Individual Chefs & Restaurants

From the Introduction
“BAKING DAY” IS A phrase you may have heard in casual conversation and, like me, never really stopped to think about. It pops up in situations like:

“I’m having a baking day with my son on Saturday. We’re making a birthday cake for his brother.”

“I’m spending a baking day with my grandma, and she’s showing me how to make her babka.”

“My sisters and I always get together at this time of year for a baking day, to make holiday cookies.”

“I am obsessing over making French baguette for my fiancée—it’s her favourite— so I’m going to spend a baking day mastering it.”

“Summer’s here, so I’m spending my baking day making popsicles with the kids!”

Quite simply, a baking day is time set aside to bake with or for people you want to spend time with. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a full day—even an hour spent making a batch of cookies counts as a baking day. We tend to bake more on week- ends, because that’s when we usually have a little more time and, as with most hobbies and interests, we fit baking in when we can.
No matter when the baking day, its value is more than the treats, breads or cakes that we pull from the oven. It is the memories created by spending time in the kitchen with someone you love, or devoting time to baking as a form of self-expression, that are worth so much.

This book was inspired by looking back on my baking day memories and asking my family and friends about their own favourite baking moments and recipes. For some, making weekend breakfast with their kids was a special time, or baking cookies as a family became a regular routine. For others, baking a cake for a special occa- sion was as much fun as the birthday party itself. Baking treasured family recipes or learning about baking from grandparents also holds a special place in a lot of people’s hearts.

This collection of recipes is meant to inspire you to take a little time in the kitchen and embrace baking time for the gift that it is. You can’t force memories to be created, but by making a batch of simple Fudgiest Frosted Brownies (page 181) or spending an afternoon baking cupcakes and matching frostings (pages 212-219) with some friends, you are setting the stage for the good times to happen.

In the following pages, you’ll find recipes for all levels of bakers, from novice to expert, and for all types of baking, from quick and easy to more elaborate. I have included quite a few breakfast recipes that aren’t actually “baked,” because a relaxed weekend morning spent making a family breakfast together has the potential to inspire further kitchen activities.

I have especially kept young bakers top of mind as I’ve developed and played with these recipes. Kids are always observing and learning, and they continue to remind me of the joy and surprise that baking brings. Think about it—you combine butter, sugar, eggs, flour and cocoa in a bowl and whisk them together. That gooey mess is poured into a pan, and after just 30 minutes in the oven . . . cake! Watching a child pull up a stool in front of the oven to watch that cake bake reminds me of my own childhood and always gives me great pleasure.

Kids should be supervised in the kitchen even when they are baking “on their own.” I have steered clear of recipes that involve candying or caramelizing sugar, since those techniques can be tricky. But I have included recipes for doughnuts that are cooked in a deep fryer (or in a pot of hot oil). Kids can do the mixing and kneading, but an adult should do the actual frying (my grandmother was in charge of frying the doughnuts we made together).

To make baking days as inclusive as possible, I have offered many vegan, gluten- free, dairy-free and egg-free recipes. No recipes use peanuts (except for the Cereal Killer Squares, page 185, and pet treats, pages 300 to 307, but you can use school- safe soy nut butters instead). Just a few recipes contain nuts at all, and they can easily be replaced by other crunchy items if need be.
So, pull out a stick of butter to soften, preheat the oven and get ready to make some delicious memories. Enjoy your baking day!

From the Introduction:
The Flavorbomb Manifesto 
If you live for wildly addictive, life-affirming taste sensations that knock you off your feet, pin you to the ground, and pleasure you with layers of intense flavors, welcome to the club. You have just found your kindred culinary spirit. 

If this describes you, I’m willing to bet you keep a running list of restaurants you go to for your favorite flavorbombs—such as a vibrant, pungent Caesar salad, extra crispy garlic fries, or a spicy puttanesca pasta. I’ll also guess that you might be able to articulate exactly what it is about those dishes that you find so addictive. But when you try to reproduce the same flavors at home, do you find yourself falling short? That’s what I hear from so many of my friends. And that’s why they are curious about why food always tastes better at my house (their words, not mine). Hence this book. 

