The life - and life behind the scenes - of one of Britain's best-known chefs. The Roux family is the most influential family associated with food in Britain. Through their various restaurants (Le Gavroche, Waterside Inn, Brasserie Roux) and catering services they have trained many of Britain's top chefs. Albert and Michel Sr brought French high cuisine to Britain in the sixties, much of the produce being brought twice weekly from France by Michel's mother in the family car. Michel grew up in an environment of respect for fine food and ingredients, of never settling for second best, and of traditional French family excursions to find wild food. He tells the story of what it was like to grow up as part of this close-knit family. He left school at 16 to start his first apprenticeship with Maitre Patissier Hellegourarche in Paris. He then worked with Alain Chapel at Mionnay before doing his mililtary service at the Elysee Palace cooking for Presidents Giscard d'Estaing and Francois Mitterand. After a stint cooking at the Mandarin Hotel in Hong Kong and catering in London, he took over the running of Le Gavroche in 1994.
This book tells the story of what happens when an essentially Parisian institution travels and establishes itself in its neighbour’s capital city, bringing with it French food culture and culinary practices. The arrival and evolution of the French restaurant in the British capital is a tale of culinary and cultural exchange and of continuity and change in the development of London’s dining-out culture. Although the main character of this story is the French restaurant, this cultural history also necessarily engages with the people who produce, purvey, purchase and consume that food culture, in many different ways and in many different settings, in London over a period of some one hundred and fifty years. British references to France and to the French are littered with associations with food, whether it is desired, rejected, admired, loathed, envied, disdained, from the status of haute cuisine and the restaurants and chefs associated with it to contemporary concerns about food poverty and food waste, to dietary habits and the politicisation of food, and at every level in between. However, thinking about the place of the French restaurant in London restaurant and food culture over a long time span, in many and varied places and spaces in the capital, creates a more nuanced picture than that which may at first seem obvious.
Michel grew up in an environment of respect for fine food and ingredients, of never settling for second best, and of traditional French family excursions to find wild food. He tells the story of what it was like to grow up as part of this close-knit family. He left school at 16 to start his first apprenticeship with Maitre Patissier Hellegourarche in Paris. He then worked with Alain Chapel at Mionnay before doing his mililtary service at the Elysee Palace. After a stint cooking at the Mandarin Hotel in Hong Kong and catering in London, he took over the running of Le Gavroche in 1994.
The Guardian's 'How to Make' food columnist Felicity Cloake is on a mission to find the perfect recipes for staple dishes, from spag bol to apple pie and from brownies to fish pie, in her first cookbook Perfect - 68 essential reciepes 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 Guardian and New Statesman food columnist Felicity Cloake is the winner of the 2011 Guild of Food Writers awards for Food Journalist of the Year and New Media of the Year; follow Felicity on Twitter @FelicityCloake.
From Australia’s favourite new health-food chef comes the follow up to the bestselling Fabulous Food Minus the Boombah. Like most of us, Jane Kennedy can’t eat anything she wants because she gets FAT. After having five children in six years and trying every fad diet known to man in an attempt to shift excess weight, Jane decided to take matters into her own hands. A lifetime love of cooking, teamed with a refusal to give up the flavours of her favourite meals, led Jane to develop her own dishes that are delicious but also good for you. In Jane’s second book, OMG! I can eat that?, she shares some of her favourite recipes, just without all the unwanted fat. Chapters include Nibbles, Soups, Piemakins, Chicken & Duck, Beef, Lamb & Pork, Fish & Seafood, Comfort Classics, Vegetables and Dessert. And these recipes aren’t your typical ‘diet’ recipes either, with delicious meals such as Chicken, Leek and Mushrooms ‘piemakins’ (pies in ramekins minus the pastry), Beef Bourguignon, Boombahfree burgers, and even sweet treats like Rhubarb and strawberry crumble, you’ll forget you’re even eating food minus the boombah!
French gastronomy is renowned for its classic recipes passed from generation to generation. From Burgundy to the Auvegne, Provence, the Loire and the Pyrenees, traditional family cooking has always been at the heart of the French kitchen and lifestyle. With its delicious dishes and exquisite ingredients as diverse as they regions from which they came from, heritage cooking and family values from provincial France have stood the test of time. In this book Michel Roux Jr., star of MasterChef and owner of the two-Michelin star Le Gavroche in London, explores the heritage of his native French cuisine. With classic recipes using delicious ingredients, Michel Roux Jr. will help you brings provincial French cooking into your kitchen and helps you to recreate the 'je ne sais quoi' that only French cuisine can embody.
A prodigious talent stalked by controversy, celebrity chef John Burton-Race has always lived life on the edge, and remains nothing if not pragmatic. “I wear people down. I’m a bit of a basket case.” Born in Singapore in 1957 to a British diplomat father, Burton-Race helped the family chef while being exposed to global tastes and flavors that still influence his style of cooking. He worked under renowned chef Raymond Blanc at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons and when Blanc opened Le Petit Blanc in Oxford, he turned to Burton-Race to head the kitchen. Here the young, aspiring chef would win his first Michelin star. Three years later he opened his own restaurant, L’Ortolan in Berkshire. Awarded two Michelin stars, the achievement was repeated in 2000 at John Burton-Race Restaurant at London’s Landmark Hotel. Television viewers, however, bore witness to his mercurial nature in the fly-on-the-wall series French Leave and Return of the Chef, and an appearance on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here ended in disaster when his second wife closed his Devon restaurant while he was in the Australian bush. Possessed of an innate talent for self destruction, John Burton-Race is still driven, still complex, still controversial, still living life at 100 miles an hour. This is his story.
Follows the life journey of chef Hassan Haji, who progresses from his family's modest restaurant in Mumbai to master haute cuisine in an elegant Parisian restaurant.
More than just an autobiography of the most famous French chef resident in Britain, this book also contains an important recipe section. Beginning with his early life in France in the 1940s, the book tells of Roux's move to England and his subsequent success.