Donna Hay: cookbook tested

I was as happy as a child when Donna Hay’s new cookbook, Basics to Brilliance, was delivered to the editorial office. She is one of my favourites in the category of TV chefs and cookbook authors, because she knows how to create the most delicious things with just a few ingredients. To see whether she had managed it once again in this book, I tested three recipes.

Basics to Brilliance is made up of basic recipes, which you can expand into different dishes. For example, she gives you a recipe for crispy fried chicken. You can then use that chicken to make a crispy chicken burger, chicken salad with Southern-style buttermilk dressing or chicken rolls with coleslaw. An arrangement that is perfect for the beginner cook who wants to expand their repertoire.

Slow-cooked lamb
Some recipes had already appeared in her magazine or could be found on Donna’s website. I had made the slow-cooked lamb shoulder before, and it was a great success. Donna now also turns it into grilled open sandwiches with provolone and salsa verde, and a crispy potato rösti with pulled lamb, yoghurt and mint.

Rustic
The photography is beautiful, as we have come to expect from Donna. This time it is less clean, because the food is photographed against a dark rather than a light background. This gives the book a somewhat rawer look, and the dishes come into their own beautifully. Ideally, I would make all the recipes immediately. Unfortunately, there are only seven days in a week, so I chose three that can be made easily during the week.

Peking duck
I did cheat with the first one. For the Asian noodles with roasted Peking duck and green vegetables, I used ready-made Peking duck. Would you prefer to make the duck yourself? Then it takes about an hour longer; the duck spends most of its time in the oven, so it still isn’t much work. The sauce with the noodles is delicious; I added a little chilli oil of my own accord, and you have a top-notch dish.

Favourite: gnocchi
The absolute favourite was the ricotta and garlic gnocchi with sage butter. The ricotta dough is made not with potato but with flour and egg—just stir it together. Roasted garlic, mashed until completely smooth, is mixed through it. Because you fry the cooked gnocchi until crispy in sage butter, you get the most heavenly dish on earth. The green curry with chicken was also easy to prepare and nicely spicy.

Essential
Plenty of attention is paid to the essential basics, which you can use in a hundred different ways, and those with a sweet tooth have not been forgotten either. Think: lemon curd, vanilla ice cream, the perfect fluffy pancake, salsa verde, French vinaigrette, pesto, poached eggs and perfect white rice. While some cookbooks are mainly for inspiration, this is one you will want to start cooking from immediately. So get it quickly.

Basics to Brilliance
Donna Hay (website)
€ 35.00
Spectrum