The groundbreaking book that gives you the freedom to adapt what you have in the cupboard into flavourful recipes, from the author of the bestselling The Flavour Thesaurus

'You could cook from it over a whole lifetime, and still be learning’ Nigella Lawson

‘A rigorous, nuts-and-bolts bible of a book’ Jay Rayner, Observer

‘Lateral Cooking...uncovers the very syntax of cookery’ Yotam Ottolenghi

‘Astonishing and totally addictive’ Brian Eno

This groundbreaking book reveals the principles underpinning all recipe creation, from the author of the bestselling The Flavour Thesaurus

Do you feel you that you follow recipes slavishly without understanding how they actually work? Would you like to feel freer to adapt, to experiment, to play with flavours?

Well look no further – in these pages, Niki Segnit, author of the landmark The Flavour Thesaurus, gives you the tools to do just that. Organised into 77 ‘starting-point’ recipes, Lateral Cooking including plenty of tips for substituting ingredients and reducing the phenomenal variety of world cuisine down to its bare essentials – and then building it back up again.

So, under ‘Bread’, Niki guides you through flatbreads, oatcakes, buckwheat noodles, chapattis and tortillas, showing you how they are all variations on one theme. A few simple tweaks and you can make soda bread, scones or cobbler. And so on, through breads and batters, broths, stews and dals, one dish leading to another.

Lateral Cooking is as inspirational and entertaining a read as it is a practical guide. Once you have the hang of each starting point, a wealth of new flavour combinations awaits, each related in Niki’s signature combination of culinary science, history, chefs’ wisdom and entertaining personal anecdote.

Niki shows you that recipes you had thought were outside of your experience are reassuringly similar to things you’ve made a dozen times before, giving you the confidence to experiment with flavour. The variations that follow are a springboard of inspiration to the contents of your fridge and kitchen cupboards.

In these pages, you will discover to cook ‘by heart’ – and that’s where the fun really begins.

"The cookbooks that teach you the most are the rare ones, experimental or not, that are so well written that you find yourself reading them greedily on a perpetual loop. Lateral Cooking is one of them" - Times Literary Supplement

"A rigorous, nuts-and-bolts bible of a book, which works from the premise that there are base recipes from which all others can be built... It’s elegantly designed and extremely broad" - Observer

"Witty, playful and conversational" - Sunday Telegraph

"Segnit is a brilliantly clever cook who sometimes seems to have eaten every great dish in the world, but the real joy is her exuberant voice, which feels like listening to a witty friend" - Sunday Times

"Knowledgeable and humorous, with a focus on flavour and technique, this cookbook is informative, useful and sure to become a kitchen bible to many" - ‘Best Books of 2018’

"In a year that’s been a bonanza for cookbooks, this is the one I’d put top of my list" - Independent

"Want to graduate from a rigid recipe-follower to an instinctive, ingredient-led cook? Niki Segnit shows you how" - Waitrose Food

"A textbook you'll turn to for all your culinary core techniques and queries" - Good Housekeeping

"One of the most exciting cookery books I've read this year" - Literary Review

"Niki Segnit is back with a new cookbook to break the mould (again)" - Huffington Post

"Niki Segnit's Lateral Cooking is a spectacularly good cookbook. If it were a novel, it'd be a shoo-in for the Booker" - The Oldie

"It’s a clever idea... a fabulous read" - The Times

"Shows, more effectively than any other cookery writer to date, how one thing in the kitchen leads to another" - Times Literary Supplement

"This isn’t a reference book, it’s an engrossing read for foodies" - What’s Hot Blog

"A cooking bible... a must-have in every kitchen, I’m blown away!" - Amy Treasure Blog

"From the author of The Flavour Thesaurus comes this collection of recipes arranged on a continuum, meaning simple tweaks give you a whole new dish" - Domestic Sluttery

"It’s her humour, stories and thoughtful research that make this much more than simply a cookbook" - IndyEats (independent) – Cookery Books of 2018

"It's fascinating and engrossing. It makes you want to cook more - and there can be no higher compliment" - Ms Marmite Lover Blog - Cookery books of 2018

"A wonderfully simple idea... but It’s her humour, stories and thoughtful research that make this much more than simply a cookbook" - Independent (App edition)