Faking it

This hefty paperback tome from Delicious magazine’s food editor, Valli Little, is designed to help busy home cooks rustle up impressive-looking — and tasting — meals in a flash. Unlike with the bestselling and, to my mind, depressing 4 Ingredients (which should be renamed 4 Packets), here Little resorts to the already-prepared only occasionally, if at all, and does so judiciously. So deli stuff that it’s hard to go wrong with, such as roasted cherry tomatoes or onion jam, might be used, as might supermarket staples such as frozen puff pastry, chicken stock or canned chickpeas.

I love the idea of transforming a humble cottage pie by topping it with (bought) gnocchi instead of mashed potato because it saves an awful lot of trouble and looks spectacular. There are great-looking dukkah-crusted lamb cutlets and a recipe for Thai-style braised beef cheeks with an easy, zesty herb salad.

There’s a chapter on burgers, the smoked trout variety with asparagus tzatziki sounding particularly good, and a chocolate chapter with plenty of appealing, foolproof desserts and treats. The cover photo of caramel pavlova bites looks fantastic and the recipe cleverly incorporates an easy microwave caramel filling that uses up the egg yolks left over from the meringue-making. It’s full of ideas that will inspire any jaded homecook, whether or not s/he’s pressed for time.