If your usual Scottish comfort food classics aren’t hitting the spot, be inspired by these brand new and summery cookbooks.
Tomato by Claire Thomson (Quadrille, £22) Photography ©Sam Folan
You say tom-ay-to, I say tom-ah-toe. It doesn’t really matter how author Claire Thomson pronounces it, she certainly has a lot of ideas when it comes to this fruit. Her new book, simply titled, Tomato, features plenty of summery options, like gazpacho or a juicy-sounding salad with tomato, peaches, feta, grapes and oregano. There are also recipes that feature canned or pureed produce, so you can continue your cooking into the colder months. Also, we love the cheery cover.
Red Sauce Brown Sauce by Felicity Cloake (Harper Collins, £16.99)
Join Felicity Cloake on a sausage-seeking breakfast odyssey, with a copy of Red Sauce Brown Sauce, which covers her journey across the UK on her bicycle, in order to sample plenty of brekkies en-route. There are mentions for some of Edinburgh’s finest, including Twelve Triangles and The Pantry, as well as visits to Arbroath Smokies and Dundee marmalade makers, Mackays.
Berber&Q: On Vegetables by Josh Katz (Kyle Books, £25)
London restaurateur and barbecue expert, Josh Katz, has written this book for those who want to pimp up their veggies. It seems there’s a lot more to them than boiling a few tatties in a pot. It demonstrates how to grill, roast, season, pickle, smoke and slow cook, and offers 100 recipes that have global inspiration. We like the sound of burrata with figs (fruit counts as a veg in this book) and hazelnut honey, or cucumber salad with pomegranate and mint as a colourful side dish to disguise cremated sausages.
Meliz’s Kitchen: Simple Turkish-Cypriot Comfort Food and Fresh Family Feasts (Ebury, £15), out June 30
If sunshine makes you crave Turkish-Cypriot food, like kofte or hummus, try the recipes in this book from self-taught cook and blogger, Meliz Berg. It's divided into chapters including kahvalti (breakfast), meze and salata (sharing dishes) and yahni (easy one-pot options).
Gary Maclean’s Scottish Kitchen (Black & White Publishing, £26)
This new book from Scotland’s National Chef features Scottish comfort food classics, like haggis, neeps and tatties, or smoked haddock mac ‘n’ cheese, but there are also more summer-y dishes. For example, try Gary’s goat cheese and walnut salad, or the haggis sliders for barbecue season. We would definitely take the haggis and sweet potato sausage rolls or hot smoked salmon salad nicoise on any picnic.
The Spanish Home Kitchen by Jose Pizarro (Hardie Grant, £27)
Deep-fried squid sandwich anyone? This recipe was inspired by chef Jose Pizarro’s time in Madrid, and is one of our favourite of the 80 options in this lovely book, which will be perfect for those who fancy some Spanish food but think it might be a bit too hot at the moment to actually visit in person. It also features dishes inspired by Pizarro’s childhood, such as the girolle and walnut croquetas, or creamy milk and roast garlic soup with manchego and green olive toast.
