Leith's Confident Cooking: Step-by-Step Recipes and Techniques (Leith's Step-by Step Cookery)

Some great meals

Super book in very good condition. Happy!!

just what my wife wanted for her cooking

Im a bit of a cook book addict and this one surprised me. Its got really nice original dishes with easy to follow recipies and a great techniques section at the back. Loads of great pics as well.

As expected its a great cooking book.

A Very good old fashion proper cookery book, I am glad I have one, I refer to it all the time.

I picked up a second-hand copy of this book at a silly price, and as there are only 2 reviews so far, thought I would add some information to help others. Over the last week or so I have been hunting down several Leiths books, and have got this one, the School, and the Bible for knock down prices. I see there are several of these on Amazon for prices starting at 1p, with postage about £2.50 - that's a bargain, the postage on the one I received actually cost £5.30!So, what is this book? Unlike Leiths Bible and School books, this is a true recipe book (the others are more about how to cook in general), but the first enhancement is that each recipe is shown step by step (hence the title I suppose :-) ) with clear photographs of each step. There are not loads of steps, 4 or 5 seems to be the norm, but that's enough to help you along. There are eight recipe sections, Soups & Starters, Fish & Shellfish, Poultry & Game Birds, Meat, Vegetarian, Salads & Side Dishes, Desserts and Baking. The baking section has biscuits and cakes (and a Chocolate Pizza!), but no bread. However, the ninth section of the book is an excellent Techniques section, which amongst other things (Herbs, spices, fish, shellfish etc.), has a nice little section on bread, including variations to the normal basic white. The Techniques section in my opinion is the second enhancement which lifts this book above the normal recipe book, and brings it towards an instruction manual.I would thoroughly recommend this book to anyone, especially someone just starting out in the kitchen - if you do not know much yet about cooking, this book will help you, and considering you can get a copy for less than £3 delivered, it's a no-brainer. It's not the only cookery book you will ever need, but it doesn't claim to be - it is however, an excellent first book, or an addition to your cookery library.

I've had this cookery book for over 20 years and it's still my favourite. The step-by-step photos make all the recipes very easy to follow and every one I've tried has been a success. There's also a very useful section on techniques in the back.