Guiding beginners in the kitchen down the path to gastronomic greatness for the past seven years, Sam Stern is no stranger to the world of eating well and telling us how we can do it too.

Published whilst Sam was still studying for GCSEs and A-Levels, Cooking Up A Storm (2005), Real Food Real Fast (2006), Get Cooking (2007), Sam Stern’s Student Cookbook (2008) and Eat Vegetarian (2010) all received critical acclaim, and now the twenty-year-old prodigy returns with Virgin to Veteran; a contemporary cooking masterclass designed to get teens, 20- and 30-somethings into the kitchen and cooking with confidence.

From mastering the basics to insider tips and techniques, this book will teach you everything you need to become a confident cook. From fast food to slow, food to go or eat in, healthy to greedy, there’s something in the over 100 Masterclass recipes featured to match every mood, budget and lifestyle. Core dishes are accompanied with advice on saving cash, time, and delicious and wide-ranging variations that will expand your cooking repertoire in the blink of an eye – if the exotic Hot Mixed Mushroom Bruschetta is not to your taste, you can opt for the more homely topping of Broad Bean and Wensleydale instead. If a formal dinner isn’t your style, convert your refined fillet steak into a fast and fabulous BBQ treat. The possibilities are endless.

Sam’s passion for making the kitchen accessible to all is reflected through diagrams, step-by-step guides and the Virgin Kitchen Set-Up (the stuff you need to know to set up a workable kitchen). In no time at all, relevant skills such as knife work, sauce making and baking can be picked up with ease and placed at your disposal, while such necessities as sourcing and substituting ingredients, seasonality and the secrets of great presentation are also covered. This wealth of information, accompanied by stunning photography that gets right to the heart of Sam’s delicious cooking, is presented in such an engaging way that it will have you turning out brilliant meals without too much fuss, cost or effort before you know it