Sam Stern should take no offence at the fact I asked my 7-year-old son to command the pass on this one. It’s not that the recipes in Virgin to Veteran are childish - far from it - it’s just that my little one rather fancies himself as a mini Sam Stern. For those who’ve been on Mars for the past few years, Stern began writing cookbooks at the age of 14. While his mates were pouring themselves big bowls of cereal to scratch their hunger itch, Stern was cooking and scribbling his way to 700,000 in book sales.
Precocious he may be, but he speaks directly to youngsters of his own age who have an interest in cooking. One suspects his particular appeal (and I know a few of his fans) is among those with quite sophisticated tastes developed from eating in restaurants with mum and dad since they were in high chairs. Stern is now (sensibly) at university - wise to the possibility that the cooking lark may not pay the bills forever - but having already done a book for students, this one sees him moving on a bit.
What’s reassuring is that although it’s aimed at his contemporaries (the title says it all, really), the book isn’t riddled with irritating cheeky-chapiness. Stern seems to be his own man. There is a recipe for a delicious squishy egg sandwich with a suggested jokey way to eat it, but this isn’t cooking for dummies. As my son discovered.
He spent some time flipping through the book before deciding on the test recipe for this review. He very much liked the look of the mackerel with pickled cucumber and beetroot recipe (go figure) as well as the Greek lamb pie. He couldn’t see the point of having a fish and chips recipe (he says you don’t need a recipe) and finally settled on the fish pie.
As my son will attest having spent the best part of 2 hours in the kitchen making this (he cooked 95% of the recipe himself, leaving some of the hot pan stuff and peeling potatoes to mamma) this is no cheat’s version, with a number of components that need to be prepared and pulled together. But the result was fantastic - full of good fishy favour, rich and very creamy. The young chap was quite chuffed with the result and verily beamed for most of Saturday night. His only niggle with the recipe was that he couldn’t see the point of including chopped boiled egg. Fair play, I guess.
If you were living away from home for the first time you couldn’t go far wrong if this was the only cook book in your kitchen. It covers lots of basic recipes as well as some tougher challenges for showing off a bit - mainly modern British food but some South East Asian flavours along the way. There are also loads of genuinely useful tips and advice on buying and storing food, chopping techniques and pairing different ingredients. When my little chap leaves home (sob) I’d be pretty happy for him to have this volume in his suitcase alongside his clean socks, disinfectant spray and the speed dial on his mobile set to mum.
Virgin to Veteran: How to Get Cooking with Confidence by Sam Stern is published by Quadrille and released in May.
