Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I approached this cookbook skeptically. It can be difficult to separate the cooking from the cult of personality, so to critique the recipes is to critique the woman. The cookbook has lots of chatter and lots of white space, but Nigella Lawson is a charming woman, so the chatter is friendly and companionable, and the book has lots of white space but it is slender and elegant and filled with beautiful photographs of every dish. Sections are organized as Breakfast, Comfort Food, TV Dinners, Rainy Day, Trashy, etc. These are more colorful than helpful, but one can find recipes by name or ingredient in the well-constructed index. No nutritional information is given for the recipes, but that's just as well.
I've tried eight recipes so far (and have many more marked to try). Of those eight, I would say three were resounding successes: the icing for the chocolate fudge cake will be at the top of my list whenever I need an airy but flavorful frosting; the sweet corn pudding was very good; and the double potato and halloumi bake was delicious though I couldn't find the sheep's milk cheese required for two of the book's recipes, even at a gourmet cheese shop. Two recipes were servable if not very exciting. And three of the eight recipes did not work for me at all. My Mozzarella in Carrozza, for example, never resulted in a stretchy warm concoction that I could pull lustily from my teeth, my neck outstretched in voluptuous splendor, though I tried several times.
Three additional comments: Several of the recipes I tried benefited from the addition of spice. Secondly, recipes have been lazily retooled from the metric units originally used, so instructions often call for multiple multi-measurement ingredients -- 1 cup + 2 T flour, 1/4 cup + 1 t sugar, etc etc. Finally, quite a few recipes call for self-rising flour; you can make the equivalent of 1 cup of self-rising flour by mixing 1 cup of all-purpose flour + 1-1/2 teaspoons of baking powder + 1/4 teaspoon of salt.
Ultimately this is not a flawless effort, but Nigella has the charm and talent to pull off a successful personality cookbook, and though results might be mixed, the good recipes are archetypal. That ain't bad.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Nigella Bites: From Family Meals to Elegant Dinners -- Easy, Delectable Recipes For Any Occasion
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