PECKISH
Some cookbook news, from me
Jumping straight in: I’ve written a new cookbook; it’s all about chicken; and it’s called Peckish.
Peckish is a collection of eclectic, creative but still straightforward recipes, all aimed at putting a wholesome meal on the table. And each of those meals centres on chicken.
We’re not short of inspiration for meals involving this meat. Far from it. But actually the sheer quantity of relevant recipes and infinite possibilities can feel paralysing.
I felt, conversely, that having a finite, ‘one-stop-shop’ of chicken recipes physically to hand (as in, in a pleasingly tactile book, not via my phone), will lead to cooking a wider variety of things.
Oh, also, it’s an appropriate follow-on from Good Eggs.
Despite the continuity of main ingredient, there’s huge variety across the 85 recipes – through cooking styles, cuisines, speed and cravings. With timeless classics from around the world, contemporary twists, a handful of projects, and many more speedy midweekers, it is, quite simply, a compendium of winning chicken dinners.
The book is structured by the way chicken is sold to us. So: recipes for drumsticks, thighs, whole legs, breast meat, whole birds, mince, wings and offal. Plus a chapter on leftovers. I felt this the most intuitive and useful way to do it.
Although, as ever with my books, there are other ways in too – with indices organising the dishes by themes such as ‘wholesome’, ‘low effort’, ‘crunchy’, ‘spicy’, and ‘for friends’.
What else?
Because chicken is so versatile, each of the recipes has notes on adaptations and twists.
Also, for those who want to break free from the constraints of packaged cuts, there are various ‘How-To’ pages, covering basic butchery – each including QR code links to videos of me demonstrating the technique.
I could go on, and will write more over the coming months. But the bottom line is: Peckish hosts loads of really tasty and highly cookable chicken dishes, and I think you’ll cook from it often.
Please pre-order!
Publication is 19 March 2026. If you’re tempted by Peckish, I’d be so grateful if you could tuck-in early and ‘pre-order’. We’re always told that doing so will help a book’s trajectory … one imagines there needs to be some proactive work by the publisher’s sales team and some conscious decision making by buyers too, but hey, it can’t hurt.
Moreover, maybe you’d just like a book full of winning chicken dinners? Buy it now and it’ll feel like a freebie when it arrives in the Spring.
Just to reassure you: if the price drops between now and then (it always does), booksellers typically match the lowest price to what you get charged when it gets sent to you. And I’ll run a competition closer to publication date, which you’ll be able to enter having ordered now (so hold on to that receipt).
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That’s it for now. Aside from the chicken-themed recipe coming on Friday. See you then, Ed.
Sure this will be another winner Ed, and what a stunning cover! Love it!
have pre-ordered :-))