'The Quick Roasting Tin' by Rukmini Iyer

I received this book along with 'The Green Roasting Tin' and 'The Roasting Tin Around the World' for my birthday in 2022. Initially, the World book was my favourite - the geographical organisation gives you a sense of exploring the world through food - but now I'm not so sure.

The Quick book is organised into themed chapters such as 'Worknight Dinners' and 'Date Night', which I didn't feel as excited by. However, I think this book may contain recipes I love more than those in World.

Over the past two years I've made 51/75 recipes in this book, some of them multiple times.

Worknight Dinners - 11/11 recipes made

These were some of the first recipes I made from this book - because most of the meals I cook are 'Worknight Dinners' - but as a result most have faded from memory and my notes are not especially detailed. The Tomato, Leek & Artichoke Bake (pg40) is my favourite from this section and one I have made multiple times - it is a vegetarian alternative to Toad-In-The-Hole that periodically becomes a household regular when jarred artichokes are on offer in Lidl. The Cauliflower Curry (pg42) is great, but is similar to other cauliflower curries in Iyer's other books. I remember really enjoying the Beetroot Orzotto (pg34), but made the mistake of making it too many times in a short period and going off it - I haven't made it since, unfortunately.

Family Favourites - 7/11 recipes made

The Baked Gnocchi with Ham Hock and Peas (pg50) is great comfort food, and probably my favourite of Iyer's baked gnocchi recipes, although I write 'lol' next to where it says 'Serves: 4 generously' because we comfortably ate it all between two of us. The Sweet Potato Curry (pg60) is a solid easy curry, while the Broccoli and Bacon Pasta Bake (pg62), an improved version of the Kale and Bacon Macaroni Cheese in the World book, has become a household regular - I made it two nights ago and had the leftovers for lunch today. The Whole Tomato Dhal (pg70) was my favourite dhal recipe until a more recently discovered slow cooker dhal recipe.

Make Ahead Lunchboxes - 9/10 recipes made

Each of the recipes I tried from this section I have ended up making multiple times, and my work colleagues were often jealous of my packed lunch. Bulgar wheat is magical, as are naan croutons. The only recipe here I haven't made is the Fig, Chicory, and Hazelnut Salad (pg86).

Date Night - 7/10 recipes made

After 'Worknight Dinners', this was the section I next focused on, because each dish is aesthetically impressive despite being very easy to make. The Roasted Ricotta with Tomatoes and Aubergine (pg104) I have made multiple times as part of a Mediterranean spread while hosting guests. The Baked Gnocchi with Dolcelatte, Figs, and Hazelnut (pg106) was delicious but extremely rich and indulgent - definitely a special occasion dish. The Scallop Gratin (pg108) was great, but scallops are expensive so I haven't made it again. The Sage and Mushroom Tart (pg110) was one of my husband's favourites, but I found the texture of the pine nut mixture unpleasant. The Vietnamese style fish (pg114) was gorgeous.

And then there's the Pomegranate Duck. With this dish I felt like I'd discovered a new level of culinary enjoyment. It was a bit of a faff to make, but the mixture of flavours and textures were absolutely divine. I was thinking about it for days afterwards. Just thinking about it now has made me want to make it again as soon as possible.

Feed a Crowd - 4/12 recipes made

I was initially put off from this section, because I had incorrectly assumed that a 'Crowd' was rather bigger than 4 people. I enjoyed the four recipes I tried from this section, but don't really get why they've been grouped together as Crowdfeeders. The Charred Tenderstem (pg152) is a variant of a stir fry recipe in India Express, and I prefer the the even quicker stir fry version.

