Mark Diacono’s April favourites promise fresh inspiration for your spring cooking. This month: tempting desserts, a guide to great everyday meals, and sunny ideas inspired by Greek, Turkish and Italian traditions
Recipe I can’t wait to make: Lamb shank fricassée with preserved lemon (above).
I didn’t know that... I’ve been missing out on barbecued olives all my life.
Look out for recipes from Greekish in next month’s issue
GREEKISH
Award-winning food writer and delicious. favourite Georgina Hayden delivers again with 120 vibrant recipes that transport appetite and mind to the sunny Med. Inspired by her Greek-Cypriot roots and travels, the recipes and combinations are often familiar, but only to a point – hence the title. Hayden’s recipes – brilliant breakfasts, appetising small plates and salads, and I-want-that-now desserts – are as reliable and inspiring as ever, with her usual emphasis on flavour and minimal fuss. There really is so much to enjoy: when I was eating the simple genius of whole grilled halloumi with apricots, I couldn’t help anticipate the spanakopita jacket potatoes to come. I love a book that’s a full, unpretentious expression of its author and Greekish is just that. As Hayden says, “These Greekish dishes are all me,” and that springs off every page.
Bloomsbury £26, out 25 April; photographs by Laura Edwards
EASY WINS
Once again, bestselling author Anna Jones shows us how deliciously pleasure-giving thoughtful modern vegetarian food can be. Taking 12 ‘hero’ ingredients (lemons, tahini, olive oil and so on) Jones offers us 132 ‘easy win’ recipes for 365 days of the year. Simplicity is a seam that runs through the book, as is helpfulness. Tips, tricks and rules build confidence over the pages: the importance of ‘the final layer’ (crispy sage, salsa verde, herbs) is one of many. Somehow Jones makes even the simplest recipes, such as lemon soda bread, miso rarebit, and leeks and peas with spiced mustard butter, taste special.
Recipe I can’t wait to make: Hot lemon and bay pudding (below).
I didn’t know that… Homemade mustard tastes so good.
4th Estate £28; photographs by Matt Russell
SEBZE
Food writer Özlem Warren’s second book is a warm, joyful celebration of Turkish food that happens to be vegetarian (sebze is Turkish for vegetable). I loved the street food recipes so much, I ate enough of the nohut dürümü – spiced chickpea wrap with
