Claire Coghill's cookbook isn't necessarily designed to lure you to the Isle of Skye in the Inner Hebrides, but you're sure to want to book a trip to Scotland after thumbing through this lavish book.
Coghill runs the Cafe Cuil, where she celebrates local and regional ingredients prepared in simple and creative ways. As she says in her introduction, this cookbook features the most popular recipes from the cafe, the ones that customers routinely ask for. The results are enticing, with a load of nifty ideas for breakfasts, sandwiches, soups, desserts, cocktails and more. The full-color photos serve both to capture the deep alluring colors of the food, and also provide helpful step-by-step instructions for dishes that involve tricky techniques involving transfers from prep-dish to frying pan.
Cafe Cuil serves a bold range of comfort food that draws on global traditions blended with Scottish touches. There's a Highland Shakshuka (black pudding, eggs, tomatoes, herbs and more!), a Scrambled Egg and Kimchi Sandwich made on focaccia bread, along with Tattie Scone Tacos. There are fennel seed and thyme sausage rolls, as well as black pudding Scotch eggs. Other tantalizing recipes include Spiced Sweetcorn Chowder, Roasted Cauliflower & Chickpea Salad with Tahini, Hot Smoked Trout/Beetroot and Soft-Boiled Egg, Crispy Potato Skins with Haggis Clapshot and Mull Cheddar, Langoustine Summer Rolls, and more.
Coghill's story is as engaging as her cooking. Raised speaking Scottish Gaelic, she saw the hospitality industry as a child in a family-owned hotel in Skye. But her education and travels took her far afield in her 20s, from the US to London, where she eventually ended up winning on a cooking show competition, which pointed her toward jobs in TV and in kitchens. Her attempt to launch her own restaurant in London happened to coincide with the Covid epidemic in 2020, so her continued success in the food-service world is a mark of impressive perseverance and talent.
240 page hardback with large color photos.
