Whisky Kitchen

This might be a first in the world of book reviews; certainly it is for my blog. It's a cookbook review. I can safely say that this book in question is one of the best impulse-buys of my life. It is Whisky Kitchen.

Many years ago I saw this out of the corner of my eye at the Royal Highland Show. Given it combined whisky and cooking (and had a delicious looking delicacy on the front) I had to buy it. Years later I still have it, albeit in a slightly more careworn state, and I still refer to it regularly.

The book was written by chefs Sheila McConachie and Graham Harvey who wanted to share their love of Scottish produce and combine it with their love of whisky. They wanted to show that a wee sploosh of whisky can make all the difference in a meal.

For those of you that don't like whisky (yet) fear not. The recipes are not designed to taste of whisky (mostly). Instead the whisky adds depth and body to the dishes. Don't believe me? I will give you the example of my mother. She is not a whisky fan despite my best attempts to convert her and as a result, viewed the book with some suspicion. After trying a few recipes she promptly decided that it was delicious and she wanted a copy of the book as a present. Enough said!

The layout of the book is fantastic. Recipes are laid out in a clear, easy to follow way with useful hints and tips. These are coupled with spectacular photos that verge on the pornographic and give some excellent guidance on the best way to plate it up.

What of the food? There is a wonderful range of dishes to suit all tastes and seasons. All are relatively straight forward to do and, better still, don't have an exhaustive, bank-breaking list of ingredients They are also broken down into component parts allowing you to combine elements from several dishes. Great fun to play with.

One word of warning. All of the recipes call for different whiskies. Buying bottles of  all of these will set you back many hundreds of pounds. A lot of money you'll agree. The recipes can be made using miniatures of the malts in question. This is better but with miniatures costing £5 and £10 it could still become pricey... and not leave much left over! For most of the recipes, I generally use some generic plonk: whatever is in my decanter which is usually whatever is on special offer in the supermarket. In most cases, the flavours in the dish are bold enough that the flavour of whisky is sufficient to enhance them without using specific malts. Well I think so anyway.

So there we have it, an excellent book for whisky lovers but also for those that love excellent food that is well presented and straight forward to prepare...

JR