We’ve picked up a couple of new cookbooks recently: The Potato Book by Poppy Cooks (sponsored link) and The Snack Hacker by George Egg (sponsored link). And I’ll be honest: the main reason I’m writing about these new books is to break up what had been planned to be a full week’s worth of blog posts about smart home tech and firmware. As it was, we ended up buying a new car sooner than planned, and so some of those posts have been pushed back now. Anyway, on with the books.
The Potato Book
This isn’t the first time I’ve mentioned a book by Poppy O’Toole, better known as Poppy Cooks, as we also have her slow cooker book and use it regularly. Poppy is known as ‘the potato queen of Tiktok’, and so I guess it was only a matter of time before she published a book of potato recipes. Indeed, the cover of The Potato Book has a quote from Nigella Lawson describing her as ‘the high priestess of the potato’.
The Potato Book is split into eight themed chapters – mashed, roast, chips/wedges/hash browns, 15-hour potatoes, world classics, baked, potato salads, bakes and extra crispies. Usually the first recipe in each chapter sets out the basics, so the very first recipe in the book is how to make a classic mashed potato with salt, butter and double cream. The rest of the chapter is then variations on the basic recipe, such as hot honey and bacon mash.
Crucially, each recipe tells you what variety of potato to use for the best results. For example, the mashed potato recipes call for Maris Piper potatoes, but others use red-skinned or baby potato varieties.
We’ve only had the book a couple of weeks, and so far, we’ve just cooked her Swiss Rösti recipe. It wasn’t bad, but didn’t end up as crispy as we’d hoped.
I’m not going to spoil the final recipe in the book, but it’s worth marvelling at it.
The Snack Hacker
The second book was The Snack Hacker by George Egg. We’ve seen George’s Anarchist Cook show before (almost ten years ago, blimey) and this is in a similar vein – unconventional ways of preparing food.
Whilst some of the recipes are akin to traditional cookbooks, where you start with a set of raw ingredients, many take an existing snack food item and ‘hack’ it into something better. For example:
- a Gregg’s Steak Bake, with some mustard, soured cream and spices to make a Stroganoff Steak Bake
- a Breakfast McMuffin enhanced with mackerel fillets, curry sauce and mayonnaise to make a McKedgeree Muffin
It’s not just a book of recipes though. It’s also a memoir, covering George Egg’s career and childhood memories – especially the ones that are food-related. The illustrations and design are excellent – all done by Egg’s son, Jem Ward, with whom he pitched the idea for the book.
As yet I’ve not cooked any of the recipes, but I enjoyed reading it and will be trying a couple.
