Photo by Tamin Jones
Salt is essential, is not just the title of the great Shaun Hill’s book: it is a maxim that anyone who cooks should live by and, it just so happens, my personal credo. Hill has been cooking a long time, a very, very long time, and he’s seen off fads and fashions and any number of pop-up restaurant rock’n’roll stars. I love his drive, his emphatic belief in flavour, his culinary inquisitiveness and the wry irascibility that comes from a lifetime in a professional kitchen. This is not a book that exactly takes you through the basics, and yet it instils the reader with a respect for them. And, as you’d expect, it’s full of pithily written recipes, traditional and new, that home cooks can comfortably cook in their own kitchen.
There are so many recipes I could have chosen — and reading the book over and over again trying to make my selection was a pleasure in itself — but I’ve gone for the Jansson’s Temptation. I just can’t think of anything I’d prefer to be cooking or eating right now.
Salt Is Essential by Shaun Hill, published by Kyle Books.
Photography: Tamin Jones
Photo by Tamin Jones
