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The 10 Modern Cookbooks Everyone Should Own

Up your kitchen game with these culinary classics

Headshot of Olivia OvendenBy Olivia Ovenden
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Cookery books can be a little intimidating. Long lists of recipes in flowery language, all promising the best, healthiest, fastest and most delicious meals using ingredients you don't have and techniques you haven't mastered.

These are a little different. Presenting: ten modern recipe books with ten very different purposes, whether you're looking for a quick snack or the best way to rule your dinner party circuit. Enjoy.

For nailing technique

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Cooking is a minefield for anyone just starting out. How much salt should I add? What heat produces the best flavours? These questions and endless others are answered in chef Samin Nosrat's thorough and methodical bible on cooking techniques. As well as explaining the elements of good cooking, it provides methods for staple moves like browning onions and simple recipes such as soy-glazed salmon. 

£19, Amazon

Meat made easy

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Trendy London butchers Ginger Pig have quite literally taken apart the animal in this meat manual which is split into pork, beef, lamb, poultry and game, and also divided into recipes for the 12 months of the year. As well as a huge mix of recipes from meatballs in tomato sauce to venison burgers to steak tartare, it also gives advice on buying, preparing and carving meat.

£19.99, Amazon

The vegeterian masterclass

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The rise of vegetarianism has seen a glut of new food writers treating vegetables as the main event rather than a sad side dish. One leader of the revolution is chef and food writer Anna Jones whose first book A Modern Way To Eat was a smash hit, even with carnivores. Her follow up is equally impressive with innovative recipes such as crispy cauliflower rice with sticky spiced cashews and a Bloody Mary salad with black rice. It also includes three sections for meals ready in under 20, 30 and 40 minutes. 

£17, Amazon

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Master impressive entertaining

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Widely credited with bringing a revolution of Middle-Eastern cooking to Britain, Yottam Ottolenghi's flair for flavour and unusual ingredients have made his London restaurants a mecca for foodies. His fifth and most recent cookbook is packed with recipes that are a feast for all senses such as butternut squash with ginger tomatoes and Jerusalem artichoke soup with spinach pesto. It is well worth searching a little further afield for some of the unusual ingredients required, your guests won't stop grinning.

£18, Amazon

Fad-free healthy eating

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2017 has seen us reach peak 'clean eating' fatigue, with many so-called healthy cookbooks falling short of expectations and leaving people still hungry with a cupboard full of flax seeds and bee pollen. Not so in the case of Michele Cranston's book which is a celebration of flavour rather than restraint. With recipes like her prawn salad with pearl couscous or lemongrass-poached chicken with harissa tomatoes, this is proof eating well doesn't have to be complicated or miserable.

£13, Amazon

The best of British

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Magnate restaurateur Mark Hix offers the very best of British cuisine in this celebration of produce and flavour. Divided into the months of the year, Hix cherrypicks seasonal ingredients and turns them into culinary delights such as lobster and Jersey Royal salad, onions in beer batter and braised wild rabbit with mushrooms.

£14.99, Amazon

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Take the hit restaurant home

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If you've passed through Borough Market in the last year or two you'll have been taken aback by the snaking queue outside fresh pasta hotspot Padella. Now you needn't bother get in line as their sister restaurant Trullo have released a celebration of Italian antipasti and pasta and more with many of their secret recipes inside. Recreate pici cacio e pepe or nettle tagliarini with egg yolk at home, though you'll still have to wait in line for that infamous beef shin ragu I'm afraid.

£17, Amazon

For all-day breakfast

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Over in North London the breakfast queues outside Caravan are equally famous, where brunch is served all afternoon long with inventive takes on classic dishes. Their first cookbook recreates that magic with truly unique all-day breakfast dishes such as baked eggs, crab omelette, ham hock hash and, yes really, breakfast cocktails too. 

£17, Amazon

Eastern cooking demystified

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The warmth and depth of spices in Middle-Eastern spices are expertly decoded by British-Iranian chef Sabrina Ghayour whose recipes thankfully don't involve complicated processes or endless trips to specialist supermarkets. You'll be amazed at the results of cupboard staples like cumin and turmeric.

£17, Amazon

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And for dessert

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The first cookbook from the infamous milk bar bakery in New York has recipes filled with the stuff of childhood dreams, compost cookies stuffed with salty pretzels, cake truffles and a 'crack pie' with an oaty crust. Here puddings are more substantial than delicate and don't need to come out the oven pristine. They're also less about Mary Berry-level science skills and give what most people are after post-dinner - a big sugar hit and bit of fun.

£17, Amazon

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