With an industry wide reputation for being both a brilliant and meticulous chef, Marcus Wareing's high standards are now also familiar to home cooks, thanks to his role as a judge on BBC Two's MasterChef: The Professionals.
But while Marcus Wareing New Classics
New Classics delivers a contemporary twist on family favourites, such as roast chicken, beef bourguignon and crumble, while also asserting to create new classics, largely born out of the recipes Wareing cooks at home, including fish tacos, Thai vegetable curry and Cumberland sausage, onion and potato pie.
The opening chapter âFrom the gardenâ, reflects the influence of his fruit-and-vegetable merchant father and highlights the benefits of salt-baking. Rather than creating a salt crust, Wareing prefers to work with a salt dough, suggesting that it imparts more flavour to the food it encloses.
âThe flour in the dough lessens the intensity of the salt, enabling more control over the seasoning,â he writes, sharing his recipes for salt-baked parsnip and horseradish crumble and salt-baked kabocha squash (a small and sweet, dry-fleshed pumpkin) with pomegranate, ricotta and mint.
âFrom the farmâ features hanger (or onglet) steak. He recommends brining the steak for two hours in salt, white peppercorns, coriander seeds, fennel seeds, thyme and bay leaf, before griddling it and then roasting it in the oven.
In âFrom the seaâ readers get a glimpse of young Wareingâs inspiration when he worked on the fish section at the Savoy, while the book closes with âFrom the store cupboardâ containing items that youâre likely to have in your larder (hurrah!) rather than those improbable suggestions by certain celebrity chefs.
Co-authored by Wareingâs group director of operations and chef-patron of Tredwells, Chantelle Nicholson, New Classics features photography by Jonathan Gregson, which, one could argue, is worth the price tag alone.
By Amanda Afiya
If you like this, why not try
The Skills by Monica Galetti
Marcus at Home by Marcus Wareing
Knife Skills by Marcus Wareing and Shaun Hill
Marcus Wareing New Classics By Marcus Wareing with **Chantelle Nicholson (**Harper Collins Publishers, £20)