Darina Allen’s pupils at Ballymaloe Cookery School have been clamouring for her to write her definitive book over many years – and now, at last, she has put down her recipes and thoughts, tips and shortcuts, together with details of all the basic techniques used in cooking delicious and fresh food today.

Cooking well is a mixture of art, science, experimentation and taste. Darina Allen has organised her Ballymaloe Cookery Course to include classic and basic recipes, and also those that show how to use the very `modern’ ingredients from around the world that are readily available in our supermarkets today.

Since no book can contain every recipe ever invented, she has instead given readers the confidence and knowledge to experiment and to create their own dishes by showing them how to use over 200 of the basic techniques.

From filo pastry to the art of carving, from preserving lemons to making delicious home-made pasta, from culturing creamy yogurt to butterflying a leg of lamb: the simple instructions given by one of the world’s great cook-teachers will inspire and encourage the art of fine food.