Forever Summer - Softcover

Lawson, Nigella

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0676975488 ISBN 13: 9780676975482

Publisher: Knopf Canada, 2005

Synopsis

Now in paperback: the delicious companion volume to Nigella’s TV series Forever Summer — filled with over 100 additional recipes created exclusively for the book.

“Even when sunshine is a distant memory and the only trace of holiday is the sand on the bottom of your discarded holiday flip-flops, don’t consign yourself to winter blues.”
—Nigella Lawson

In Forever Summer, Nigella Lawson offers irresistible summery recipes that can be eaten at any time of the year, venturing out of the kitchen to give picnic, barbecue and beach food a touch of her inimitable culinary style. The key is simplicity, freshness, enjoyment — good food, no sweat.

The food ranges from around the world: from simple Italian pasta dishes to Middle Eastern breads; from Prawn and Black Rice with Vietnamese Dressing to Moroccan Roast Lamb; and food that conjures up the traditional strawberries-and-cream feel of an English summer afternoon or Indian summer evening at home. Keeping the sun shining, there’s a fabulous selection of unusual desserts — from Anglo-Italian Trifle to Slut-red Raspberries in Chardonnay Jelly. And to complete the summer mood, there are cocktails, both classic and new.

Abundant with gorgeous colour photographs, Forever Summer is about easy cooking and easy eating; laid-back recipes that keep you feeling like summer never ended; and that the kitchen is, in Nigella’s words, “not a place you escape from, but the place you escape to.”

About this title

About the Author

Nigella Lawson’s bestselling books How to Eat, How to be a Domestic Goddess, Nigella Bites, Forever Summer and Feast, together with her TV programs, have made her a household name all over the world. She writes occasionally for various publications and is a regular contributor to the New York Times.

From the Inside Flap

It?s sensuous summer all year long with Nigella -- in a fabulous new cookbook that draws on the best from all over the world: to tie in with her new 8-part television series.

Summer food doesn?t have to be eaten just in summer. Even on our coldest days, indeed especially then, we need to summon up a little warmth on our plate. Summer cooking is relaxed cooking that conjures up a mood of sunny expansiveness: easy cooking, easy eating. No one wants to slave over a hot stove for hours: the keynote, as ever with Nigella, is simplicity. The ideal is of lazy abundance.

The food of Italy and Spain, the fragrant mezze of the Eastern Mediterranean, the traditional strawberries-and-cream feel of an English summer afternoon: all these notes and flavours are reflected in Forever Summer. The uniting force is attitude as well as palate so the food is far-reaching but personalised, and fresh so that it fits in with the way we live. It?s a way of celebrating summer while it lasts, and extending it into the months beyond.

Forever Summer has the practical appeal of a cookbook as well as the aspirational lure of a travel book, the sort one might flick through longingly in winter, dreaming of much-needed sunshine.


From the Hardcover edition.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Rice Paper Rolls

I'll be honest with you: I had longed to make some version of these little rolls for years but either essential laziness or fear that they would be frighteningly complicated put me off. Now that I've made them, I can't quite see what I was on about. Fiddly they may be, but I think they must be one of the easiest recipes to make in the whole book. And also one of the loveliest: there is something about the light, unwheatenness of rice pasta (which in effect these sheets just are) and the bundles of fresh herbs within that make them compulsive and uplifting eating. you can, and this is how I ate them first in a Vietnamese restaurant, add some cooked prawns, and cooled, stir-fried chopped pork along with the herbs and rice vermicelli, but I can't honestly see that you need to.

You can often find the rice pancakes, or rice sheets (emphatically not rice paper) in the supermarket. If you're unlucky in this respect, you will have to track down an Asian store, which offers a gastro-reward of its own.

100 g rice vermicelli
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon Thai fish sauce
bunch fresh mint, roughly chopped
bunch fresh Thai basil, roughly chopped
half a cucumber, cut into thin batons
6 spring onions, finely sliced
12 rice pancakes
soy sauce for serving (optional)

Soak the vermicelli according to the instructions on the packet, and drain once the translucent threads are rehydrated.

Flavour the vermicelli with the rice vinegar, soy and fish sauces, and then add the chopped herbs, cucumber and spring onions. Mix gently with your hands to try to combine the noodles, herbs and vegetables.

Soak the rice pancakes (again, according to packet instructions) in a shallow bowl of hot water and then lay each one on a tea towel to pat dry. Run a fairly narrow strip of noodle mixture down the middle of the pancake, fold over one half and then carefully roll it up as tightly as you can. Slice each roll into four and then arrange them on a plate.

If you want, pour some soy sauce into a few little bowls for dipping the rolls into as you eat. They are also fabulous with the Vietnamese dipping sauce, in the form of the dressing on page 75.

Makes 48 rolls.


From the Hardcover edition.

Edition details

• Publisher: Knopf Canada
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0676975488
• ISBN 13: 9780676975482
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288