Top Cornwall chef Paul Ainsworth has revealed he will release his maiden cookbook next summer.
The Michelin star chef’s words, and work, has already appeared in the Padstow Festival Cookbook. But he’s finally decided to take the plunge and can’t wait for his own publication to hit the shelves in 2024.
“It’s taken a long time, on purpose,” he told the Fuelling Around podcast.
“It’s one of those projects that, when you say yes, it’s huge. It’s over 100 recipes and is with an amazing publisher, Harper Collins. They’ve been amazing, they just want me to be able to pretty much do what I want to do.
“It’s not a No6 cookbook, so it’s recipes that you’ll find from Cafe Rojano’s, The Mariners and things I love to do at home. As we’ve been writing it and testing it I would say that 95% of this book is food in the middle of the table. The Oxtail ragu is in there. We’ve got about 10 recipes left to write and we’re shooting it right now.
“The team is fantastic. I suppose why I’ve waited so long to do it is that I wanted a really good reason, a real passion behind it – not just ‘oh yeah, chef does cookbook’ and join, as we all know, quite a saturated market.
“With all these recipes you’re doing them and know people are going to be like ‘I can do that, that’s accessible, I can get all of those ingredients.’ But at the end of I know, especially with all the tips, tricks, hacks they’re going to be: ‘I just made that!’”
The television personality was on the show to discuss his love of cars but also spoke at length about becoming one of the UK’s top chefs, about working under Gary Rhodes and Gordon Ramsey and also discussing what it’s been like to compete with Rick Stein in Padstow.
“I actually know Rick’s ex-wife Jill more,” Ainsworth told the podcast, “and I can honestly say it’s always been amicable and nice and I know his son Jack really well.
“There’s always been a bit of a feeling that there’s enough room for everybody, but also now I think there is definitely a common ground that we complement each other.”