Weekend Cooking  - 5/10 recipes made

The breakfast dishes - pancake (pg170), baked eggs (pg172), traybake (pg174) - were great ways to start the day. I made the traybake for brunch yesterday, and it was certainly easier than making a fry up. The baked eggs with asparagus soldiers I enjoyed with a friend who was visiting in summer; we ate them sat outside in the garden. The Chilli Peanut Chicken (pg180) is another great comfort food recipe, one that's become a bit of a household regular. As I type, I am reflecting that is has been a while since I last made it, and I ought to correct that. The Fish Stew (pg186) was excellent, but the cost of the ingredients has prevented me from making it again, though I should treat us to it again sometime.

Sweets - 8/11 recipes made

I am not as fond of baking as I am of cooking, but the sweet made here were received well and some of them I have made more than once. The Sage and Dark Chocolate Cookie Cake (pg194) has wonderful herby savoury notes from the sage, which make it very distinct and memorable (I have made it twice to take into work). We've Blackberry and Pistachio Cake (pg196) a few times for dessert when we've had friends over for dinner. The Pomegranate Yoghurt Cake (pg198), Salted Chocolate Peanut Brownies (pg200) and Pecan and Dark Chocolate Banana Bread (pg206) were all well received at work. The Gingerbread Pears (pg208) was the first of the sweet recipes I made, and I've made it a few times since then, including most recently to take to a friends' Christmas meal; to the same meal last year I took the Apple Crumble Cake (pg212).

Reflecting on all these recipes to write this review, I am extremely glad to have made and eaten such a wide selection of dishes over the past two years, and now want to make many of them again soon. I highly recommend others eat them too!

'Strange Rites' by Tara Isabella Burton

Of the books I read during my Religion Phase, 'The Case for God' by Karen Armstrong was one of my favourites. It was marketed as a rebuttal to the various New Atheist books in vogue at the time; the cover is similar to that for 'The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins, but blue where Dawkins is red. I imagined the books battling each other to the sound of Star Wars' 'Duel of the Fates' whenever I left the room.

However, the book largely sidesteps, or indeed implicitly agrees with, many of the New Atheist arguments. Instead, via a potted history of religion and theology, mainly focused on the Judeo-Christian traditions, the book argues that religiosity is an incredibly important part of human nature, going far beyond the crude literalism attacked by the New Atheists, whose understanding of theology she derides as 'poor' but also 'not radical enough'. For Armstrong, supernatural entities are not the basis of religion: the search for transcendence is.

As much as I liked the book, I also found it frustrating because it was, ironically, not radical enough. A former nun, Armstrong's immersion in the traditional religions had left her oblivious to the various ways the religious behaviours she celebrates are expressed by the nominally irreligious. I wanted her to go further in exploring religiosity as human nature, but at the time I could find no book that delivered on what I wanted. I remember finding a conference on the subject, but being unable to attend due to my limited budget. George Steiner's 'Nostalgia for the Absolute' scratched the itch a bit, but it wasn't enough.

Eight years later, I've found the book I wanted: 'Strange Rites' by Tara Isabella Burton. I first heard about the book and its core argument via the BBC Sounds podcast 'The New Gurus', on which the author was a guest (the podcasts cover art also uses a similar stained-glass art-style to the book cover). 

Burton compares the World Wide Web to the printing press which was the essential catalyst behind the Protestant Reformation in Europe: those who disagreed with the established church could print and propagate their ideas, leading to Christianity fragmenting into many smaller sects. The World Wide Web is like a Super Printing Press, enabling everyone with access the ability to spread their own ideas, or find whatever beliefs suit them. Together with cultural shifts towards individualism, emphasizing the importance of the self and growing distrust of institutions, this has led to us living through a Super Reformation (or, to use Burton's more America-focused term, a new Great Awakening), in which an increasing number of people are 'religiously remixed', combining ancient and modern beliefs and practices in heavily individualised ways.

An early chapter establishes Burton's understanding of what religion is, based on the works of sociologists Emile Durkheim, Peter Berger, and Clifford Geertz. For Burton, religions fulfil four needs: meaning, purpose, community, and ritual.  

