Top Ten: Recipes for the Beginner Home Cook

Top Ten: Recipes for the Beginner Home Cook

Top Ten: Recipes for the Beginner Home Cook is for those who appreciate good food, but are unsure where to begin. Experienced food and travel writer, Manuela Darling-Gansser imparts the simple keys to home cooking, the implements you will need, what various herbs look like and how to stock your cupboard.

Manuela's ten basic foods include eggs, soups, pasta, rice, chicken, beef, fish, vegetables, green salad and sorbet. Step-by-step photographs make the recipes simple to follow, and variations on the recipes are included to encourage creativity once the basic skills are learnt. The book also offers practical tips on general kitchen issues from how to store food in the freezer to avoiding 'onion tears'.

If you want entertain in style, impress your friends, or give your kids a nudge to get out of home, Top Ten: Recipes for the Beginner Home Cook will equip you with the confidence and ideas you need!

What was your main reason for putting this book together?

Manuela Darling-Gansser:The main reason was that I have three children, they're adults and when they moved out, I realised they were used to eating well because they always ate at home, they knew what good food was all about, but really had no idea how to prepare it themselves. They wanted to entertain at home, you can't live on take-away. They also wanted to invite their friends over for a meal, but they had no idea how to do it. Whilst talking to other young adults, I realise how little they knew about food and preparing it, that is why I decided to write this book and only give them ten recipes. There are a lot of recipe books out there, which can make it confusing for someone who really wants to know how to go about it, especially when they have absolutely no knowledge.

What I've done for every food source I wanted a recipe, so I have a recipe for eggs, I am making an omelet. Next to the recipe you have step-by-step photographs showing how to make an omelet, as it is very difficult to explain how to do it, if you can actually see it, it is easier to do. Also I wrote a shopping list, so you can go to the supermarket and know exactly what you need for that particular recipe and then you have a variation. For each recipe you have three to four variations, so for one recipe you have five recipes, really.

The other thing I've done is describe all the herbs with a photograph next to them and explaining what you use them for. So you go to the green-grocers and you think 'Oh what does Basil look like?' but you already know, as there is a photograph of it, you also now know how to use it.

In the book I have also there is a list of instruments, it contains the very basic instruments that you would need in your kitchen. Under each recipe there is a list of the instruments needed, for example with the omelet you need the frying pan, chopping board, spatula.


Was it just for Generation Y or for others with the same knowledge in regards to the cooking abilities of Generation Y?

Manuela Darling-Gansser: It is interesting there is a lot of people who have lost a loved one or got divorced and they really don't know how to cook, the book acts as a confidence booster for them. Even if you know how to cook but don't have the confidence this really does help you because you will find everything in the recipe book even photographs.

Many adults buy the book for their children and end up using it a lot themselves as well.


Do you think Generation Y needs this type of easy-to-understand book as in this generation take-away is seen as easy and quick?

Manuela Darling-Gansser: Yes, I really hope that this book gives people the confidence to cook in their own home opposed to eating take-away. Especially for kids to see how nice it is to cook a home-cooked meal and see how it is really not that complicated or that time consuming.


The tips included in the book are definitely need-to-knows, are parents not passing on this type of information to their children?

Manuela Darling-Gansser:A lot of the time parents are very busy and think when it comes to meal times they think they have to hurry it along, I have found also that there is a lot of take away and not a lot of home cooking although I think the fashion will slowly go back to home cooking. People do see that it is important to have meals at home and sit as a family.

Parents find that they don't really have the time, or the kids are not interested at the time and so this is where the book comes in handy.


What is your favourite, quick and easy, recipe?

Manuela Darling-Gansser:They are all really quick and easy, they really are. I have included a risotto dish; a risotto is a dish that you should have at home. You can cook it and eat it straight away and it is the most delicious rice dish. You can also use it in different ways; if you have left-overs you can make a cake with it or eat it the next day.

I think that if you have one or two dishes that you know how to do really well you really will become confident, you should know a couple of dishes really well. From there you can start using variations and gaining more confidence in the kitchen.


Is the book suitable for parents who wish to get their younger children to begin cooking?

Manuela Darling-Gansser:Absolutely. It is never too early to learn, it really isn't. If a child shows interest there really is no age limit to this book. What I have found is that especially for the generation Y there is nothing out there. You have a lot of book for little children but nothing for Generation Y that is sophisticated.

I have an example, there is a young man who is 30 years-old he has never really cooked, he doesn't even know how to turn the oven on or off. I gave him this book and he is absolutely passionate about cooking now. The first dish he cooked was fish, which isn't the easiest recipe in the book. So he took the book to the fish market and asked "can you please gut the fish?" He didn't even know what he was asking but when it was done, easily, he began to think that cooking was easy. From there he took the fish home, cooked it in the oven, when the time was up, he opened up the oven and grabbed the tray with his hands, and he didn't think that oven gets hot! That just shows you how little some people know, which is quite astonishing, and how this book can work for them.