Customer Reviews

A Pickle and Chutney Cookbook

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Digby Law was a New Zealand food writer and chef of the 1980's and the 5 books he left are the perfect addition to any Kiwi cook's book shelf. His pickle and Chutney cookbook, which has achieved almost legendary status, has just been republished in January of 2006 which means that you can now get a copy for less than hundreds of dollars (copies were fetching over $200 at one stage, and this is for a relatively compact 8vo)

The recipes in here are very well presented and cover a range of fruits and vegetables and recipes which are obtainable in New Zealand including favourites such as Picallili to nice red onion chutneys. My favourite is a the bell pepper chutney which can only be made for a very short period of time given their seasonal availability - but crisp, colourful, sweet and delicious on just about anything.

This book has been written with the New Zealand audience in mind, but it is flexible internationally. Everyone has bell peppers, and onions for instance. However if you want to have a taste of New Zealand this is the perfect book to try.

The recipes are well presented, there are no pictures, but the spacing is good and the descriptions pithy but adequate. The font used is easy to read and the book set out well to see exactly what ingredients are needed in what amount - not always easy to see in cookbooks! There are several recipes on each page and because of their groupings it is easy to use this book as a base and to modify according to your needs.

I strongly recommend marking pages of your favourites though. Pickles and Chutneys are easy to make, but are, of course, best made at the time of year when the fruit are most plentiful and at their ripest, richest, and cheapest.

Personally I use the freshest, brightest ingredients to make the best chutneys etc - and it does make a difference if you pick them out of your own garden - they are definitely sweeter that way. It is not essential, just getting the best out of your garden and using up the last of the fruit and veges so they aren't wasted.

The Hardback edition comes with a nice dust jacket, the new 2006 edition is rather brighter and comes in limp edition