The grand narratives of religion provide an explanation as to why things are the way they are, imbuing reality with meaning and putting adherents lives into a wider context. Adherents are also given a role, a purpose, in the grand narrative, and asked to change their behaviour in various ways: personal decision-making, for even the small and mundane, is linked to and influenced by the universe-spanning narrative. Groups of adherents together form a community (physical or online), with all the psychological benefits that belonging to a community brings. Rituals help re-affirm the grand narrative, bind the community together, and mark the passage of time. 

A single religion in a person's life can cover all four needs, as historically was the norm, but modern individualism encourages a more 'pick and mix' approach to cover all the bases. For example, someone could pray to the Christian God on Sundays, practice meditation on Mondays, go to a Yoga class on Wednesdays, profess a belief in Karma, and make changes to their diet based on the perceived 'Vibrational Energy' of the food.  Religions have always influenced each other, sharing ideas and practices, or splintering into new sects, but the process is happening faster than ever before, in our Internet-connected globalised world. (I once knew someone who believed that Jesus went to India and learnt Yoga during the 'Missing Years' not covered by the Bible.)

The bulk of the book then explores various modern religions identified by the author: fandoms, with particular emphasis on the extremes of the Harry Potter fandom ('Snapewives'); Wellness culture, which utilises spiritual and religious practices to sell products and create a loyal customer base; modern Witchcraft; sexual subcultures; social justice activism; techno-utopianism; and the many regressive, atavistic online cultures from across the online 'Manosphere'. The chapters are engaging but somewhat superficial, giving an overview with varying amounts of depth, but paint a convincing picture of these subcultures as neo-religions.

There's an interesting comment in the chapter on social justice activism about how its opponents deride it as a religion, without realising how accurate they may be, and I would have preferred this to lead into a greater examination of the religious nature of political ideologies more generally. In popular parlance that nature is usually only identified by opponents: socialists and communists deride capitalism and neoliberalism as religions which put their faith in the Invisible Hand.

It's a relatively short book, so an easy criticism is that there is plenty more which could have been included, but I prefer a book to leave me broadly satisfied if eager for more, to one that overstays its welcome. I'm extremely happy to have got hold of this, and highly recommend it, especially if combined with the other titles mentioned at the start of this review.

'Ultra-Processed People' by Chris van Tulleken

Over the past two years I've got into cooking using a bunch of cookbooks, which has massive changed my relationship to food and had a huge impact on my wellbeing. I now get so much joy from cooking and eating as multisensory experiences: the intermingling of sounds, smells, and textures. 

For Phase Two of my food journey, I've decided to learn more about food and the food industry, and this book, which has had a lot of buzz and marketing around it, seemed like a good place to start. The book builds on various other work van Tulleken has done exploring Ultra-Processed Food (UPF), including a podcast (which I listened to beforehand) and various TV documentaries.

The term UPF comes from a food classification system proposed in 2010, which divides food into four groups:

1) Unprocessed or minimally processed food (such as raw kitchen ingredients)

2) Processed culinary ingredients (such as butter, honey, oils, vinegar, etc)

3) Processed food (such as tinned vegetables or fruit, cured meats, etc)

4) Ultra-Processed Food

The full definition of UPF is quite long, but the key points are that UBF is designed to be convenient and highly profitable, and is made using chemical ingredients that would not be encountered in a domestic kitchen. There is acknowledgement in the book that the definition can get a bit woolly around the edges, and there is disagreement over its usefulness. I'm personally quite happy with this breakdown, particularly with the emphasis on profitability over nutrition as the food's raison d'etre: the food is designed to encourage overconsumption. 

I had previously found complaints about "processed foods" quite tedious, and was pleased that van Tulleken took time to explain that most foods require some form of processing to be edible. There is a good discussion about how cooking is part of being human: over the course of our evolution, humans have used fire to externalised part of our digestive system. We cook food to make it is easier for us to digest; or, we cook food to partially digest it before it reaches our mouths.

