Jeremy Lee uses an old fashioned soup spoon for measuring which is quite quirky although he says a tablespoon will do just as well. Alongside contemporaries such as Fergus Henderson, of St John, Lee takes as much credit as anyone for the extraordinary flourishing in our national cuisine over the past few decades. Pork chops - so simple and so delicious; devilled kidneys - sumptuous; tomato salad; simplicity itself. Those spoilt types, like me, who are fortunate enough to eat occasionally at Quo Vadis will turn immediately to pies (“even the planet must have a crust”), knowing that no one on Earth makes a better one, before checking the index (I’ll save you the bother: it’s pages 144-5) for Lee’s smoked eel sandwich, for my money the greatest thing to appear on any menu (or cookbook page) since, yup, sliced bread.

Place the tart on a wire rack over a tray to catch any butter that may fall from the tart while baking. To make the pastry, put the cold butter, the flour, sugar and a pinch of salt into the bowl of a food processor and render to a fine crumb. The word "classic" is used far too often to describe stuff nowadays but, in this generation of a million new cookbooks out every day (it seems), this will rise to the top and always be remembered. Ebooks fulfilled through Glose cannot be printed, downloaded as PDF, or read in other digital readers (like Kindle or Nook). Take a 50g portion of the pastry and roll it out thinly on a lightly floured surface into a 12-13cm disc.Not only is Cooking the most beautiful cookery book in living memory (with illustrations by the great John Broadley), but it is also that very rare thing: a book, both magisterial and friendly, that immediately feels like it has always been a part of your life, even though it’s brand-new.

It’s wholesome food with twists but not too much and absolutely something people who love to cook would use. It’s not classic in my mind it really is something you might see from times gone - good eating never really goes away yes?It is as much indebted to Lee’s Dundee childhood as his years at the stove in smart Sassenach restaurants. But Lee had long felt a volume of his own work may be simmering away, and when approached by Fourth Estate in about 2016 he knew it was time to make it real, eventually. And while many of the recipes in the book were developed in professional kitchens, it is home cooking, and the home cook, that his book is about, and for. Put the oil into the cast-iron pan, lay the pork chop on top and let cook undisturbed until deep mahogany in colour, roughly 8-10 minutes.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Like his cooking, Lee’s long (very long) awaited first book, the gorgeous Cooking: Simply and Well, For One or Many, with photos by Elena Heatherwick and illustrations by John Broadley, is authoritative, substantial, witty, romantic, beautifully presented and completely moreish.For all ebook purchases, you will be prompted to create an account or login with your existing HarperCollins username and password. Repeat with another layer of potato, continuing thus, adding butter, salt and black pepper as you go. I’ve had my copy for a week now and am having to ration myself to prolong the pleasure of reading it.