I’m a culinary charlatan. Thinking about food 24/7 is my job—and making it taste good without playing by the rules is my game. For the past 25 years I’ve eaten my way around the globe, traveling millions of miles in search of culinary adventures and inspiring foods for my three TV series and six cookbooks. Along the way, I’ve broken eight food-related Guinness World Records, competed in some of the most outrageous food competitions on the planet, cooked alongside countless amazing chefs, harvested grapes at legendary wineries, and sampled every local street food imaginable at ramshackle carts, hawker stalls, and night markets from Italy to India. 
Before I wrote my first cookbook, I managed and toured with international recording artists. So why should you look to a rock-manager- turned-culinary-adventurer for guidance instead of a restaurant chef or a Cordon Bleu instructor? Because rock ’n’ roll and cooking are based on the same two principles: there are no rules (and any rules that do exist are meant to be broken), and the only thing that matters is leaving your audience in a state of euphoria. 

The collective experiences from my travels, adventures, and competitions, combined with the tricks, techniques, and hacks that I’ve learned from observing street vendors and working with talented chefs all over the world, have formed the backbone of my cooking in ways that culinary school can’t begin to teach. 

If you are familiar with my previous cookbooks, you know that in the past I have been known to play with my food. As the self-christened “Surreal Gourmet,” I made edible creations that fooled the eye into thinking you were eating something you were not (think savory “cupcakes” made with braised lamb shanks, topped with beet-dyed pink mashed potato icing). While I would like to think that I was making Salvador Dalí proud, I was also leaning heavily on a highly styled surreal presentation that in retrospect was a work-around for not having a formal culinary education. 

I no longer feel the need to apologize for that, and now the gloves are off. The single focus of this book is to channel everything I have gleaned into recipes and practical tips that will help you create bold, stimulating flavors that leave you and those you cook for in a state of bliss. Simply stated, this book is the distillation of my life’s journey. It is how I cook at home every day for my wife and friends. And my goal is to share everything I have learned, in practical, applicable ways that will make you a rock star in your own kitchen. 

Any time I set foot in my kitchen, I challenge myself to maximize the flavor potential of every bite. And when I write a recipe, I strive to make it addictive and foolproof for anyone who makes it. Because I get more excited by tacos than truffles, my outsider approach to creating addictive flavors won’t require you to buy frivolous top-shelf ingredients or use super-sophisticated techniques. Nor will it rely on gratuitous amounts of butter, salt, and sugar. 

Instead, we will start every recipe together by building a foundation, and then we’ll add layers of flavors and textures at every step of the way. We’ll add complexity with some simple techniques (like my favorite, caramelization), and then finish it with some of the final flourishes I’ve learned in professional kitchens. If there’s a hack or a simple trick that can save you time or up the ante—believe me, I’ll share it with you. Each individual step is easy to wrap your head around, and when you start pulling them all together at the same time, your cooking will be forever changed. 

From the Introduction
 
This is my first cookbook with my name on the spine, and it spans my whole professional career. We selected the recipes on the basis of quality—but also for range. I’ve included a few from my early career in the UK in the 90s because they informed so much of what I did afterward that; to me, their significance never fades. There are others from my early days at Ouest (then renamed West) that I thought really captured a moment. A few others date back to the early days at Hawksworth. Most are from our current repertoire—at Hawksworth, at Nightingale, and at Bel Café. So the cooking here represents a lot of different styles. 

But even though cooking always evolves, ingredients go in and out of style, tech- niques change, and what we understand about eating well and healthily changes how we cook, a lot of things remain the same. Those are the lessons I learned first-hand in my early years working for some great, pioneering chefs—from Marco Pierre White at the Canteen, to Raymond Blanc at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, and Philip Howard at the Square. I learned that a good dish always has balance in its seasoning, acidity, and tex- tures, and always has a harmonious—not distracting—mix of ingredients on the plate. If you understand that, and the importance of classic old-school techniques, you get what makes great cooking—whatever its style. 

My style has changed a lot over the years. The journey from when I first made my mark in Vancouver at Ouest with my idea of a new West Coast French cuisine, to the lighter, more multicultural idea of fine dining I now put forward at Hawksworth and the Californian- Italian–inspired vision of Nightingale has been a long one. And it would not have been possible without the key players I’ve been lucky enough to have on my team. They know who they are and how grateful I am for their contribution. 

In some ways, I count on them more, and push them harder than ever before. Sure, I drove my brigade really hard when I was in the kitchen every day, directing traffic from the pass. But nowadays I demand even more of them in an arrangement that’s tougher for me, too: I have to trust them completely to execute my vision, to my standards, even when I’m not around. No one can be everywhere at once, and I’m no exception. I also like to travel; it’s a great source of ideas. These days if I’m cooking somewhere at night it’s usually at my house, for my family. Or maybe I’ve just gone fishing. 

In the pages that follow you’ll find recipes and stories from all the places that are so important to me. I hope you like them nearly as much as I do.