Cook with a Book: Jamie's Reizen (Jamie does... Spain, Italy, Sweden, Morocco, Greece, France)

Jamie's Reizen (Jamie Does... Spain, Italy, Sweden, Morocco, Greece, France) by Jamie Oliver. Published by Kosmos Uitgevers, 2011. Translation by Jaromir Schneider.

I love looking through cookbooks. Not only do they contain delicious recipes, they are always full of beautiful photographs. There's one name most people will have in their cookbook collection: Jamie Oliver. I recently picked up my first Jamie Oliver book, namely the Dutch version of Jamie Does.... Spain, Italy, Sweden, Morocco, Greece, France, named Jamie's Reizen (I find with cookbooks, it's best to stick to your own language). As the title already gives away, this book is filled with recipes from these six countries, and each chapter is introduced by a short text on Jamie's stays in these countries and his experiences with that country's cuisine. The beautiful photography (done by David Loftus) just makes you want to start cooking, and that's what I did.

The recipe for m'hanncha with a sauce made from dates.

Looking through the book, I came across the Moroccon pastry m'hanncha. A m'hanncha is a snake made out of phyllo pastry with stuffing. Though it looked quite daunting, I just new I had to give it a try (not gonna lie, having seen it on The Great British Bake Off was a big part of my motivation). The ingredients list was quite long, but, apart from the rosewater, all ingredients were easy to come by. And so I started. The recipe was easy to follow, contained no difficult techniques and though I had my doubts about whether or not the filling was gonna fit into the phyllo pastry, the result was surprisingly good and tasty, especially for a first try. Though I can't vouch for the original English version, the Dutch translation of the instructions was very clear and turned a daunting dish into an easy-to-follow and doable recipe.

The final result. Not quite as beautiful as in the photographs, but still very delicious!

With this first success, I'm sure I'll try some other recipes very soon. The recipes from Morocco, Greece and Sweden are on the top of my list, especially the Sexy, Swedish Buns (I mean, with a name like that, how can you not be intrigued?). I also like that certain recipes have further instructions and how-to films on Jamie Oliver's site, so if you need a bit more visual guidance, you can get it. If you haven't got any of Jamie's cookbooks yet, and are looking into getting one, I would definitely recommend this one. I like that it is a combination of recognisble dishes with more exotic and unknown recipes in there as well. And even if you don't use it too often to cook, it's still a beautiful book with beautiful pictures to marvel at.

Ratings: 3.5 out of 5