Nigella Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home
The many fans of Lawson’s television shows will welcome this newest entry in the ever-growing series of cookbooks the ingenious and pneumatic kitchen diva has produced. Lawson is at home with any number of different cuisines, including Japanese, Italian, South African, Mexican, Australian, Thai, Korean, and her own native British cookery. In the last category she presents a spatchcocked Cornish game hen and intense gingerbread enriched with Guinness stout. She favors hearty meats such as lamb shanks and ham hocks. And she has special affection for dishes that one can easily serve at parties, ennobling even humble “pigs in blankets” with some decidedly sophisticated puff pastry. Recipes emphasize meticulous preparation and freshness of ingredients. The book includes a series of useful kitchen tips that Lawson has collected over the years. They range from tea-stain removal to easy pasta measuring. Occasional Briticisms may puzzle American readers, but they are far from insurmountable. --Mark Knoblauch