Stephanie Alexander: Australian cooking legend shares her top tips to mark release of The Cook’s Companion

It’s the instantly recognisable book that helped teach an entire generation of Australians how to cook. This year marks three decades since Stephanie Alexander released The Cook’s Companion, the encyclopedic, picture-less tome that came to be seen as a kitchen “bible” in an era before recipes, cooking videos, home-delivered meals and groceries could be accessed at the touch of a button. The book has sold more than 550,000 copies and has been lauded by the likes of Nigella Lawson, Yotam Ottolenghi and Jamie Oliver as a must-have resource for all home cooks. Alexander, of course, is one of Australia’s most renowned culinary figures. After discovering a love of cooking at the age of just nine, having been drawn to her mother’s colourful cookery books, Alexander established several restaurants, including legendary Melbourne eatery Stephanie’s, and published more than 20 books. In 2004 she founded the not-for-profit Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation, which was designed to nurture a passion for food amongst children and can today be found in more than 1000 schools and preschools across the country. Now 85, Alexander has spent two years completing the fully revised edition of The Cook’s Companion. More than 1100 pages long — and weighing in at 2.8kg — it includes almost 100 new or newly-edited recipes, fresh advice on cooking techniques, ingredients and appliances, and explorations of current-day issues. Alexander says the updates are designed to reflect how the nation’s cooking trends have evolved since the book’s release in 1996. “This is my legacy,” she says. “I hope that readers of this 30th anniversary edition will be inspired to create their own food traditions to pass on to the next generation.” To celebrate the release of the special edition, we asked Alexander to share the best tips she’s gleaned in the three decades since the book’s release. Stephanie Alexander’s top five cooking tips 1. Choose to cook something you know you will like until you are more confident to branch out into unfamiliar ideas. 2. Read recipes as often as you need to visualise the dish before you start. 3. Do as much preparation in advance as possible — so that an instruction “to sizzle garlic, anchovies, olives, capers together” is a one tip action of all pre-prepared ingredients, and cooked pasta can be added without delay. 4. Keep a running shopping list somewhere handy — a notebook or board — so you do not get halfway through making a dish and then find out you need cornflour. 5. Enjoy the process. Depending on your personality you will prefer to cook with company or cook by yourself. You decide which.