These are the Good Food team’s favourite cookbooks of 2023 (and they all make great gifts)
Which cookbooks deserve a place under the Christmas tree? Our experts reveal their picks.
Yes, we all use our phones and computers to search up digital recipes. But it’s not ideal, is it? Greasy fingers swiping at screens every five minutes as the devices time out. What old-school satisfaction there is to be had from calmly leafing through a cookbook, propping it open on the bench for constant referral and having it spattered in debris as testament to a triumphant recipe.
Some stellar new cookbooks have landed this year, many from Australian recipe-writing royalty like Adam Liaw (7 Days of Dinner), Andrew McConnell (Meatsmith with Troy Wheeler) and Josh Niland (Take One Fish). They hit our desks with comforting regularity at Good Food.
If you were to make one cookbook purchase this year, a well-deserved gift to self or to pop under the Christmas tree and gift to someone special, which should you choose? The Good Food team is here to divulge their favourites.
Ardyn Bernoth, National Editor, Good Food
The Dinner Party
Martin Benn and Vicki Wild, Hardie Grant, $60
Chef Martin Benn and Vicki Wild have a reputation for throwing epic dinner parties. So, it’s only fitting they capture this passion in a book that dishes up their entertaining secrets. Benn is formerly a chef of a three-hat restaurant, so some of the recipes are aspirational rather than practical for a home cook. But heaps of them are clever, super-achievable and with high wow factor.
The snack game is strong. Smoked salmon fanned onto sheep’s milk yoghurt with chargrilled bread has become a fave and I’m making Benn’s take on prawn toast (above) this weekend. I love the playlists for each feast and the tips on forward planning. And I’m adopting their mantra: “Relax and make it fun.” Ardyn Bernoth
Recipes for a Lifetime of Beautiful Cooking
Danielle Alvarez, Murdoch Books, $49.99
During the pandemic, the home-style recipes of chef Danielle Alvarez on Instagram were a ray of sunshine. So leafing through her latest cookbook is like catching up with old friends. Hello again, yoghurt flatbreads! How’s it going, Korean vegetable pancakes! Those homely dishes and the cooking know-how Alvarez imparted through lockdown are threaded throughout this book, along with more elaborate recipes for blow-out occasions.
Alvarez is generous with her kitchen wisdom, advising cooks in an apricot pavlova recipe that it’s easier to separate eggs when they’re cold; to spike celery stalks with whole cloves for a beef daube so you don’t have to fossick about for the spices later; and to gently stew rather than caramelise onions for pissaladiere, the onion, olive and anchovy tart of Nice (above), so they’re unctuous rather than dry. I can’t wait to try more recipes – and to embark on a craft project inspired by the gorgeous embroidered tablecloth on the cover. Roslyn Grundy
Malta: Mediterranean Recipes from the Islands
Simon Bajada, Hardie Grant, $45
Finally, a book flaunting the food and spectacular landscape of this often-overlooked country. Italy might get all the attention (and cookbook deals), but this tiny island has an equally rich culinary tradition, and Simon Bajada captures it well. It’s also the food of my upbringing. My late grandparents were born in Malta and Bajada’s recipes keep the cooking of my nunna alive. Now I can make her stuffat tal-fenek (rabbit stew) and my absolute favourite, imqarrun il-forn, a glorious baked macaroni. And don’t get me started on those photos of the beaches. It makes me want to book a flight to Malta immediately.
Sarah Norris
From Salt to Jam
Katrina Meynink, Hardie Grant, $40
Anyone who’s ever tried one of Katrina’s recipes from Good Food knows she has a knack for packing huge amounts of flavour into every dish. In her latest book From Salt to Jam she takes it to the next level, creating saucy condiments that can be used to boost a multitude of recipes.
