Red Sauce Brown Sauce
If there’s one thing that truly unites Britain, from Aberdeen to Aberystwyth, St Ives to St Pancras, it’s an obsession with breakfast.
We all have an opinion on the merits of brown sauce versus ketchup on our morning bacon sarnie. In this eagerly awaited follow-up to One More Croissant for the Road, the nation’s favourite taster-in-chief Felicity Cloake sets off on a cycle trip of condimental proportions to investigate and celebrate the legendary Great British Breakfast. Travelling the length and breadth of the UK to establish once and for all what makes a perfect fry-up, she rates them on criteria from the crispness of the bacon to how long they keep her pedalling. But a woman cannot live by All Day Breakfast alone, so as well as recipes for the Savoy’s Omelette Arnold Bennett and proper Scottish porridge, she lavishes her attention on the regional specialities she encounters along the way, from a desi breakfast in Birmingham to a Greggs Geordie stottie cake. This is a freewheeling gastronomical tour like no other.
Eaten with as much relish in The Wolseley on Piccadilly as in Glasgow’s University Cafe, Britain loves nothing more than a good breakfast. The only question is: what do you have with yours?
‘As a greedy woman who loves cycling around the country in search of double and even triple breakfasts, I was delighted by this book about a greedy woman, cycling around the countryside, looking for several square meals a day. In an era when too many fully grown adults munch through instant microwave oats, overpackaged biscuits or simply skip eating altogether, Cloake is making the case for a cooked, regional, calorie-packed kick off, both as a treat for your senses and as a way of supporting smaller, traditional food producers…funny, enlightening and evocative.’ Nell Frizzell, The Guardian
‘A bible for breakfast lovers.’ The Scotsman
One More Croissant for the Road
The nation’s ‘taster in chief’ cycles 2,300 km across France in search of the definitive versions of classic French dishes.
A green bike drunkenly weaves its way up a cratered hill in the late-morning sun, the gears grinding painfully, like a pepper mill running on empty. The rider crouched on top in a rictus of pain has slowed to a gravity-defying crawl when, from somewhere nearby, the whine of a nasal engine breaks through her ragged breathing.
A battered van appears behind her, the customary cigarette dangling from its driver’s-side window… as he passes, she casually reaches down for some water, smiling broadly in the manner of someone having almost too much fun. ‘No sweat,’ she says jauntily to his retreating exhaust pipe. ‘Pas de problème, monsieur.’
A land of glorious landscapes, and even more glorious food, France is a place built for cycling and for eating, too – a country large enough to give any journey an epic quality, but with a bakery on every corner. Here, you can go from beach to mountain, Atlantic to Mediterranean, polder to Pyrenees, and taste the difference every time you stop for lunch. If you make it to lunch, that is…
Part travelogue, part food memoir, all love letter to France, One More Croissant for the Road follows ‘the nation’s taster in chief’ Felicity Cloake’s very own Tour de France, cycling 2,300km across France in search of culinary perfection; from Tarte Tatin to Cassoulet via Poule au Pot, and Tartiflette. Each of the 21 ‘stages’ concludes with Felicity putting this new found knowledge to good use in a fresh and definitive recipe for each dish – the culmination of her rigorous and thorough investigative work on behalf of all of our taste buds.
‘Joyful, life-affirming, greedy. I loved it’ – DIANA HENRY
‘Whether you are an avid cyclist, a Francophile, a greedy gut, or simply an appreciator of impeccable writing – this book will get you hooked’ – YOTAM OTTOLENGHI
Completely Perfect
‘A gift for anyone who is learning to cook’ Diana Henry, Sunday Telegraph
How can I make deliciously squidgy chocolate brownies?
Is there a fool-proof way to poach an egg?
Does washing mushrooms really spoil them?
What’s the secret of perfect pastry?
Could a glass of milk turn a good bolognese into a great one?
Felicity Cloake has rigorously tried and tested recipes from all the greats – from Nigella Lawson and Delia Smith to Nigel Slater and Heston Blumenthal – to create the perfect version of hundreds of classic dishes. Completely Perfect pulls together the best of those essential recipes, from the perfect beef wellington to the perfect poached egg.
Never again will you have to rifle through countless different books to find your perfect roast chicken recipe, mayonnaise method or that incredible tomato sauce – it’s all here in this book, based on Felicity’s popular Guardian columns, along with dozens of invaluable prepping and cooking tips that no discerning cook should live without.
