Spice: A Cook's Companion by Mark Diacono

Spice: A Cook's Companion by Mark Diacono explores flavour, fragrance and heat through the lens of the home kitchen. Covering over 50 spices, it looks at the aromas and tastes they can bring to everyday cooking, from well-known staples to more unusual choices.

Rather than functioning as a standard recipe collection, the book combines practical ideas with techniques for sourcing, blending and cooking with spices. Alongside cumin, turmeric, vanilla, pepper and cinnamon, it also introduces ingredients such as grains of paradise, asafoetida, tonka beans and passion berries, with guidance intended to help you use them well.

Key details

• Author: Mark Diacono
• Covers over 50 spices
• Includes a guide to 50 spices and blends
• Features over 100 recipes
• Includes contributions from José Pizarro, Honey and Co, Maunika Gowardhan and Yuki Gomi

Synopsis

The recipes are designed to bring spices to life, from making blends for quick weekday cooking to infusing and blooming spices to draw out their qualities. It also introduces differences in flavour intensity and provenance, and considers how spice can help recognise and appreciate cuisines from around the world.

The book begins with a guide to 50 spices and blends, followed by over 100 recipes that build on this foundation, with additional input from chefs and food writers for whom spices are central to their cooking.