Much as she enjoys haute cuisine, she’s not likely to reproduce it at home, preferring to experiment with recipes from domestic kitchens abroad. That said, it is a book to inspire serious cooks, particularly those who want to be experimental and step away from the rigid adherence to the recipe. Niki Segnit had not so much as peeled a potato until her early twenties, when, almost by accident, she discovered that she loved cooking. Her background is in marketing, specialising in food and drink, and she has worked with many famous brands of confectionary, snacks, baby foods, condiments, dairy products, hard liquors and soft drinks. So, in addition to the flavouring suggestions, each starting point recipe comes with a list of ‘leeway’ bullet points that illustrate the different ways the basic recipe can be prepared and variations in ingredients (and this is before you get on to the more major variations of the flavouring suggestions).

The book is divided into twelve chapters covering subjects such as ‘Bread’, ‘Sauces’ or ‘Custard’, and the recipes in each chapter are arranged on a continuum, with the transition from one to the next incorporating only a tweak or two in the method or ingredients.Alongside the illustrations, other design details such as a repeated arrow motif, stepped painted edges and footnote-styled supporting texts reflect and experiment with the visual language of traditional reference books. The recipes in each chapter are arranged on a continuum, passing from one to another with just a tweak or two to the method or ingredients. But as she tested the combinations that informed The Flavor Thesaurus , she detected the basic rubrics that underpinned most recipes. I was surprised when I found that pan de muerto and conchas, a traditional mexican bread, is an orange scented brioche! So, for example, in the potato gnocchi entry Segnit tells you about the flour potato weight and add flour in patient increments but there is no explicit recipe.

Lateral Cooking is, in a sense, the ‘method’ companion to its bestselling predecessor, The Flavour Thesaurus – and is just as useful, ingeniously organised and enjoyable to read. You will find yourself inventing novel dishes, just by applying the logic from this book, with surprising results. As the scope of the book is not Eurocentric at all, and is actually very straight forward, I would recommend this as top 3 cookbook for any cook who wants to become better, more educated and inspired in the kitchen.Lateral Cooking is essentially a practical book, but like The Flavour Thesaurus it’s also a highly enjoyable read. My new favourite and I would recommend it to anyone who is comfortable enough cooking to break away from the traditional recipe layout and bend the rules. It will give you the confidence to experiment with flavour, and adapt with the seasons or the contents of your fridge. We created over 400 original illustrations for the book to bring the words and ideas within its extensive text to life, reflecting Segnit’s desire for suggestive rather than prescriptive imagery to accompany her writing.

It’s a genius way of helping people develop an instinct for what differentiates two very similar dishes on a spectrum and hence know how they can push and experiment with it. Come down the travelators, exit Sainsbury's, turn right and follow the pedestrianised walkway to Crown Walk and turn right - and Coles will be right in front of you. The result is greater creativity in the Lateral Cooking encourages improvisation, resourcefulness, and, ultimately, the knowledge and confidence to cook by heart. The starting point recipes are designed to be simple, but the idea of the book is not just to master those simple recipes, but to become an all round instinctive cook who understands ingredients and cooking methods so well that you won’t need recipes or cookery books anymore. Please Note: By their very nature, all signed books will have been handled several times before they get to you.This book shows the many ways ingredients can be replaced, how there's always leeway in a dish, and how just the smallest changes can take you into new territory. Otherwise, I’m not sure this book would be the first I’d reach for when planning a weekly household menu for example. Lateral Cooking is organised into 77 'starting-point' recipes, including plenty of tips for substituting ingredients and reducing the phenomenal variety of world cuisine down to its bare essentials - and then building it back up again. Lateral Cooking by Niki Segnit, bestselling author of The Flavour Thesaurus, provides a detailed examination of the key techniques and culinary categories that underpin contemporary cookery.

Segnit says that Lateral Cooking is ‘a practical handbook, designed to help creative cooks develop their own recipes’. Once you have the hang of each starting point, a wealth of new flavour combinations awaits, each related in Niki's signature combination of culinary science, history, chefs' wisdom and personal anecdote. Which is to say, one dish leads to another: once you’ve got the hang of flatbreads, for instance, then its neighbouring dishes on the continuum (crackers, soda bread, scones) will involve the easiest and most intuitive adjustment. It's goal is to teach the reader method and technique and then skills to riff on that with whatever is available. So you might want to try and track down candied melon to make your own Calissons D’aix, a lozenge shaped sweet from Aix-en-Provence made with a marzipan like mix of ground almonds and flavoured with honey, Grand Marnier and orange flower water as well as the aforementioned candied melon.You will realise that recipes that you had thought were outside of your experience are reassuringly similar to things you've made a dozen times before. Riding on a wave of cookbooks the last decade oriented more towards process, Segnit follows up on her already mind-blowing Flavor Thesaurus with this cornucopia of dishes. Lateral Cooking is organised into 77 'starting-point' recipes, reducing the phenomenal variety of world cuisine down to its bare essentials – and then building it back up again.