(I was reminded of the various vegetarian/vegan memes which argue that since we find raw meat disgusting, this is evidence that humans shouldn't eat meat. It's certainly evidence that we shouldn't eat raw meat.)

We have complex sensory apparatus to help us detect both when something is safe to eat, and the nutrients it may contain. The chapters which explore the various ways UPF tricks our bodies into wanting more of it ('Once you pop you can't stop!') are the most eye-opening. Tastes and textures prime our digestive and metabolic systems into expecting certain nutrients: if something tastes umami or meaty, our bodies prepare to digest food rich in protein; creamy textures prime us to digest fat; sweetness signals an incoming sugar boost.

UPF tricks our bodies by dissociating these sensory inputs from the promised nutrients, leaving our digestive system unsatisfied, our metabolic system confused, and us craving more food. So we reach for another crisp, and still feel hungry after a UPF meal with 1000 calories. Fibre, very important in signalling fullness, is also largely stripped from UPF during its manufacture. When your diet is largely UPF, it is very difficult to regulate your eating behaviour. The book opens with a warning that UPF now makes up 60% of the average diet in the UK.

In addition to making me think more about ingredients and UPF deceptions, I was particularly affected by descriptions of the microbiome: the microorganisms that live in our guts symbiotically with us. We provide them with nutrients; they help our digestion. Our body is the vehicle that transports them through space. I have often felt disconnected from my body due to my less than stellar coordination; I feel like my consciousness is a pilot awkwardly controlling a vehicle, rather than being one with it. Now I feel like I have a duty to keep my microbiome passengers safe (and in turn they won't make me ill). UPF additives harm the microbiome in various ways.

The book is written in a very chatty and light style that is easy to understand and read. There were times when I personally got frustrated that the book didn't go as in depth as I'd wanted, but I was pleased it did expand on the science presented in the podcast, and there are copious references for further reading.

The writing is occasionally stylistically conflicted. The author has clearly done a lot of reading about the topic, and often writes with authority; but at other times, he presents himself as an everyman going on a journey of discovery about the topic, interviewing various experts, in the style of the documentary TV and podcasts that preceded the book. This means that parts of the book feel like an urgent and in-depth investigation into a mounting crisis, whereas other parts feel more like light-hearted gonzo journalism (à la Jon Ronson). The transitions between these parts are often jarring.

As much as it is easy to read, there are also parts where it felt like van Tulleken struggled to balance the need to simplify for a lay audience with the desire to go more in depth with the science. This peaks with a particularly overly convoluted section explaining how our bodies utilise chemical energy from food via ATP; it is simultaneously extremely simplistic yet crammed with detail and similes which make it irritating when you know more about the topic (even if you're rusty like me), and largely incomprehensible if you don't. What's most irritating is that I don't think this sequence adds anything particularly useful to the book: it just shouldn't be there.

There are plenty of other things that could have been removed to make the book better. Mainly, footnotes. There are a lot of footnotes throughout, the contents of which should either have been incorporated into the body of the text or removed because they add little of value. Most of the footnotes felt like notes on a draft; combined with the stylistic shifts mentioned above, this made the book feel unfinished, in need of some more polishing and tidying.

Early chapters also have a tendency to imply that those working in the food industry are cackling cartoon villains. I know, because I've done it, how easy it is to imagine those you disagree with as simplistic villains (and, to be honest, there are a lot of people in the world who do talk like cartoon villains), but this tendency is often unhelpful since it does not help us to understand the incentives that drive their behaviour. I was pleased, however, that as the book approaches its end it does touch on a more nuanced and systemic critique of the food industry. 

To stop eating UPF, van Tulleken does not advise just quitting and going cold turkey. Instead, he recommends eating along but consciously thinking about the UPF as you eat it. How it is tricking your body, how it messes with your body, and as you do this you will develop a disgust response and learn to not want it. Shaming people to change their diet does not work - a subject covered extensively in the 'Addicted to Food' podcast and repeated in this book. Turning UPF into a taboo will give it the allure of the forbidden; you have to learn to not want it, and for many people on lower incomes, food that isn't UPF simply isn't affordable enough to eat regularly. Alleviating poverty is the path to improving people's diets and health. 

