Lateral Cooking: Foreword by Yotam Ottolenghi

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Lateral Cooking is organised into 77 'starting-point' recipes, reducing the phenomenal variety of world cuisine down to its bare essentials – and then building it back up again. Which is to say, one dish leads to another: once you’ve got the hang of flatbreads, for instance, then its neighbouring dishes on the continuum (crackers, soda bread, scones) will involve the easiest and most intuitive adjustment.

Niki Segnit had not so much as peeled a potato until her early twenties, when, almost by accident, she discovered that she loved cooking. But as she tested the combinations that informed The Flavor Thesaurus , she detected the basic rubrics that underpinned most recipes. Once you've got the hang of flatbreads, for instance, then its neighboring dishes (crackers, soda bread, scones) will involve the easiest and most intuitive adjustments.

It will give you the confidence to experiment with flavour, and adapt with the seasons or the contents of your fridge. After working through this book, even just some of it, you will never read and use another cookbook the same way.

So, for example, in the potato gnocchi entry Segnit tells you about the flour potato weight and add flour in patient increments but there is no explicit recipe. There are (very) approximately 300,000 words to keep you occupied, or around three airport novels worth.

Op een vermakelijke manier laat Segnit je zien hoe gerechten ‘werken’ en hoe je zelf kunt gaan experimenteren, bedenken en ontdekken. This may result in small marks to the dustjacket and title page, please also bear in mind that each signature will be a little different from the one we show here. So, under 'Bread', we learn that flatbreads, oatcakes, buckwheat noodles, chapattis and tortillas are all variations on one theme. If you don’t own a copy of Larousse Gastronomique, Le guide culinaire by Escoffier or La Repertoire de la Cuisine and are a novice cook who wants to take a more serious approach to learning the craft, then Lateral Cooking will fit the bill.

As the scope of the book is not Eurocentric at all, and is actually very straight forward, I would recommend this as top 3 cookbook for any cook who wants to become better, more educated and inspired in the kitchen. Most of the times, you miss one ingredients and need to replace it with something, you are short on time and need to cut a corner etc. I was surprised when I found that pan de muerto and conchas, a traditional mexican bread, is an orange scented brioche!

You will realise that recipes that you had thought were outside of your experience are reassuringly similar to things you've made a dozen times before.