It’s Sunday, cookbook review day, and this week I’m going back to a title from 2019 that I really liked but didn’t get a chance to mention here. Catherine Phipps @catherinephipps book Leaf @quadrillebooks @hardiegrantbooks is a celebration of #edibleleaves used in cooking, surprising and reassuring that so many different flavours and textures can be wrought by using the often-overlooked usefulness of leaves of plants and trees. Here I’ve used the fig leaves from a tree in our friend Meena’s garden, and after washing them free of any alarming things like bird droppings, and checking for bugs, I used them soft and scrunched up to make these fig leaf #panacotta (p) and dried crisp to make these utterly delicious sweet black pepper and fig leaf sable cookies, which have a flavour somewhere between coconut and #pandanleaf, for dessert tonight.
Likes: It’s a vast, deeply fascinating delve into the array of wonders that can be cooked up, wrapped up, dried and flavoured with fairly common leaves found in many gardens around the world: but particularly in Britain, where it’s too often said that the traditional cooking must lack vigour simply because of the lack of spices available. Though there are great books on British plants like Roy Vickery’s ‘Vickery’s Folk Flora’ @wnbooks that offer more reference than practical uses. This is Leaf’s strength, many recipes you can get your head around easily, sound delicious, and in the case of the fig leaf sable and panacotta, blow your mind. It’s a pretty fantastic book, beautifully produced, great tight design by Nicola Ellis and helpful and delicious-looking photos by @MowieKay
Could be better: Very little, it’s in good shape. Wish the binding wasn’t so tight, you have to crack the spine a bit to get it to lay flat to read from. I would have enjoyed more personal reflection and even – can’t believe I’m writing this – pictures of Phipps cooking and picking leaves. It’s rare the days to not see the author and perhaps that might have been sweet.
Overall: A remarkable book that will absolutely add solid reference and good sense to your cookery book collection. Definitely one to buy.
