I LOVE food and cooking, but who has read and can confidently critique a recipe book? Not me.....!!,but Delia appears to have taken on board the criticism of book one and assumed some basic kitchen knowledge. I am not quite sure that Delia's interpretations of recipes are entirely accurate, nor the illustrations exactly what one might expect from the pukka dish, but judging from the lists of ingredients and cooking techniques they will provide an extremely satisfying dish.
My impression is that Delia is not restaurant chef material, not that she claims to be, nor should I or you expect her to be - she cooks for a domestic environment. However if book one is anything to go by, you will have extremely failsafe recipes and should have no qualms in trying the recipes as I have done.
If anything, it should give you the courage to experiment with recipes. My view and experience is that recipes should not be a bible - they should be a guide, trying the recipes will give you confidence to experiment and try something different - Anything to do with the texture and volume e.g. rice, flour, leave in, else drop the ingredients you don't like e.g. chillies might not be to your taste, but you really like ginger. Include something you do like and drop those that you do not. You will have a ball trying all the recipes out and experimenting. Just don't substitute chilli for ginger in the lemon and ginger cake - I haven't tried it, but experience tells me that it will not work. Just Do it - taste and adapt along the way.......
For the Amazon price you can't go wrong - I recently paid closer to 20 for a book devoted to sauces by a famous chef - you still need the ideas where to apply the sauces, whereas Delia tempts you towards a complete dish.
I cannot recommend the book highly enough for the ideas. However I strongly suggest that most recipes ARE treated only as ideas, not that the recipes are wong - look at your store cupboard and experiment. That is the only way you 'Learn to Cook' - by trying things yourself to see how they work together. If you have already bought book one you will be pleased to see that the new recipes are much more interesting and are probably much more ready for the experimentation I suggest.
I still give it 5 stars because the recipes seem to all work - give yourself 6 stars if you create your own better recipe.......
