Global Grub 30 Minutes
Global Grub is, apparently, a ‘revolutionary new cookbook’. Well, I don’t know about that, but I do think that it’s a very good offering for the nervous, first time cook.
The book is spiral bound, with sturdy wipe clean pages, so you don’t have to worry about copying out a recipe and taking a piece of paper into the kitchen so you don’t spoil the book! Or maybe that’s just me.
Global Grub features just 9 main course recipes, and an additional one for home made pesto. The dishes are all fairly straightforward, but do look good enough on the plate to impress. They’re all safe choices too: quick chicken masala, pesto, olive and bacon tagliatelle, hot chicken satay baguette, salmon, vodka and cream risotto, Mediterranean omelette, steak with peppercorn sauce, sizzling garlic buttered prawns, Thai green vegetable curry and the British Bolognese.
Each recipe is broken in to the same components: a shopping list, some background on the recipe, preparation and a ‘minute-by-minute’ cooking guide. What I particularly liked is that each recipe is accompanied by a drink suggestion. If you can’t cook or you’re scared of your kitchen, this book could be for you!
So, to try it out, I opted for the pesto, olive and bacon tagliatelle. The meal was going to be on the table in 30 minutes! It actually took me about 15 minutes, but I suspect I’m a little more practised in the kitchen than the book’s target market. The ingredients are store cupboard standbys (bacon, pesto, olives, garlic), so you won’t have any problems sourcing them. I liked mixing some cream into the pesto, though I did think that the final product was a little heavy on the oil. You start with a ’slurp’ for cooking the bacon, but with the added fats of the bacon itself, pesto and cream you need to be a little careful. Other than that, the dish was a hit: easy to make and tasty. The addition of the olives definitely adds a lot more palate interest.
After this experience I’ll definitely be trying out some of the other recipes: I’m particularly interested by the risotto, and the chicken masala will also no doubt get the emergency meal treatment!
Available from Amazon.co.uk
