Weekend Cooking: Comfort Food by Gary Mehigan

Last Sunday night I was hanging out on Twitter and watching Masterchef (as you do) , and noticed a contest to win a signed cookbook by one of the co-hosts of Masterchef Australia, Gary Mehigan. Lucky for me, I was chosen as the winner, which I was very excited about. The signature says Love to Cook! Not necessarily true about me because I hate Monday to Friday cooking, but I do like finding a recipe, going and buying the ingredients and then eating it which is much more of a weekend type thing to do.

The book is called Comfort Food and in the introduction Gary talks about his early days of cooking, and the inspiration that he got from his grandfather.


I only got the book on Thursday and so I haven't had much of a chance to look through it, but I thought I would post some initial reactions. Understandably I guess, the author's idea of comfort food is much more cheffy than mine is! He didn't have any suggestions that included sitting on the couch eating chocolate. Easy (as long as there is already some in the cupboard), quick (how long does it take to unwrap?) and definitely comforting, although not necessarily good for you in copious quantities.

What I did like just looking at the recipes was that each one has an introduction telling why he chose that particular recipe, lots of lovely photographs, as well as the instructions and ingredients, but then there are are notes as well. For example, in the recipe for Pumpkin Soup, the instruction is to grate the pumpkin. Now as soon as I read that I was immediately dismissive! I mean, really... but then at the end of the recipe, there was a note saying

Even though it may take a little longer, grating the pumpkin is an important step because it helps to draw out its natural sweetness. Grated pumpkin also cooks more quickly, which helps to preserve the true pumpkin flavour.

Now when I cook pumpkin soup I tend to do it in the slow cooker so I am not necessarily worried about it cooking quickly, but rather than just being dismissive of something as being just a cheffy thing to do, I was glad to read the reason why he says that it is an important step. Whether I will listen or not is another thing entirely.  It probably is worth remembering for those days when I want to cook pumpkin soup and don't have a lot of time.

Pumpkin is one of the things that I am intending to post about in a future Weekend Cooking post, simply because it is a vegetable that seems to be used in very different ways all around the world. There will be at least one pumpkin soup recipe included when I do actually get around to writing that post.

Coincidentally, when I was searching for an image of the book cover, I did find this link to an interview with Gary which people in Australia should be able to listen to. Not sure about anyone else.

So these are my initial reactions. I may yet end up sharing a recipe or three from the book as I get around to trying a few of them.

What do you like to see in cookbooks? Handy tips? Photos? Personal anecdotes from the chef or author? Perhaps you prefer just the recipes without all the added extras?

Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish Reads and is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs.