Nigella Lawson has a lot of strong opinions on cooking, as well she should. Between her cookbooks, her television show, the hours she’s put in cooking, prepping, experimenting, testing, tasting, and studying recipes, she has demonstrated that she is an expert on cooking. And in her new cookbook Cook, Eat, Repeat, Lawson is filled with her unapologetic opinions.
She doesn’t believe in guilty pleasures—she thinks of all eating as pleasure and doesn’t believe in feeling guilty for that. She loves anchovies, rhubarb, and ramps, and she offers many recipes for each. But she understands that not everyone feels the same, so she offers options. In this cookbook, she offers lots and lots of options. Be sure to read what she writes after each recipe, because Lawson uses this space to talk about her inspiration for the recipe and, more importantly, so many extra ideas for how to use the leftover ingredients and different options on how to make small changes to the recipe to add 1 or 3 or 6 variations to try.
Lawson is diametrically opposed to food waste, so she offers ideas on how to use every drop of a sauce, taking it from the original dish and adding maybe 1 more ingredient, or some extra liquid, and suddenly it’s perfect for a pasta sauce or a dressing or just poured onto the top of some vegetables to add extra flavor. She has recipes that use old milk and banana peels, just so that nothing gets left behind, nothing is wasted, everything is turned into flavor.
She celebrates brown food, especially stews, believes a good dinner can take the edge off a bad day, and wants Christmas to be all about the comfort of traditions and rituals. As Cook, Eat, Repeat was written during a pandemic, she’s made changes to some of her original ideas about entertaining at holidays or just having friends over for a dinner party. Most of her recipes are created for 4 people, but she offers changes for many to cook them easily for 2 or even 1 instead.
From the initial chapter that is a deep dive into what a recipe is and how it’s created through all Lawson’s notes on each individual recipe, these are dishes that sing with flavor. From the Anchovy Elixir to the Pickled Rhubarb, Crab Mac ’n’ Cheese, Fried Chicken Sandwich, Oxtail Bourguignon, Chicken with Garlic Cream Sauce, Lasagna of Love, Basque Burnt Cheesecake, Vegan Lemon Polenta Cake, and Brown Forest Brownies—every single recipe here has been tested and re-tested, tasted and re-tasted, in order to bring forward as many flavors as possible. But these recipes are also about family, about the time and energy cooks spend making magic for those that they love, about heart and soul and putting your best on the plate for yourself and for those you care the most about.
I loved Cook, Eat, Repeat. I wish I had her patience in the kitchen to make the most of every drop, of every ingredient, of every dish. But since I don’t have that, I’m glad Nigella Lawson does and that she’s willing to share it with me through these recipes and essays. I’m not sure everyone will love the expositions after each of the recipes, but they were my favorite part. That’s where Lawson’s personality and passion comes out the most, with her suggestions and substitutions, and it’s the most fascinating and fun parts of this book.
Egalleys for Cook, Eat, Repeat were provided by Ecco through NetGalley, with many thanks.
