COOKING COMPANION
Cookbook Corner 10-MINUTE SOURDOUGH: BREADMAKING FOR REAL LIFE Vanessa Kimbell £18.99, Kyle Books In her new book, the queen of sourdough, Vanessa Kimbell, offers a fool proof guide to slow bread for busy lives. Sourdough is one of the tastiest and most nutritious breads you can make, but it has a reputation for being both tricky and timeconsuming. 10-Minute Sourdough is packed full of fuss-free no-knead recipes which require no more than 10 minutes' active work in total (not including fermentation time or time in the oven), meaning anyone can turn their hand to sourdough baking, no matter how little time they have. The book contains five easy master sourdough recipes for a tin loaf, a cake, a ciabatta, a pizza, and a boule, alongside key information on how to create and maintain a starter, ingredients and equipment and helpful Q&As and troubleshooting advice. Taking you through the seasons, the bakes range from a Beer Boule, Orange Curd Cake, and a Garlic & Rosemary Sourdough Bundt Focaccia, perfect for any summer entertaining, through to wonderful ideas for autumn, including Apple Spelt Sourdough Bake with Cinnamon Butter, Traditional Ginger Cake and even a Spiders’ Legs Halloween Bread.
62 | THE WEST COUNTRY FOODLOVER
WAGAMAMA YOUR WAY
TOFU TASTY
£20, Octopus wagamama your way: fresh, flexible recipes for body + mind follows the hugely successful 2019 title, feed your soul, which really struck a chord in lockdown when the brand’s Wok from Home YouTube films went viral and more than 10 million people tuned in to recreate the iconic katsu curry at home. The new book brings the wagamama story up to date, with all-new healthy recipes that reflect their ethos of flexitarian meals, plant-based ingredients and Asian flavours, emphasising wagamama's drive for positive eating and positive living, inclusivity and wellbeing. Each of the 70 recipes will include hints for alternative ingredients so you can create plant-based versions of any meat dishes. From vegan katsu curry and vegetarian firecracker to mandarin and sesame salad, prawn tempura ramen, and sticky mushroom and squash stir fry, expect to find new variations on wagamama favourites, as well as nourishing quick eats and soulful comfort food.
Bonnie Chung £14.99, Pavilion Books Reliable, versatile and essential, Bonnie Chung’s kitchen is never without tofu. It’s her go-to pantry saviour for so many last-minute dinners and she eats it almost every day in one of its many forms. Tofu has experienced a true renaissance in this new era of plant-based eating, as we search for more sustainable sources of protein. This is a really exciting time for tofu, and Bonnie shares recipes for cooking it with confidence, as well as suggestions for making different types of tofu from scratch. In Tofu Tasty, Bonnie hopes to expand your tofu horizons, sharing with you the many different types and the multitude of ways in which you can cook it. You’ll find all of her favourite dishes, which will hopefully make their way, quickly and firmly, into your cooking repertoire. The book is organised into seven chapters to distinguish between the different types and textures of tofu. All of the recipes are vegetarian to start with and some include twists that may include meat, fish and other swaps, as you prefer. With more than 60 vibrant recipes included from across Asia — picking the best from Japan, China and Korea — and other dishes of Bonnie’s own invention, if you have any preconceptions about what tofu is like, forget them...
