Antonio Carluccio’s Simple Cooking is packed with ‘secrets’ from his professional life. He uses top-quality ingredients in recipes that are prepared simply and without fuss; ideal for both the novice and the cooking enthusiast.

The distillation of a lifetime’s passion for food, Antonio Carluccio’s book confirms a firm belief that cooking - whether for oneself or for family and friends - is one of the most loving of all human skills.

As a student in Vienna, Antonio cooked for himself and his friends on a very low budget – dishes he had learned in his mother’s Austrian kitchen during the lean, post-war years when vegetables were cultivated in the garden, breads and pasta were made at home, and he foraged daily for wild foods (especially mushrooms). Nothing was wasted, and any leftovers were used in a dish for another day.

He says, “Once you are on your own, you develop a sense of self-sufficiency, and learn how to balance your working or studying time with good and valuable free time.”

Because of those months in Vienna, he became a “passionate, virtually self-taught cook with lots of experience in home cooking… as well as in restaurants; both front of house and in the kitchen.”

Throughout the book, Antonio Carluccio shares his expertise about food preparation and ingredients, starting with the sourcing of meat and vegetables and moving on to food preparation techniques.

He also shows how to ‘upgrade’ the basic recipes by adding a ’luxury’ ingredient and provides ingenious, budget-conscious ideas for using up leftovers.

Some of my favourite recipes are Roasted Peppers, Anchovies in Green Sauce, Beetroot Salad with Mint, Pasta and Bean Soup, Simple Fish Soup, the recipe that has become famous in Carluccio’s Caffès - Pasta with Courgette Sauce and Spinach Balls, Black Angel’s Hair Pasta with Scallops and Shrimps, Polenta with Chicken and Sausage Stew and Sicilian Vegetable Stew. To finish, how about Zabaglione with Bitter Chocolate Sauce – a dessert that is delicious warm or cold!

With Priscilla Carluccio, Antonio ran the Neal Street Restaurant in London’s Covent Garden and spent ten years developing the hugely successful Carluccio’s Caffès.

One of Italy’s great food ambassadors, Anthony Carluccio has written thirteen best-selling books and made numerous television programmes. The latest is Carluccio and The Leopard, in which he travels to Sicily to discover more about the great modern Italian novel, The Leopard, written by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa.

In 1998, Antonio was given the Commendatore award, the equivalent of a British knighthood, for his knowledge, enthusiasm and lifetime’s service to the Italian food industry. In 2007, he received the O.B.E.