` Ingredients are at the heart of everything we do at River Cottage. By gathering our all-time favourites together, I hope to inspire you to look at them with fresh eyes & discover new ways of cooking them` Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall The definitive River Cottage kitchen companion. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall & his team of experts have between them an unprecedented breadth of culinary expertise on subjects that range from fishing & foraging to bread-making, preserving, cheese-making & much more. In this volume they profile their best-loved & most-used ingredients. With more than three hundred entries covering vegetables, fruits, herbs, spices, meat, fish, fungi, foraged foods, pulses, grains, dairy, oils & vinegars, the River Cottage A to Z is a compendium of all the ingredients the resourceful modern cook might want to use in their kitchen. Each ingredient is accompanied by a delicious, simple recipe or two: there are new twists on old favourites, such as cockle & chard rarebit, North African shepherd`s pie, pigeon breasts with sloe gin gravy, or damson ripple parfait, as well as inspiring ideas for less familiar ingredients, like dahl with crispy seaweed or rowan toffee. & there are recipes for all seasons: wild garlic fritters in spring; cherry, thyme & marzipan muffins for summer; an autumnal salad of venison, apple, celeriac & hazelnuts; a hearty winter warmer of ale-braised ox cheeks with parsnips. With more than 350 recipes, & brimming with advice on processes such as curing bacon & making yoghurt, the secret of perfect crackling & which apple varieties to choose for a st&-out crumble, as well as sourcing the most sustainable ingredients, this is an essential guide to cooking, eating & living well. More than anything, the River Cottage A to Z is a celebration of the amazing spectrum of produce that surrounds us
- all brought to life by Simon Wheeler`s atmospheric photography, & Michael Frith`s evocative watercolour illustrations.