Despite my occasional irritations with the writing in this book, I did thoroughly enjoy it and found it revelatory. The information in this book is extremely important and I highly recommend it. It was a good choice to start with for Phase Two of my food journey. 

Next up, I have a couple of books about meat eating and the meat industry.

'Fighting for Life' by Isabel Hardman

This year is the 75th anniversary of the NHS, so naturally a few books have been published to commemorate the occasion. Hardman's 'Fighting for Life' is a pop history of the institution, framed around 12 battles which shaped the NHS into what we have today. I would recommend it, with caveats, to those who work in or with the NHS, or use its services regularly. 

I found it an enlightening reading experience which helped me contextualise my working life into the story of the NHS. Hardman is a political journalist - her previous book, 'Why We Get The Wrong Politicians', is excellent and one I include in my canon of 'Books That Exacerbated My Disillusionment With British Politics - but this means her NHS book is largely focused on the political personalities and arguments within government and parliament about NHS reforms. While I personally was engrossed (in another life I could imagine myself as a policy wonk), I imagine many people would find this political focus quite boring, especially if they don't go into the book with some pre-existing knowledge about UK politics.

The NHS is a political football; Hardman deftly shows the various ways all political parties have, often hypocritically, attacked each other over the NHS. She explores the realities and misunderstandings behind the fear, present since the inception of the service, that there is a secret plot to dismantle or privatise the NHS, and replace it with an American-style system. Like any good conspiracy theory, there are grains of truth to it: a small faction of the Conservative party does admire the American system, but are aware that going down that route in Britain would be political and electoral suicide on a truly colossal scale. 

Politicians are often frustrated that popular political discussions about healthcare in Britain are framed around, and therefore extremely limited by, the false dichotomy between the state-run NHS model and the American-style private hellscape, ignoring the myriad other ways that countries fund and manage their healthcare. Both Labour and Conservative governments have increased private sector involvement in the NHS and added charges, though Labour tends to get away with it because they are more trusted on the NHS.

Across the 12 battles, which range from early arguments over whether there should be an NHS and how it should be structured and funded, through many reforms and modernisations, to the COVID pandemic and the many crises that face the post-pandemic service, we learn about the origins of prescription charges and CQC inspections,; the uses and abuses of performance targets; why maternity units are particularly scandal-prone; the growth of the culture of cover-ups, bullying and blame; the many arguments between Health Secretaries and Chancellors over funding; and much, much, much more. 

The picture that emerges is of a vast, complex, bureaucratic system that is slow to change but has changed so much. A service which very few people even begin to understand, even as they claim to adore it. An institution that is extremely impressive and successful, but creaking, straining, and intensely suffering from deep seated problems exacerbated by recent systemic shocks. 

The final chapter ends with an attack on the shallowness of current NHS discourse, and a call for action for someone, or several someones, to actually do something about it:

'There has been enough lovebombing from politicians too fearful or lazy to confront the truth about the state of the service and what it needs. Now, it needs someone who knows what they are really fighting for. Depending on how well they fight, it could either be the latest or the last battle of the NHS's long struggle to exist'.

'The Roasting Tin Around the World' by Rukmini Iyer

I first encountered Rukmini Iyer's recipes via some cuttings from The Times that my mum gave me, and on the strength of one of those recipes (Indonesian style roasted aubergines), I asked my family for some of her Roasting Tin cookbooks for my birthday. I duly received this one and two others, 'The Quick Roasting Tin' and 'The Green Roasting Tin', and have been working through the recipes in them since.

