ll learn some lessons and maybe even improvise. My hope is that after playing around with the recipes, you’ll start to trust your palate. You’ll even be able to do a bit of freestyling: experimenting with spices and playing with the balance of heat and cool in your dishes. I don’t want you to be scared to add a bit of chilli. You’ll learn that you don’t need to be TOO exact. The ribs recipe, for example, is delicious even if you add a little more or a little less of this or that. In this book I took on an experiment, too. My family and I were bored with the usual roast chicken so I decided to mix it up and try roast chicken every way I could imagine from Tandoori Roast Chicken to Whole Roast Thai Green Curry Chicken. We still can’t decide which of the five kinds in this book we like best! But it was a fun experiment and that’s what I want to inspire you to try at home. And most important of all, I hope you’ll learn to trust your own palate, to really taste the food and play around to make a meal just right for you and whoever you are cooking for. If you’re cooking for kids, you might want a little less of a chilli kick; if you’re making a meal for adults who have grown up with power- packed spicy dishes, maybe you want to turn up the heat. I hope you’ll become more sensitive to the balance of flavours – sweet with salty whether you’re creating your very own signature cocktail or making a curry. And once you get the right mix of flavours, you can also start to consider the texture (the crunchiness of red pepper against the softness of avocado in a salsa) for dishes that intrigue and delight. I’ll demystify the art of baking and inspire you to get your mixing bowls out, even if you’ve never baked a cake in your life! I’ll show you how to dress up a simple sponge with fruit and chocolate: you can choose white or dark, berries or mango. And you’ll start to see that it’s not rocket science. Let me say it simply: cooking is just putting food together in the right way, the right order and the right amounts! That’s all there is to it. The classic newbie expects cooking to be more complicated than it is. But once you roll your sleeves up and get stuck in, you’ll start to relax and the kitchen will become a fun family place to be. And cooking isn’t just an idle pastime. Mealtimes bring people together, whether it’s busy weekday suppers to nourish your family or celebrations to mark special milestones. Eating and sharing food is a necessary daily ritual, so we might as well make the most of it: dazzling our palates, having fun creating menus, getting your guests – and kids – involved in the prep. To help you really get started, I’ve also collected my favourite tips, which are scattered throughout the book, and a few handy tricks at the end. I’m letting you in on all my tried–and–true kitchen secrets – from how to produce the perfect poached egg every time, which can be very impressive perched atop my asparagus starter, to little life-saving cheats so that you never have a cheesecake that cracks down the middle again. Best of all, I’ve included a recipe I invented by complete accident – my secret meringue trick! One time when I was in a hurry, I started to put the ingredients in the bowl in the wrong order, but the meringues turned out better than ever. Now I follow that method every time. I hope you’ll believe me when I say that mistakes can be the best way of learning sometimes, so get cooking and, above all, have some fun. Indulge your senses and adjust the seasoning to satisfy your palate, and then add more crunch if that’s what you like. It’s your kitchen, your food! The biggest secret of all is that being a better cook is just about trusting yourself! You can do it! Lorraine x