YOU will find a brachiosaurus moseying through an asparagus forest, a tiger surveying a field of Szechuan peppers, and a duck bobbing about with a load of cherry tomatoes in Thomasina Miers's new recipe collection, Home Cook. And they all look so happy.
"You can tell I was pregnant when I was making it, can't you?" the English chef and restaurateur yelps with a laugh. "Oh my God, we had so much fun."
Miers' fifth book is all clean lines and straightforward recipes. It pops with colour and is bolstered by Mexican influences – this is, after all, the woman who co-founded popular restaurant chain Wahaca, which is now in its 10th year of taco slinging.
At its core though, Home Cook is a reflection of "how we eat at home", says Miers (41), and how having three small children and a restaurant empire affects that.
"The food I cook now is very different to the food I cooked 20 years ago, when I had all the time in the world," she explains. "I'm a working mother, who comes home late sometimes and just has to get food out on the table, but equally, I want to feed my family good food."
The collection of 300-odd recipes, she says, is also a "guilt-free joyous approach to food", in reaction to "all this neurosis about eating and what not to eat" that currently abounds.
"Healthy eating has become such a loaded, almost toxic subject," says Miers. "I grew up as a teenager full of hang-ups about food and always dieting, and it's such a bad way to live your life."
Now she says: "Basically, if you're cooking a bit from scratch at home, which you can do affordably and easily, then you're going to be eating healthily, and if you eat a few doughnuts along the way, it doesn't really matter."
Miers won MasterChef in 2005 and still appears on the series as a guest judge, which she says is "much more relaxing – although it brings all the memories back. It's amazing how food's moved on, so occasionally I just want to be doing it again, knowing what I know now."
Her advice for the latest crop of amateur chefs entering the MasterChef kitchen is: "Cook from your heart. The second you try and get too clever with cooking, you're found out pretty quickly. Food is a very sincere occupation, and a lack of sincerity shines out."
Below are two of Thomasina's recipes from Home Cook.
CORNBREAD WITH GOAT'S CHEESE AND HONEY BUTTER
(Serves four)
For the cornbread:
100ml whole milk
240ml buttermilk
3 eggs
165g sweetcorn kernels (frozen and defrosted or fresh from a cob)
100g plain flour
180g fine polenta
30g soft brown sugar
1tsp fine salt
1tbsp baking powder
80g butter
3 spring onions, halved and finely sliced
For the goat's cheese:
250g soft goat's cheese
75ml whole milk
25ml olive oil
Salt and pepper
For the chipotle honey butter:
125g butter
35g chipotle in adobo, chopped (available from www.souschef.co.uk, Amazon and Waitrose)
50g honey
Generous squeeze of lime juice
Salt
To serve:
Butter, to fry
4 eggs
Large handful of rocket dressed with oil and lime juice
To make the cornbread, preheat the oven to 180C and butter a 900g loaf tin. Blend together the milk, buttermilk, eggs and 100g of sweetcorn. Put the flour, polenta, sugar, salt and baking powder into a large bowl and whisk well to combine. Melt the butter in a pan and add to the dry ingredients, along with the egg mixture, spring onions and remaining sweetcorn. Mix briefly to bring everything together.
Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 45 minutes, or until an inserted skewer comes out clean. Allow to cool in the tin for 30 minutes before turning out on to a wire rack.
While the cornbread is baking, blitz the goat's cheese, milk and olive oil with a blender, seasoning with salt and pepper. It should be light and fluffy.
For the chipotle honey butter, melt the butter in a pan, add the chipotle and honey and whisk together. Season with the lime juice and salt to taste.
Cut the bread into slices the thickness of two £1 coins and fry in a little butter to warm through. Fry the eggs in a hot frying pan until crisp.
Serve the bread with one to two heaped tablespoons of the goats' cheese, a handful of dressed rocket, a fried egg and drizzle of the honey butter.
THAI GREEN SEA BASS WITH GALANGAL, LEMON GRASS AND COCONUT
(Serves six)
For the fish:
1 whole sea bass
A few lime leaves (optional)
A few slices of lime (optional)
100ml water, fish or vegetable stock
Lime wedges, to serve
Coconut rice, to serve
Steamed pak choi, to serve
1tbsp sesame oil, toasted
For the Thai paste:
2 star anise
Half a cinnamon stick
1tbsp black peppercorn
Thumb-sized piece of fresh galangal, peeled and sliced (available from Sainsbury's)
Thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, peeled and sliced
4 garlic cloves, bashed to remove the skin
3 banana shallots, chopped
3 lemon grass sticks, chopped, outer layer set aside
6-8 bird's eye chillies
2tbsp fish sauce
Juice of 2-3 limes
2tbsp demerara sugar
Large bunch of coriander, leaves and stalks chopped separately
1 x 400ml can of coconut milk
Salt
First make the Thai paste: Grind the spices and put in a food processor with the galangal, ginger, garlic, shallots, lemon grass (reserving the outer layers), fish sauce, lime juice and sugar. Blitz to a rough paste. Add the chopped coriander stalks and coconut milk to the paste with half a teaspoon of salt and blitz again until combined. Taste the paste and add more chillies (when the paste is baked, the chilli heat will reduce dramatically).
Preheat the oven to 200C. Lay out the bass in a deep roasting tin, large enough to fit it comfortably. Make a few slashes in both sides of the body and cover with enough paste inside and out so it is well coated. Stuff the inside cavity with the lime leaves, lemon grass outer layers and slices of lime if using. Mix the rest of the paste with the water or stock and pour into the tin. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a thin metal skewer can slide easily all the way into the thickest part of the fish.
Scatter with chopped coriander leaves and serve with lime wedges, coconut rice and some steamed pak choi laced with one tablespoon of toasted sesame oil.
:: Home Cook by Thomasina Miers, photography by Tara Fisher, is published in hardback by Faber and Faber, priced £25.
