Lockdown creations: the best of the year’s cookery books reviewed

‘I may, one day, stop making notes and writing down recipes,’ Nigel Slater says in A Cook’s Book (Fourth Estate, £30). Please don’t. This is his 16th book and his writing feels as fresh as it ever did. I remember cutting out his recipes from Elle Magazine three decades ago, and I do not believe he has ever put pen to paper without wanting his ideas to work for others. Mountains of good food must have been set on tables and shared by people as a result, because Slater is a master of his trade. ‘A recipe must work. Otherwise, what’s the point?’ he says.

Quite; though a cynic would add that the genre is full of recipes that either don’t work or never quite resemble the glories of a book’s images. A Cook’s Book is a gift to a novice, as well as a reminder to a seasoned, even tired, cook of what it is all about. The practice of cookery is like that of any pursuit: the more you do it, the better you will become, and the more able to adapt and problem-solve — as long as you do not give up.

Yet every enthusiastic, dedicated home cook reaches a point when they feel it would be so nice to hang up the apron. You have cooked for fussy partners, picky children, the person who rings up mid-afternoon on the day of the dinner to tell you they’re vegan-ish… You have had enough. What you need is a booster jab of inspiration: a reminder of why you love cooking. This is where Slater comes in, with green Thai bubble-and- squeak fritters; griddled asparagus with buttery lemon mash — a brilliant dish in which the potato reflects the flavour of the asparagus like a disco ball; or a plum and blackcurrant ‘free-form’ pie — an amoeba-cum-tart that an amateur cannot fail at.