Lateral Cooking: Foreword by Yotam Ottolenghi

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The book looks at a core recipe and takes you along a continuum, so that you can tweak a bread recipe, for example, by replacing some of the liquid with another form (egg for water) and it will still work (probably! Otherwise, I’m not sure this book would be the first I’d reach for when planning a weekly household menu for example. Whether or not you like the book will depend on how willing you are to go with Segnit’s basic conceit of the cooking continuum, how important you feel it is to understand cooking from that perspective and if you agree that it will turn you into an instinctive cook (if you are not one already) and if that’s what you want to be. So, in addition to the flavouring suggestions, each starting point recipe comes with a list of ‘leeway’ bullet points that illustrate the different ways the basic recipe can be prepared and variations in ingredients (and this is before you get on to the more major variations of the flavouring suggestions).

Entertaining, opinionated, and inspirational, with a handsome three-color design, Lateral Cooking will have you torn between donning your apron and settling back in a comfortable chair. Lateral Cooking offers these formulas, which, once readers are familiar with them, will prove infinitely adaptable. My new favourite and I would recommend it to anyone who is comfortable enough cooking to break away from the traditional recipe layout and bend the rules. Lateral Cooking is essentially a practical book, but like The Flavour Thesaurus it’s also a highly enjoyable read. Lateral Cooking by Niki Segnit, bestselling author of The Flavour Thesaurus, provides a detailed examination of the key techniques and culinary categories that underpin contemporary cookery.So, for example, in the potato gnocchi entry Segnit tells you about the flour potato weight and add flour in patient increments but there is no explicit recipe. Which is to say, one dish leads to another: once you’ve got the hang of flatbreads, for instance, then its neighbouring dishes on the continuum (crackers, soda bread, scones) will involve the easiest and most intuitive adjustment. At over 600 pages long, its a brick of a book, with densely packed pages illustrated only by simple red ink line drawings.

I got it on Kindle because it would have taken too long to get a physical copy shipped - and it isn't cheap in hardback! Each chapter opens with an illustrated double page spread which introduces the reader to that chapter’s recipes.

On BBC Radio 4, she has contributed to The Food Programme, Woman's Hour and Word of Mouth, and her columns, features and reviews have appeared in the Guardian, Observer, The Times, The Times Literary Supplement, The Sunday Times and Prospect magazine. Lateral Cooking is a comprehensive work and notable academic achievement, taking a fresh perspective on a well worn subject that will have you thinking about cooking in a new way. Come down the travelators, exit Sainsbury's, turn right and follow the pedestrianised walkway to Crown Walk and turn right - and Coles will be right in front of you. So, under 'Bread', we learn that flatbreads, oatcakes, buckwheat noodles, chapattis and tortillas are all variations on one theme.