Rosemary: Castle Cook – Rosemary Shrager
If there were an honorary title, "Mere", Rosemary Shrager would deserve it. Her cooking, balanced between modern professional and traditional bourgois styles, is totally seductive. The technique reflects her mentor, Pierre Koffmann; her raw materials, from the Isle of Harris, have a unique sparkle; and the recipe development, clever but unfussy, is all her own.
Chefs' cookery books often justly stand charged with being impractical or, worse, with having recipes that don't work. They dilute what the Great Man does in his own kitchen into what his editor thinks the public can handle. But in Rosemary: Castle Cook there's never a sniff of compromise or dumbing down, yet the dishes are always accessible.
Fish and shellfish steal the show. Photographs of crab, lobster, "squatties" and langoustines bounce off the page. Simply prepared (roast lobster sauternes), naturally presented (scallops in a paper bag with egg noodle and ginger), sometimes with unexpected twists (herrings with couscous), they capture the spirit of the place just as Rick Stein's recipes do for Padstow.
The game dishes photograph less well, but their preparation is sensible, usually on the bone and accompanied with gutsy sauces. One, which goes with roast grouse, reads particularly well: celery, leek, shallot, red wine, stock, blackberry puree and rowan jelly.
There's no "starter" section, and no "vegetable" chapter either. Desserts are few and simple, though the homely Scottish baking at the end of the book contrasts quite dramatically with the fine cuisine preceeding it.
Ostensibly, the book ties in with the chef's Amhuinnsuidhe cookery school facing the island of Taransay. In fact, it's an object lesson in handling the finest produce.
by Michael Raffael, food writer
Rosemary: Castle Cook - Rosemary Shrager. Everyman, £18.99.
ISBN 1-84159-049-5
