Herb

A Cook's Companion

Mark Diacono author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Quadrille Publishing Ltd

Published:15th Apr '21

£26.00

Available to order, but very limited on stock - if we have issues obtaining a copy, we will let you know.

Herb cover

Guild of Food Writer’s Awards, Highly Commended in ‘Specialist Subject Cookbook’ category (2022)

André Simon Awards shortlisted (2022)

"A beautiful book, and one which makes me want to cultivate my garden just as much as scurry to the kitchen." — Nigella Lawson

"At its core this book is about cooking, but it's an essential and valuable resource for folk who love to grow their own herbs and cook. Sorted by individual herbs with detailed notes on how to grow and use them, it's going to be a book I will turn to a lot over the years." — Nik Sharma

Herb is a plot-to-plate exploration of herbs that majors on the kitchen, with just enough of the simple art of growing to allow the reader to welcome a wealth of home-grown flavours into their kitchen.

Author Mark Diacono is a gardener as well as a cook. Packed with ideas for enjoying and using herbs, Herb is much more than your average recipe book. Mark shares the techniques at the heart of sourcing, preparing and using herbs well, enabling you to make delicious food that is as rewarding in the process as it is in the end result. The book explores how to use herbs, when to deploy them, and how to capture those flavours to use when they might not be seasonally available. The reader will become familiar with the differences in flavour intensity, provenance, nutritional benefits and more.

Focusing on the familiars including thyme, rosemary, basil, chives and bay, Herb also opens the door to a few lesser-known flavours. The recipes build on bringing your herbs alive – whether that’s a quickly swizzed parsley pesto when short of time on a weekday evening, or in wrapping a crumbly Lancashire cheese in lovage for a few weeks to infuse it with bitter earthiness.

With a guide to sowing, planting, feeding and propagating herbs, there are also full plant descriptions and their main culinary affinities. Mark then looks at various ways to preserve herbs including making oils, drying, vinegars, syrups and freezing, before offering over 100 innovative recipes that make the most of your new herb knowledge.

A beautiful book, and one which makes me want to cultivate my garden just as much as scurry to the kitchen. * Nigella Lawson *
Award-winning (and green-fingered) food-writer Mark Diacono shares the techniques at the heart of growing, preparing and using herbs, from basil and coriander to sage and everything in between. * Countryside *
Herbs are the most evocative of plants [...] Mark Diacono's latest book Herb perfectly captures these life-enhancing properties, urging us all to make more room for them in our gardens and on our plates. * Elle Decoration *
An ideal lockdown companion, packed with recipes and tips for delicious dishes that are a breeze to make. * The Sunday Times *
A reference book, growing guide and all-round love letter to herbs. * Delicious *
This is a genuinely intriguing and inspiring book. Diacono's enthusiasm is infectious, and his desire to share the pleasure herbs can bring to the garden and the table shines through. * Gardens Illustrated *
A comprehensive A-Z herb compendium provides an ultimate reference that cooks of all levels will find invaluable. * Enki *
A complete companion to identifying, growing and cooking with herbs. * Angela Hartnett *
Right now, Mark Diacono is the brightest writing star in the food firmament. * McKenna's *

ISBN: 9781787136359

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 1160g

272 pages