River Cottage A to Z: Our Favourite Ingredients, & How to Cook Them

by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Pam Corbin, Mark Diacono, Nikki Duffy, Nick Fisher

Overview

'Ingredients are at the heart of everything we do at River Cottage. By gathering our all-time favourites together, I hope to inspire you to look at them with fresh eyes and discover new ways of cooking them' Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

The definitive River Cottage kitchen companion. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and his team of experts have between them an unprecedented breadth of culinary expertise on subjects that range from fishing and foraging to bread-making, preserving, cheese-making and much more. In this volume they profile their best-loved and most-used ingredients. With more than three hundred entries covering vegetables, fruits, herbs, spices, meat, fish, fungi, foraged foods, pulses, grains, dairy, oils and vinegars, the River Cottage A to Z is a compendium of all the ingredients the resourceful modern cook might want to use in their kitchen.

Each ingredient is accompanied by a delicious, simple recipe or two: there are new twists on old favourites, such as cockle and chard rarebit, North African shepherd's pie, pigeon breasts with sloe gin gravy, or damson ripple parfait, as well as inspiring ideas for less familiar ingredients, like dahl with crispy seaweed or rowan toffee. And there are recipes for all seasons: wild garlic fritters in spring; cherry, thyme and marzipan muffins for summer; an autumnal salad of venison, apple, celeriac and hazelnuts; a hearty winter warmer of ale-braised ox cheeks with parsnips.

With more than 350 recipes, and brimming with advice on processes such as curing bacon and making yoghurt, the secret of perfect crackling and which apple varieties to choose for a stand-out crumble, as well as sourcing the most sustainable ingredients, this is an essential guide to cooking, eating and living well. More than anything, the River Cottage A to Z is a celebration of the amazing spectrum of produce that surrounds us – all brought to life by Simon Wheeler's atmospheric photography, and Michael Frith's evocative watercolour illustrations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781408863657
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	12/15/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	672
File size:	86 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is a writer, broadcaster and campaigner. His series for Channel 4 and the BBC have earned him a huge following, while his River Cottage books have collected multiple awards including the Glenfiddich Trophy and the André Simon Food Book of the Year. Joining him for this book are the team from River Cottage, including Gill Meller, Nikki Duffy, Mark Diacono, Pam Corbin, John Wright, Nick Fisher, Steven Lamb and Tim Maddams, all experts in their fields.

rivercottage.net / @rivercottage
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is a writer, broadcaster and campaigner. His recent BBC One series Easy Ways to Live Well, alongside comedian Steph McGovern, looked inwardly at our perceptions of healthy eating and wellbeing. Hugh's Channel 4 series have earned him a huge popular following, while his River Cottage books have collected multiple awards including the Glenfiddich Trophy and the André Simon Food Book of the Year. Hugh's additional broadcasting, like the hugely influential Fish Fight, has earned him a BAFTA as well as awards from Radio 4, Observer and the Guild of Food Writers. Hugh lives in Devon with his family.

@hughfearnleywhittingstall / @rivercottage / rivercottage.net
Pam Corbin is the UK's leading expert on jams, jellies, marmalades, chutneys, pickles and other preserves, and she has been in the business for more than thirty years. Pam and her husband Hugh moved to Devon where they bought an old pig farm and converted it into a small jam factory. Always using good, wholesome, seasonal ingredients, their products, sold under the Thursday Cottage label, soon became firm favourites with jam-lovers the world over. Pam has now hung up her professional wooden spoon but continues to 'jam' at home. She also works closely with the River Cottage team, making seasonal goodies using fruit, vegetables, herbs and flowers from her own garden, from Park Farm, and from the fields and hedgerows.
Mark Diacono is an award-winning writer and photographer. Known for his commitment to sustainable, ethically produced food, Mark was head of the Garden Team at Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage for many years before setting up Otter Farm, the Britain's first and only climate change farm.

@MarkDoc / @OtterFarmUK / otterfarm.co.uk
Nikki Duffy is the former Deputy Editor of the award-winning magazine Waitrose Food Illustrated as well as writing a weekly food column in the Guardian. She worked for three years as the River Cottage Food Editor and is now a freelance food writer. Nikki lives in Essex with her two beautiful daughters.
 
Tim Maddams, formerly Head Chef at the River Cottage Canteen, grew up in Wiltshire. He cooked in professional kitchens with Fergus Henderson, Alistair Little, Marco Pierre White and Mark Hix before returning to south-west England to work with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. A key spokesperson in the arena of responsibly sourced produce, in 2012 he founded his own company Green Sauce, teaching, cooking and consulting on ethical food.

rivercottage.net / @TimGreenSauce
Gill Meller is a chef, writer, food stylist and cookery teacher. He has been part of the River Cottage team for over 12 years, working closely with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. Gill is the author of two books in the River Cottage Handbook series, Pigs&Pork and Outdoor Cooking, and is also the author of two solo cookbooks, Gather and Time. He lives in Dorset with his family.
John Wright is the author of the River Cottage Handbooks Mushrooms, Edible Seashore and Hedgerow. As well as writing for national publications, he often appears on the River Cottage series for Channel 4. He gives lectures on natural history and every year he takes around fifty 'forays' showing people how to collect food - plants from the hedgerow, seaweeds and shellfish from the shore and mushrooms from pasture and wood. Over a period of twenty years he has taken around five hundred such forays. Fungi are his greatest passion and he has thirty-five years' experience in studying them. John Wright is a member of the British Mycological Society and a Fellow of the Linnaean Society. He lives in rural West Dorset with his wife and two teenage daughters.

www.wild-food.net/page/home

Editorial Reviews

01/02/2017
The latest, and most expansive, tome from the team at Fearnley-Whittingstall’s Devon, England–based River Cottage cooking school and restaurants is an alphabetical guide to some of their most commonly used ingredients, with accompanying recipes. Each entry, from alexanders to zander (zucchini appear under their British name of courgettes) receives a profile, tips on selection and seasonality, and a single recipe showcasing its key qualities. Unlike other books of this type that offer a “one and done” approach to an alphabetical listing, Fearnley-Whittingstall and company include additional recipes for each ingredient, should readers want to dig further. As a cookbook, it’s an interesting effort: the team’s recipes (deviled parsnips, paella. French beans with shallots and black olives, etc.) are fairly straightforward and few call for arcane or hard-to-source ingredients. But the book works better as a reference. The River Cottage crew hit all the right notes in their descriptions, whether they’re singing the praises of pork and spinach or explaining the various applications of salt. There’s a decidedly British bent to the book, and readers on this side of the pond may question the inclusion of U.K.-specific ingredients (bilberries, hake) or the need for a hogweed recipe. Still, it’s a fascinating and impressively produced work that will likely see greater use in the living room than the kitchen. (May)

Publishers Weekly

"The River Cottage crew hit all the right notes in their descriptions, whether they’re singing the praises of pork and spinach or explaining the various applications of salt . . . a fascinating and impressively produced work." - Publishers Weekly

"While these essays on individual ingredients offer comprehensive data on the origins, propagation, and culinary uses of vegetables, herbs, seafood, and meats, they are written with such enthusiasm and good humor that even nonfoodies may find themselves both intrigued and even laughingout loud. Written with a decidedly British voice, the book pours out a torrent of well-organized andvaluable reference material." - Booklist

"[A] delightful, veddy British doorstop of a book . . . the essays on ingredients are oftentimes as beautiful and evocative as they are smart and practical." - Atlanta Journal Constitution

From the Publisher