Charlie Trotter Cooks At Home – Charlie Trotter

As Charlie Trotter states, the aim of this book is to help a home cook produce food of restaurant sophistication. Bearing this is mind, it is well worth reading his introduction. Seriously delicious food is the result of cooking while applying basic principles. He distils this maxim into a few pages of wise guidelines.

The book is simply set out into starters, main courses, vegetables and desserts, reflecting the fact that Trotter is an immensely intelligent man and a truly gifted restaurateur. His food is natural, casual, yet elegant and sophisticated. The recipes are relatively simple and written in a clear and succinct manner. Any, in his mind, questionable matters are dealt with in an "insights" section that accompanies each recipe, dedicated to clarifying a point or educating about an ingredient.

Ingredient education is important, because for those of us who are fusion virgins, some recipes are baffling even in their required shopping list. One advantage of using some of the suggested Oriental ingredients is that they help to guarantee results that are fully flavoured, even if some of the other dimensions of the recipe have collapsed.

This book tries to get across the potential of spontaneity and a more freehand style of cooking based on fantastic ingredients, simply prepared to respect flavour combinations and textures. Dishes such as ponzu-marinated scallops with daikon and pak choi, lobster and sweet corn ravioli with sweet corn broth, and jasmine rice pudding with lemon caramel sauce are mouthwatering examples of Trotter's imaginative and vibrant cooking.

This book is unusual in that the true style of cooking of most great chefs is inaccessible to the home cook, whereas here Trotter has put together a simple, informative book that works. My only serious complaint is the lack of photographs of the food. This is not because I don't like reading, it's simply that a photograph of the finished plate of food can do more than any amount of words in helping a cook get from A to B, from recipe to finished dish. It is ignorant to omit them and spend the saved publishing expense on arty photos of salad leaves, for example, at the beginning of a dessert section.

This does nothing to help achieve what the book does, in the most part, accomplish - to help bring sophistication and a bit of vitality to the home cook.

Philip Howard, chef-proprietor, The Square, London

Charlie Trotter Cooks At Home - Charlie Trotter. Ten Speed Press, £27.
ISBN 1-58008-250-5