Vanilla Table 

Spice cookbook Vanilla Table cover by chef Natasha MacAller featuring recipes from international chefs including New Zealand's Peter Gordon & Al Brown

The essence of exquisite cooking from the world’s best chefs
©Photography by Manja Wachsmuth - foodphotographersfavorites.co.nz

With the help of 33 outstanding contributing chefs from around the world, including NZ’s Peter Gordon and Al Brown, chef Natasha MacAller has created a truly international compendium of vanilla expertise celebrating this most exotic yet everyday spice.

Vanilla is a universal ingredient — although many imagine it can only be added to cupcakes, custards and confections. In this book vanilla is the highlight of savory dishes as well, such as Island Crabcakes with Vanilla-Grapefruit Remoulade or Slow-roasted Oxtail Pot Pies with Vanilla-Shiraz Gravy! With over 100 recipes, including starters, mains, brunch, bevvies, desserts, cookies and more, each beautifully photographed, Vanilla Table will inspire home cooks and professionals to sample this captivating but familiar ingredient in a range of delicious dishes that will work for cooks worldwide. Ingredients are given in imperial and metric measures, and common names and types of ingredients used in different countries are described.

Where to purchase Vanilla Table.

Bottles & jars of raspberry vanilla vinegar on wooden block against white kitchen from Vanilla Table cookbook by chef Natasha MacAller

Raspberry–Vanilla Vinegar

Rich orange heirloom tomato bisque & green pea pesto with crunchy toast in white bowl from Vanilla Table cookbook by chef Natasha MacAller

Heirloom Tomato Bisque with Green Pea Pesto

After school cookies & milk tied with red striped ribbon against light blue kitchen counter from Vanilla Table cookbook by chef Natasha MacAller

After School Cookies & Milk

“The pages are bursting with aromatic dishes from both the sweet and savory sections of the kitchen … while she no longer dances for a living, the flavors and combinations within these pages will soon be dancing on your palate.”

–Peter Gordon, chef and food writer, London

“You expect vanilla in a Hazelnut Bavarois or a Tarte Tatin, but in the Vanilla Table you discover that ingredient in Vanilla Lacquer Duck Leg and Slow-Roasted Oxtail Pot Pies. These are exotic combinations that will expand your culinary palate and titillate your taste buds in a new way. Natasha MacAller teaches us how wonderful, aromatic vanilla can take the mundane to the memorable.”

–Jacques Pépin, The iconic International award-winning chef, cookbook author and PBS-TV cooking show host

"Natasha MacAller's lovely book is a riposte to anyone who thinks that vanilla is 'plain'. From Rose Levy Beranbaum's 'Gold Ingots' to David Lebovitz's 'Quince Tarte Tatin', these recipes bring home the deep warmth and exoticism of the world's favourite flavour. The collection of recipes from some of the world's top chefs, as well as MacAller herself, open up a universe of vanilla beyond that little bottle of essence at the back of the cupboard. MacAller rightly says that vanilla is a 'universal flavour', but one that is too often taken for granted. Vanilla Table reveals hidden intensities in those dark, twisting pods.  It inspired me to embark on vanilla experiments in my own kitchen."

–Bee Wilson, food writer and historian, The Sunday Telegraph, author of Consider the Fork