Cooking with the Master Chef

Michel Roux Jr is best known in England as a judge on the British Masterchef program. If you have the money to dine out at top restaurants in England, you will also know him from the Le Gavroche restaurant. This book is Michel's fifth book and covers a full meal instead of focusing on pastry or some other area.

There are sections on bread, soups, pates, terrines, salads, light meals, fish, poultry, meat, desserts, stocks, and sauces. There is very little introduction, just recipes. Most recipes look simple. Some have photographs. There is an index by recipe and an index by ingredient.

You will have to find your own alternative ingredients if an ingredient is not available locally. As an example, Red Mullet is the fish used in some recipes. Red mullet can be hard to find outside of the Mediterranean. In Australia the alternatives include yellow eyed mullet, sea mullet (stronger flavour), tommy roughs (less oily), and baby barramundi (milder flavour). Sea mullet is available all year round and baby barramundi is farmed, making baby barramundi the most sustainable but make sure it is Australian, not imported, because you cannot tell what went into catching or producing a foreign fish.

While we are talking fish, the seafoods used (with alternatives in brackets) are Cockles, Crab, Gilt-head Bream, John Dory, Monkfish (blue eye code, snapper), Mussels, Pollack, Red Mullet, Salmon, Scallops, Sea Bass, Sole, Trout, Tuna, and Turbot (Sole, Plaice, Flounder). If you know of other alternatives for your country, add a comment.

One previous book from Michel was The Marathon Chef: Food for Getting Fit, a book I will look for next. Michel runs in Marathons and every day between the lunch and dinner work. Gourmet that is also healthy? Perfect!