Lateral Cooking: Foreword by Yotam Ottolenghi

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Niki Segnit is probably best known as the author of The Flavour Thesaurus, the culinary version of Roget’s Thesaurus, which listed 99 ingredients and suggested flavour matches for each of them. As the scope of the book is not Eurocentric at all, and is actually very straight forward, I would recommend this as top 3 cookbook for any cook who wants to become better, more educated and inspired in the kitchen. My new favourite and I would recommend it to anyone who is comfortable enough cooking to break away from the traditional recipe layout and bend the rules.

So, for example, in the potato gnocchi entry Segnit tells you about the flour potato weight and add flour in patient increments but there is no explicit recipe. There are (very) approximately 300,000 words to keep you occupied, or around three airport novels worth. The result is greater creativity in the Lateral Cooking encourages improvisation, resourcefulness, and, ultimately, the knowledge and confidence to cook by heart. Kind of preferred The Flavour Thesaurus to this one (not a criticism in an way) but as a ginger fiend, took to the ginger loaf like a fish to water (the recipe is delicious). At over 600 pages long, its a brick of a book, with densely packed pages illustrated only by simple red ink line drawings.

Our bold but simple approach to the design evolved out of the unique structure and extensive content of Lateral Cooking, making it enjoyable and accessible for the reader. Niki Segnit had not so much as peeled a potato until her early twenties, when, almost by accident, she discovered that she loved cooking. Once you have the hang of each starting point, a wealth of flavour possibilities awaits, each related in Niki's signature combination of culinary science, history, chefs' wisdom and personal anecdote.

That said, it is a book to inspire serious cooks, particularly those who want to be experimental and step away from the rigid adherence to the recipe. So you might want to try and track down candied melon to make your own Calissons D’aix, a lozenge shaped sweet from Aix-en-Provence made with a marzipan like mix of ground almonds and flavoured with honey, Grand Marnier and orange flower water as well as the aforementioned candied melon. Lateral Cooking is, in a sense, the ‘method’ companion to its bestselling predecessor, The Flavour Thesaurus – and is just as useful, ingeniously organised and enjoyable to read.Which is to say, one dish leads to another: once you’ve got the hang of flatbreads, for instance, then its neighbouring dishes on the continuum (crackers, soda bread, scones) will involve the easiest and most intuitive adjustment. Niki Segnit, author of the landmark book The Flavour Thesaurus, gives you the tools to do just that. We created over 400 original illustrations for the book to bring the words and ideas within its extensive text to life, reflecting Segnit’s desire for suggestive rather than prescriptive imagery to accompany her writing. Most of the times, you miss one ingredients and need to replace it with something, you are short on time and need to cut a corner etc.