The books are well designed. Most of the recipes are accompanied by a full-page photo of the dish shot from above, against a solid colour background that makes the dish pop from the page. It gives the books the feel of an artsy catalogue, encouraging browsing - they could easily double up as coffee table photobooks.

Each recipe gets it own neatly structured page. The wording is clear, to avoid confusion, and concise, to emphasize simplicity. There's plenty of empty space around the text, so the pages don't feel crowded or overwhelming, further reassuring the reader that the recipes are simple and easy to use. It also means there's plenty of room to leave your own notes next to the recipes.

Unfortunately, there is the occasional typo or omission. For example, in the chilli recipe (p36), ground cumin is listed twice in the ingredients, but only used once in the method; the 'shrimp and gritz' recipe (page 56) is described as 'garlicky', but there is no garlic in the ingredients list (though it is easy enough to intuitively add it). These are not grave mistakes but they do bring the quality of the book down a bit.

A minor annoyance is that the page numbers are distinctly absent from the contents pages at the start of each section, which is less than ideal for navigation. It is a curious and unpractical omission, but I expect it made sense from a design perspective, making the contents pages cleaner. The recipes are listed in the order they appear, so it it easy enough to find the recipe you want by flicking through the section. There is also a comprehensive index.

The recipes are all fantastically and deceptively simple, given the quality of the finished dish. All involve whacking a mixture of things into a tin, putting it in the oven, and doing a bit of garnishing at the end. Sometimes you need to make a paste from certain ingredients beforehand, sometimes you need to add things to the tin at different times throughout cooking. You don't learn fancy and challenging cooking techniques from Iyer, but you do learn an awful lot about the wide range of flavours and textures your meals can so easily have.

I am not sure whether this is the fault of the recipes or my oven, but some of the more liquid recipes - for example the Indian Rice Pudding (pg112) - did not cook properly in the time given, or even with extra time, and so I started heating these dishes up to simmering on the hob before transferring them to the oven.

After getting accustomed to Iyer's style, I looked through various famous/popular cookbooks at Waterstones and friends' houses, and in many of them I was struck by the badly worded and overcomplicated recipes, the cluttered and unpleasant pages, and the inconsistent quality of the photography. It made me better appreciate how thoroughly well designed the Roasting Tin books are; they are user-friendly, practical, and aesthetically very pleasing. All those involved in putting these books together should be immensely proud of the results (Pene Parker is credited with the art direction in the acknowledgements - I hope they have an incredible career).

Of the three, the Around the World book has been my favourite, and is the cookbook I would give to anyone wanting to broaden their diet with minimal effort (so long as they were omnivorous and didn't have strict dietary requirements). The recipes are arranged by geographical region, which made it easier for me to flick through to find a recipe that suited what I was feeling, and the sense it gives of exploring the world through food made working through the recipes rewarding and exciting, especially as I encountered dishes and flavour combinations that were new to me.

By contrast, in the Green book, the recipes are organised by Vegan/Vegetarian and then Quick/Medium/Slow, while in the Quick book they are organised into vague categories, such as 'Worknight Dinners' and 'Date Night'. I appreciate that others might benefit from this organisation, but for me the geographical grouping was more inspiring.

Over the past year or so I've made 53/75 recipes in this book, some of them multiple times. The range of flavours and textures in the dishes has completely transformed my appreciation of food and cooking. It is worth mentioning that many of the recipes, having been adapted for oven cooking, are doubtless inauthentic and untraditional, but they thoroughly showcase the range of food flavours available around the world.

Even though my move to making better and more exciting food was a gradual process (which coincided with things like moving to a house with a better kitchen, working more regular hours, learning which foods I have an intolerance for and therefore to avoid, etc), the impact of the three Iyer cookbooks I received for my birthday, and this one especially, has been colossal. The earlier years of my life now seem in retrospect to be a vast culinary desert, and I can barely remember most of what I used to eat.