‘Completely Perfect is aptly named!’ Nigella Lawson
‘A classic. Long may Felicity Cloake test 12 versions of one recipe so we can have one good one’ Rachel Roddy
‘The nation’s taster-in-chief title belongs unequivocally to Felicity Cloake’ Daily Mail
The A-Z of Eating
‘Not only a collection of fabulous recipes but an inspiring guide to flavours and ingredients and how they work together’ – Nigella Lawson
This is a cookbook for people who are looking for inspiration rather than instruction; one that will make you look at familiar ingredients in a new light, and welcome new ones with open arms.
Here Felicity Cloake offers an ingredient for each letter of the alphabet – twenty-six of her favourite things to eat, and recipes using them which will change the way that you think about these ingredients forever. In the Blue Cheese chapter, a Roquefort and honey cheesecake with walnut and pear; in Caramel, roast duck with miso caramel and in Rhubarb, rhubarb gin granita.
Yet there are also more straightforward dishes, no less original or delicious: beetroot noodles with goat’s cheese, toasted walnuts and baby kale; chorizo baked potatoes with avocado crema; slow roast tomato pasta with lemon salt, ricotta and basil. And there are many more playful takes on favourite dishes: salted peanut caramel crispy cakes, aloo tikki scotch eggs, jelly cherry jubilee, buttermilk onion rings.
This is a book to shake you out of your recipe rut and make you start to think about food, and cook it in an entirely new way.
Perfect Host
‘[An] inspiring book on entertaining’ Bee Wilson, Stella
Felicity Cloake‘s Perfect Host: the complete guide to dinner parties – for people who think they don’t do dinner parties. Forget fish knives and boy-girl-boy-girl: modern entertaining sweeps away all the rules. These days, we’re far more relaxed about inviting people round on the spur of the moment for sofa suppers and big, loud Sunday lunches, but there are still a few secrets to mastering the art of feeding people and having fun.
In Perfect Host, Felicity Cloake ensures that you have every base covered. Whether it’s having a few friends round for an impromptu after-work supper (lamb, harissa and courgette kebabs with jewelled couscous), knocking up a feast to accompany a DVD boxset (pulled pork and black bean chilli and tex mex slaw) packing a basket for that perfect picnic (scandinavian picnic loaf), planning the menu for a seductive dinner (pollack en papillotte with basil and tomatoes, and my last Rolo) or deciding what will wow at a raucous birthday party (chocolate and rose layer cake), Perfect Host is packed with delicious recipes (and helpful hints) for all occasions.
‘Sprightly and engaging . . . this is a girl who will not hesitate to give you a recipe for English muffins and for a breakfast martini; my sort of cook’ Evening Standard
Perfect Too
Never again will you have to rifle through countless different books to find your perfect pulled pork recipe, Thai curry paste method or failsafe chocolate fondants – it’s all here in this book, based on Felicity’s popular Guardian columns, along with dozens of practical, time-saving invaluable prepping and cooking tips that no discerning cook should live without.
Following on from the much-loved Perfect, Perfect Too has a place on every kitchen shelf.
Perfect
The Guardian’s ‘How to Make’ food columnist Felicity Cloake is on a mission to find the perfect staple dishes – from spag bol to apple pie and from brownies to fish pie – in her first cookbook Perfect. Discover 68 essential recipes for every cook’s repertoire.
How can I make deliciously squidgy chocolate brownies? Is there a foolproof way to poach an egg? Does washing mushrooms really spoil them? What’s the secret of perfect pastry? Could a glass of milk turn a good Bolognese into a great one?
Perfect will answer all these questions and many, many more. Having rigorously tried and tested recipes from all the greats – from Elizabeth David and Delia Smith to Nigel Slater and Simon Hopkinson – Felicity Cloake has pulled together the best points from each to create the perfect version of 68 classic dishes.
Never again will you have to rifle through countless different books to find the your perfect roast chicken recipe, mayonnaise method or that incredible tomato sauce – it’s all here in this book, based on Felicity’s popular Guardian column, along with dozens of invaluable prepping and cooking tips that no discerning cook should live without.
Whether you’re a competent cook or have just caught the bug, Perfect has a place on every kitchen shelf.
‘Brilliant . . . finely honed culinary instincts, an open mind and a capacious cookbook collection . . . Miss Cloake has them all’ Evening Standard
Felicity Cloake 