There are many types of home cook. The cook who claims to never use a recipe and the one who makes the same three dinners on rotation and lives off leftovers in between. There’s the one who gets themselves in a tizz cooking five new Ottolenghi recipes for a dinner party, and there’s the work-from-home project cook who has one burner on the stove perpetually alight throughout the day. Not many books will benefit them all, but I truly think this month’s pick is one of them: Carter’s Cookbook 3.
Byron-based Kiwi cook and writer Carter Were has just self-published her third cookbook – as is evident in the name – and it’s got recipe after recipe for simple home cooking. Carter’s twin, Harry Were, shot the images in their homes. They’re full of the faces and hands of the five kids between their two families, and sit alongside warm paintings by Chloe Coles and the approachable, fluff-free recipes. It is exactly how they put it: a “book made to be used”.
For my first cook, I picked three classic recipes: steak, salad and crispy roast potatoes. You’ll find the recipes extracted below. You might be thinking a recipe for a steak, or a simple salad, is a bit over-engineered? “I know how to do that,” you think. But remember: the special thing about cooking is we all have a little something to learn from the way someone else does it.
You have your routine in the kitchen, your rhythm, your go-to pasta or cookie recipe. You whip them up with not much thought, but it’s books like these that either validate your methods or push you to try something different. You might try, like Carter, baking your sausages on cherry tomatoes and potatoes instead of firing up the barbeque, or adding a little marjoram to your garlicky tomato pasta. They’re not recipes that’ll lead you down a winding garden path with an invoice for a zoodle machine, but instead classics that’ll soon become second nature – you’ll be claiming them as your own in no time.
The tricks I picked up from Were’s book? Well, adding a little slab of butter on top of the steak as it rests adds a gloss and flavour that’s beyond the effort involved. A tablespoon or two of yoghurt in my citrusy dressing kept things light and springy. And roasting spuds in a lemony stock loads them up with flavour before they get a chance to go crisp.
The book is geared toward busy, bustling families with kids, but it’ll be just as useful for that friend or sibling moving out for the first time who thinks boiled chicken and rice will suffice night after night. Carter’s third cookbook is full of simple, unfussy but ultimately delicious recipes we all need more of in our weekly rotation.
Carter Were’s steak, salad and roast potatoes
2 rump or scotch steaks, about 3cm thick
40ml olive oil
2 tbsp butter
Salt
12 medium potatoes
1 lemon, juiced
250ml chicken stock
40ml olive oil
1 garlic clove
Salt
1 lettuce, washed
1 shallot
2 tbsp yoghurt
60ml olive oil
1 lemon, juiced
Salt
Preheat the oven to 180°C fan.
Peel the potatoes and slice them into wedges, then arrange in a large oven dish with high sides. Pour over the juice of one lemon juice, 250ml of stock and 40ml of olive oil, then add a big pinch of salt. Finely chop or grate the garlic and add to the tray. Gently toss everything together, arranging the potatoes in a single layer. Cook for 30 minutes, then remove from oven and turn over the potatoes. Cook for another 30 minutes or until golden brown and crispy. Note: if the potatoes have soaked up all the juices after 30 minutes, add a little more stock or water.
While the potatoes are cooking, finely dice the shallot and add it to a large bowl with 2 tbsp of yoghurt, 60ml of olive oil, the juice of one lemon and a pinch of salt. Whisk everything together. Add the separated lettuce leaves to the bowl and toss with the dressing until covered. Set aside.
Rub each side of the steak generously with olive oil and salt. Heat a grill pan on high for about 5 minutes, then place the steaks in the pan and cook on one side for 3 minutes. Flip both and cook for a further 3 minutes. Remove the steaks and transfer to a plate, topping each with a tablespoon of butter.
Place a bowl over the top of the steaks and rest for 3 minutes, before slicing to serve with salad and potatoes.
Notes
It’s important to cook the steak at room temperature, so ensure you remove it from the fridge an hour or two before you want to cook it. The recipe is for a steak cooked medium-rare, if you prefer it medium cook each side for 4 minutes instead.
This is an edited extract from Carter’s Cookbook 3, which is available online alongside with number one and two.
Gemma Plunkett is a Sydney-based dinner party tragic and home cook who is a writer, content strategist and recipe developer. Find her (but mostly food) in pictures or in your inbox via her free newsletter Ding!
