How to Cook The 100 Essential Recipes Everyone Should Know

An accessible and streamlined culinary primer for anyone wanting to master basic cooking skills using 25 of the most popular staple ingredients, written by the grande dame of Irish food

Darina Allen is at the forefront of healthy, sustainable family food in Ireland, and this is her up-to-date take on what a new generation needs to know for creating tasty, nutritious, waste-less dishes at home. She frequently encounters people who do not know the simplest basic cooking techniques or the 25 most frequently used ingredients for home cooking. Darina’s mission is to ensure that no one should leave home or create a home without knowing the basics of how to make good food from scratch using healthy ingredients. 

From Tray-Baked Eggs to ‘5-Ways Tomato Sauce’ and Kale & Crumble Mac ’n’ Cheese, the recipes are divided by ingredients and have an international focus to reflect how people cook today. 

Darina Allen runs the world-renowned cookery school at Ballymaloe in Ireland and is the bestselling author of Ballymaloe Cookery Course and Forgotten Skills of Cooking, which won the prestigious André Simon award in 2009. She campaigns for local produce, is a member of Slow Food Ireland and set up Ireland’s first farmers’ market. Through the East Cork Educational Fund, she runs a programme for local primary schools to help local children learn about food from garden to plate. She won the Guild of Food Writers’ Lifetime Achievement award in 2013.