STYLE: Healthy fast fare for foodies.
PREMISE: Food bloggers are the hip thing in cookery writing. Australian Clancy, a former food scientist and the creator of www.thestonesoup.com, is the latest to publish with a collection of simple dishes. As the name suggests, each requires only a handful of ingredients and will be ready in 10 minutes.
WHO WILL LIKE IT: Cooks in a hurry craving a decent meal. Clancy has genuinely followed the brief, warning reader if there is a risk a dish may need up to (gasp) 20 or more minutes to prepare. Each recipe is endlessly adaptable, with footnotes offering alternative ingredients. It would serve as a bible for students and those new to cooking for themselves.
TOP TIPS: Chickpeas — a Clancy staple. Keep a tin or two in your larder and you’ll always have a speedy meal.
WE LOVED: Pictures of everything; being able to prepare a reasonably virtuous meal in minutes. Creamed spinach with chickpeas and chickpea and rosemary frittata (spotting a theme?) were delicious. Less virtuous 10-minute puddings were also a revelation.
WE LIKED LESS: For more accomplished cooks some dishes (like the classic mixed green salad) veer into “call that a recipe?” territory.
‘5 Ingredients 10 Minutes’ by Jules Clancy is published by Michael Joseph, Penguin on March 14