Recipes from Cooking for Friends

Cooking for Friends

Cooking for Friends is a collection of thoroughly modern recipes by innovative young food writer Alastair Hendy that look spectacular but are easy to prepare and totally delicious. Sharing a meal with friends is one of the joys of life and entertaining should be a pleasure, not a chore, a chance to set aside the bland convenience food of everyday life and experiment with fresh, tasty ingredients and original ideas.

Alastair’s philosophy on food is to choose good natural ingredients, ideally in their natural season, and to keep things simple: “Cooking now is about spontaneity: a freedom to cook without getting bogged down with complicated methods and fiddly procedures…flavors are fresh and should be kept that way.” In Cooking for Friends he provides over 100 wonderful recipe ideas.

A whole asparagus tart on a piece of parchment paper.

Asparagus Tart

If spring had a taste, we dare say it’d be this simple yet sophisticated tart with its cheese custard, shatteringly crisp phyllo crust, and row after row of spring spears.

A small white bowl filled with chicken-pea shoot salad.

Chicken-Pea Shoot Salad

An ardent pea shoot aficionado divulges her favorite bling come spring–a simple, sprightly salad that flaunts the sweeter side of these cute, curly shoots.

A white plate with a mound of cannellini bean salad and a bunch of grape tomatoes on the vine.

Cannellini Bean Salad

Roasting grape tomatoes intensifies their flavor and makes them all the more enticing in this anytime-of-year vegetarian tapas.