MEZCLA: Recipes to Excite

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Helpfully divided into quick recipes (for when you need something great on the table, fast) and longer recipes (for when you have time to slow down and savour the process), here are 100 bold, impactful recipes inspired by Italy, Brazil, Mexico and beyond. Ixta Belfrage burst onto the cookbook scene via Flavour which was co-written with Ottolenghi when she worked in his test kitchen.

A true testament to Ixta’s diverse culinary roots, this prawn lasagne is a multicultural twist on an old classic.

Ixta’s aim is to help you put vibrant, colourful, and flavour-packed food on the table, on any day of the week. Belfrage divides the book into Everyday and Entertaining sections so that readers can pick what level of energy or time they have and can select recipes from the relevant section. She focuses mainly on food and travel but with a lifelong love of the arts – especially visual arts, theatre and literature – she enjoys writing reviews for London Unattached. In Mezcla, the vegetarian and vegan dishes take pride of place with 60 per cent of the recipes being vegetarian, and most dishes easily veganised.

She began her culinary career at Ottolenghi's NOPI restaurant, before moving to the Test Kitchen, where she worked for Yotam Ottolenghi for five years, contributing to his columns in the Guardian and The New York Times.According to Ixta, these are best enjoyed when a little drunk; you’ll be less worried about the bisque dripping down your chin! I had planned to make a fourth dish but ran out of time – as I mentioned, these are complex dishes and take time to cook – so I made the tomato salad with tahini ginger sauce, chilli oil and crumpet croutons the following day. Sometimes the novels chosen are new, often they are from the backlist and occasionally re-issued from way back. Includes quick, flavourful recipes, such as Giant Cheese on Toast with Honey and Urfa Butter and Chicken with Pineapple and ‘Nduja, as well as dishes to spend more time over: Chiles Rellenos with Salsa Roja Risotto and Prawn Lasagne with Habanero Oil.

Although it is not exclusively a vegetarian book, it is gratifying to see how meat and fish are relegated to the place where the vegetable recipes used to be – after the main dishes. I was at this ploy again with a terrific recipe for charred red pepper sauce with omelette noodles from the Entertaining section.I not only enjoyed making these noodles but they also worked a treat in the sauce as they warmed through together. Notice to Internet Explorer users Server security: Please note Internet Explorer users with versions 9 and 10 now need to enable TLS 1.