Product Description

Whether you are a beginner, an occasional cook or an accomplished one, The New Cook will guide and inspire you to create great food without fuss. Begin with the basics if your kitchen confidence needs a boost or go straight to the easy-to-follow recipes to make a new kind of meal where the approach is simple, the ingredients are fresh and the flavors are unforgettable. Complicated, time-consuming recipes and hard-to-get ingredients will become a thing of the past when The New Cook takes over your kitchen.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #137456 in Books
• Published on: 2003-10-01
• Released on: 2003-09-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Amazon.com Review
On the cover of Donna Hay's The New Cook is a photograph of a stack of white plates and on the top is a bowl of wok-fried salted chili crab--very chic. It sets the tone for what you'll find inside: modern food layered with contrasting flavors beautifully presented. In a word, it's very Australian. And it should be, as Hay is the food editor of Australian Marie Claire magazine. The book will provide inspiration for accomplished cooks and easy-to-follow recipes that begin with the basics for those who are less assured in the kitchen. The basics are pretty similar to Delia Smith's, with instructions on how to scramble and poach eggs. Hay moves on quickly to a Caramelised Onion Frittata and Roast Pumpkin and Soft Quail Egg Salad. Similar examples follow with pasta and rice--after mastering a basic risotto, Hay offers several variations such as Miso and Shiitake Risotto and Saffron Porcini Risotto Cakes. Noodles, vegetables, poultry, and meat follow. You will learn how to make a delicious-looking Grilled Chicken and Fig Salad as well as Steamed Pork Buns. The final three chapters describe the most wonderful desserts using fruit, butter, and milk. The book is lavishly illustrated with top-class food photography. It's a work of art, but would be wasted on a coffee table. It's a perfect example of how Australian cooks have masterfully fused Mediterranean and Asian cuisines to create clean, crisp tastes that are astonishingly good. --Dale Kneen, Amazon.co.uk

About the Author
When most other girls were playing with their Barbie dolls or out climbing trees and getting their knees dirty, Donna Hay was in the kitchen, armed with a cookie cutter and ready to set upon every ingredient with a bottle of food colouring and a generous sprinkling of hundreds and thousands. It was experimental cooking at its best.

Over the years, Donna's interest in food and cooking grew and after some formal training, she began a career as a freelance food writer and stylist when she was 19. Donna was appointed food editor of leading Australian magazine Marie Claire and Marie Claire Lifestyle at the age of 25. While at Marie Claire, Donna wrote and styled four internationally bestselling books #150; Cooking, Dining, Flavours and Food Fast. The books received a number of the world's most prestigious food awards.

In 2001, Donna joined HarperCollins and released Off the Shelf: Cooking from the Pantry. Like all of Donna's other cookbooks it was a great success and can be found in hundreds of thousands of kitchens around Australia and the world.

Donna's recipes are renowned for their fresh modern flavours, stylish presentation, ease of preparation and readily available ingredients. Her relaxed approach to cooking inspire cooks of all levels of experience and her fresh, modern style has become a benchmark for contemporary cookbooks and recipe writing.

Her latest book, Modern Classics Book 1, is also destined to become a staple for every modern cook.

Donna's recipes and ideas can also be found in her magazine, Donna Hay, and in the Sunday editions of News Limited newspapers around Australia and in New Zealand.

Customer Reviews

GREAT Cookbook for New OR Bored Cooks
I own many cookbooks -- and I cook. This is one of the cookbooks I turn to again and again when we need something new and different. I've tried many recipes: with some I improvise to fit what I have or what my family will eat and with others I use the recipe as a "concept" and add a little something. But, the dishes with VEGETABLES that my husband asks for most often come from this book (I never knew he liked roasted sweet potatoes). Even our son-in-law in Sweden asks for these recipes. (His current favorite is the spaghetti with grilled chicken and asparagus - changed to zucchini). I knew this was a great cookbook - but their endorsement seals it!

what an awesome cookbook
a friend recommended i get this book. she's made many of the recipes in the book and absolutely loved them. when i first started looking through it i was a little hesitant to try the recipes because the ingredient and flavor combinations are so different from what one normally sees. but it turns out that they work! and really well. everything i've made from this cookbook has been delicious. as i've made more of the recipes, i've gotten better at substituting ingredients here and there based upon what i have. many of the recipes in the book are good for that, which i really appreciate (it means that i'll actually use the recipes rather than the cookbook gathering dust on the shelf, because i don't happen to have some random spice that the author insists is crucial for the dish). also, the vegetable recipes are REALLY good, and very far from your normal boring vegetable recipes! they are tasty and actually use vegetables that have some amount of nutritional value.

a couple of recipes from the book that we've made already: the buttermilk pancakes are great, the salmon with chervil and roasted carrots and parsnips was astounding, the sweet potato (or was it yam?) pie with thyme, pumpkin gnocchi was excellent. i agree with the person who mentioned rieslings -- rieslings seem to go really well with a lot of food in this book.

Adventures with Food
I bought both The New Cook and Entertaining during the same month due to the interesting food pairings and fusion of different ethinic cooking styles. I have not been dissapointed. Most of the recipes are extremely simple to make yet real crowd pleasers! (I feel confident enought with this cookbook to make a recipe without taste-testing it first - not many cookbooks inspire me to do this!) I am an avid cook (mostly vegetarian, some seafood.) The variety and richness of the flavors in this book continually inpsire my desire to create in the kitchen, and i really enjoy just browsing through it to learn about interesting food pairings and unusual combinations. If you'd like a little food adventure, this one's for you!