Some personal highlights from the Around the World tour:

In 'Central and South America' (8/12 recipes made), I had various dishes served in warm tortillas, including a Mexican slow cooked pork pibil (pg26), and smoky roasted sprouts (pg46). I've always thought of sprouts as the grim over-boiled vegetable served at Christmastime due to perverse and masochistic tradition, but Iyer's various roasted sprout recipes have given me a new appreciation of a vegetable I thought I hated.

However, my absolute favourite recipe from this section was the Brazillian black beans & rice with avocado & radish salsa (p30). The fragrancy of the lime and coriander made this very refreshing and lively, while the mix of greens, beans, rice, radish, avocado, and peanut was a textural delight. I made this for an evening meal and then very happily had the leftovers for both lunch and dinner the next day. I felt like I could eat it forever.

In 'USA and the Caribbean' (6/11 recipes made), I was blown away by the Baked polenta with prawns / Shrimp & Gritz (pg56). This dish is so quick and so satisfying: the baked polenta is like a cheesy mash potato cake, and makes a very satisfying combo with spicy seasoned prawns and the explosions of flavour from roasted cherry tomatoes. Baked avocado with walnuts and blue cheese (pg62) made for an extravagant-feeling and intensely flavoured lunch. The sweet and salty dark chocolate S'mores Rocky Road (pg76) was incredible, and quickly devoured when I took it to a work fuddle.

I made all but two of the recipes in 'Asia' (12/14). The jackfruit avial (pg88), mushroom and saffron pilau rice (pg92), spiced paneer and potato curry (pg98), and whole butter chicken (pg104) were standouts. Many of the Indian dishes from this section I served as part of an Indian Feast meal alongside dishes from the previously-reviewed 'Indian Food Made Easy' by Anjum Anand.

From 'Africa and the Middle East' (8/12), highlights included the lamb tagine (pg120) flavoured with orange zest and juice, Ugandan black-eyed beans (pg130), and the saffron pearl barley (pg140). The Persian love cake (pg146) was absolutely demolished and received a lot of compliments when I took it to a work fuddle.

The most recent dish I made from this section was the roasted squash with pomegranate and dukkah (pg138), which was such a delightful mixture of flavours and textures that I am very excited to make it again and for friends. Over the past few weeks I've made several of Iyer's Persian-style dishes, made with pomegranate seeds and molasses, and copious amounts of herbs. The intensity of the flavours - the sweetness, savouriness, and herbiness - has been revelatory.

I made everything except the steal & ale pie (pg160) from 'South East Asia & Australasia' (12/13). This section contains the recipe I first encountered via the Times cutting: Indonesian-style aubergines (pg168), which I've made multiple times and for various friends, many of whom wanted the recipe afterwards.

Other highlights include Malaysian coconut and lemongrass roast chicken (pg158), Peranakan-style mushroom and squash curry (pg164), and roasted aubergine with chilli and peanut (pg154), which is so easy it has become something I make when I 'can't be bothered to cook'. The salted chocolate and raspberry Lamington cake (pg180) was another work fuddle hit.

Highlights from 'Europe and North Asia' (8/13) include the chicken and chorizo paella (pg186), which I made on Boxing Day and would happily eat constantly; croque monsieur gratin (pg194), a savoury French bread and butter pudding made with croissants and an extreme amount of crème fraiche (Iyer says, 'It will look like you have far too much crème fraiche'); rosemary and hazelnut salmon with roast potatoes, asparagus, and lemon yoghurt (pg198); 'porcupine' meatballs (pg200) with rice in the meat mix, served in a tomato and sour cream sauce, which is now my favourite meatball recipe; and the stilton, pear, and walnut tart (pg208), which was another extravagant-feeling and flavoursome lunch.

In the introduction, Iyer says,

'What I wanted to recreate in this Roasting Tin book was that feeling of amazement that I had in trying dishes from abroad for the first time, but presented in a way that was accessible for easy weeknight cooking.'

For this reader at least, Iyer's objective was very thoroughly accomplished.