Case in point, one batch of gorgeous green goddess dressing can go a long, luscious way − swooshed on chicken thighs, stirred through chickpeas and feta for a two-minute dinner or dolloped on broccolini to create greens you actually want to eat. Amen to all that. Andrea McGinniss
Start Here
Sohla El-Waylly, Penguin, $59.99
I loved Samin Nosrat’s Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat and its back-to-basics approach that taught you the why of cooking so you could become more confident. This book takes that idea even further with more photos (essential for step-by-step black forest ice-cream cake!) and chapters devoted to mastering one skill at a time, whether it’s poaching, using butter in pastry or cooking eggs. (Nosrat also wrote the foreword − bless.)
El-Waylly, an ex-Bon Appetit magazine staffer and professional chef, describes Start Here as a one-stop culinary school in a book, without the debt. I say it’s an instruction manual in owning every meal you cook, whether it’s an egg sandwich or a whole fish with limey slaw. Emma Breheny
The Korean Cookbook
Junghyun Park and Jungyoon Choi, Phaidon, $74.95
In news that will surprise absolutely no one, I am not Korean. I will probably never fully understand the identity of hansik (Korean cuisine) and its dishes deeply rooted in tradition, but Junghyun Park and Jungyoon Choi’s new book really makes its readers want to try. The chefs also run acclaimed fine-diner Atomix in New York, but there are no instructions asking you to tweezer a perilla leaf here.
Rather, The Korean Cookbook is the Korean cookbook – a comprehensive exploration of hansik across 350 easy-to-follow recipes, from bulgogi and bibimbap, to regionally specific gukbap rice soups and a scholarly study of banchan. I need more enoki and chive namul in my life. Callan Boys
Ester
Mat Lindsay, Murdoch Books, $55
Ten years is a long time in the restaurant business and to mark that milestone owner-chef Mat Lindsay of two-hat Chippendale restaurant Ester has released his own cookbook filled with all the fire-driven inspiration any home cook could need. All the big-hitters are included: Lindsay’s cult cauliflower, blood sausage sanga, epic bacon sandwich and burnt pav.
Some recipes aren’t necessarily the quickest or easiest dishes to make at home (I’m looking at you, five-day fermented potato bread), but others are surprisingly achievable, and you’ll find plenty of inspiration in between, plus a new-found appreciation for what goes on in Ester’s kitchen. Lindsay’s ode to toast and “39 reasons to leave that avocado on the shelf” is imminently delicious and do-able, too. And if fire isn’t your thing? That’s OK – Lindsay teaches you how to fake a fire for faux flame-licked goodness. Megan Johnston
A Seat at My Table: Philoxenia
Kon & Sia Karapanagiotidis, Hardie Grant, $45
This cookbook makes me happy. It’s like being in the kitchen with Kon Karapanagiotidis, rolling out pastry for spinach pie, hanging yoghurt in the sink, and picking up tips from his mother, Sia. (“How much garlic do you use?” “How much I like to”.) The recipes are Greek, vegetarian, real, and damn near timeless: pan-fried feta with honey and rosemary; feta pies; yemitsa (stuffed vegetables); and my all-time go-to, dill and spinach rice.
Karapanagiotidis is founder of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, and 100 per cent of the proceeds go to the ASRC, with publisher Hardie Grant also donating $1 for each book sold. For him, cooking and caring is best summed up by the Greek word Philoxenia, meaning “being a friend to a stranger”. This book makes friends of us all. Jill Dupleix
Change the Course: A Two Good Cookbook
Two Good Co, $45
You could happily buy this cookbook just for the recipes, but to know that Two Good exists to support women with lived experience of homelessness or domestic violence makes everything you cook from it resonate that much more.
Though the recipes are shared by luminaries such as Kylie Kwong, Matt Moran and Neil Perry (including my own for spaghetti with anchovy and breadcrumbs), it’s very down-to-earth and helpful, and full of very handy tips for things like “quick pickles” that help reduce food waste. My fave recipe is from the Two Good Co’s own kitchen staff, a choose-your-own-adventure tray bake that involves baking onions, potatoes, fennel, cherry tomatoes and sausages together into something fabulous. Terry Durack