Thursday 3 May 2012

Sam's hot stuff!

Sam Stern serves up a slice
of  Victoria sponge
Sam Stern is about to publish his sixth cookbook and he is still only 21. I catch up with him at his York home over a pot of tea and some scrumptious home-made cake


SAM STERN’S manners are impeccable. As my car pulls up outside his family home in York, he is at the door, ready to welcome me.

I’ve barely got my coat off before he’s offering me “tea, coffee, cake, an apple scone?”

I’m easy tempted, especially when I see the cake he has just made: two thick tiers of golden sponge bursting at the middle with whipped cream and a home-made lemon curd with passionfruit.

The recipe comes from Sam’s new cook book, Virgin To Veteran: How to Get Cooking With Confidence, about to be realised by Quadrille, priced £20.

The title is apt; Sam published his first cook book at 14, then a further four while still a teenager.

The latest, though, is a seriously grown-up affair. It’s thick in the way coffee-table books are, and besides scores of tempting recipes there are pages of advice on how to master everything from jointing a chicken and cleaning mussels to getting perfect pork crackling and making pastry.

The aim is to give people the confidence to get in the kitchen and rustle up tasty meals. Recipes also have a series of variations. “This allows people to mess around with the original recipe,” says Sam.

Sam has had some fun trying out new flavour combinations. The sponge he made that morning is a good example. He had a hunch the passionfruit would work well with the lemon curd – tried it and found it did.

“I’ve made some mistakes but you learn from mistakes by learning how to fix it,” says Sam, who cooked his first roast dinner when he was nine years old.

As the youngest of five siblings, he grew up in a large family, where food was at the centre. He learned the ropes at the apron strings of mum Susan, whom Sam describes as a “good home cook who makes rough and ready, rustic, tasty dinners – just what you want when you come home”.

Homecomings loom large in Sam’s life of late. Besides his culinary career, Sam is taking a politics degree at Edinburgh University. He has one more academic year to complete before he graduates, then he wants to concentrate on cooking full-time.

This summer, he will be back in York, working on the next book. The following year, once he has graduated, he will write that cookbook and then focus on promoting the Sam Stern brand.

He admits he’d like to make it big. At 21, you have to admit it looks like he’s got the world on his plate.


Sam’s new book, Virgin To Veteran, How to Get Cooking with Confidence, will be published by Quadrille, priced £20, on May 10.

No comments:

Post a Comment