The Caribbean Cook

It is possible to like the chef, like his recipes, but dislike his book. If I get the bits that bug me a lot off my chest first, there should be enough space to give Patrick Williams the credit he deserves for sexing up his London-Jamaican fusion cuisine.

It's not his fault, but The Caribbean Cook (just out in paperback) is a very rainforest-unfriendly piece of publishing. Filling a page with 40 words on garlic butter, 35 on Marie Rose dressing or 26 words for Patrick's Punch is stretching design criteria beyond breaking point. It's also lazily edited. Seasoning is omitted from some recipes. Words like "sliced" are used indiscriminately. Introductory blurbs are casual and unhelpful. Portioning is sketchy and approximate. It's only by going to the glossary that you realise that "allspice" and "pimento seeds" are interchangeable terms for the same ingredient.

That said, the recipes themselves are simple, practical and often a load more interesting than those that some chefs come up with. OK, so it's easy to substitute butternut squash for potato in a gratin dauphinoise or, as the chef does a couple of pages later, make a gratin savoyarde with christophene and sweet potato, but the new combinations work. And why not beef up standard salads with some scotch bonnet chilli?

It's in the last chapter, "Stocks, sauces, salsas and dressings", that other professionals will find the core information to justify spending £12.99. A marinade for barbecues, a hot and creamy plantain sauce, chargrilled sweet corn and tomato salsa and a dozen other recipes would find happy homes on pub menus, in bistros and in the cost sector. Pimento oil, chilli and coconut butter or a new take on Thousand Island dressing show Williams to be a bright, imaginative chef.

This was never intended to be a manual for professionals, though - it's more like a book to go with a TV series. Expect to find recipes including baked beans and advice to use supermarket crabmeat. Expect some Caribbean standards such as ackee and salt fish, but also the odd surprise such as caramelised pineapple with tamarind ice-cream.

Michael Raffael, food writer

The Caribbean Cook
Patrick Williams
Penguin, £12.99
ISBN 0-140-29544-5