Kiwi recipe queen Chelsea Winter has wrested back the country’s biggest selling cookbook crown with the mostly plant-based Tasty. Last year, Sydneysider Nagi Maehashi was No 1, but this year she merely occupies second and third spot with RecipeTin Eats: Dinner and Tonight. Her latest, Tonight, has sold more than 3600 copies in New Zealand since it was released in mid-October, but Winter’s Tasty, which was published a couple of weeks before, has shifted more than 7000 copies in under two months.
It’s been four years since the MasterChef NZ winner’s mega-selling Supergood, due to changes in her personal circumstances and having another child. As she told the Listener, Tasty is plant-based, but not staunchly so. “I’ve designed it to be flexible. If someone wants to use a recipe as fully plant-based – great. If they want to sub in a bit of cheese and cream – perfect. If they want to serve it alongside a cut of meat or chuck some chicken or fish in one of the curries – perfect. It’s for every kind of eater.”
She did replace refined sugar with the likes of coconut sugar after seeing the effects on her children.
Maehashi’s two books have together sold more than 8000 copies this year, according to Nielsen Bookscan. The new book from the auditor-turned-bestselling cook came about because she realised many of her readers were particularly drawn to the quick and easy meals for the rushed middle of the week. So Tonight has 150 new recipes. Aside from looking and apparently tasting delicious, one of the reasons her recipes are so successful – Dinner, released in 2022, has sold more than 500,000 copies in Oz, and the new book has already sold nearly 80,000 copies there – is that she offers readers hundreds of variations, with tips and notes. Each recipe links to a video of the dish being made. That and an all-purpose homemade Chinese stir-fry sauce she calls Charlie.
Plant-based cooking has cemented its place in our kitchens. Coming fourth in the bestsellers, selling more than 3500 copies, is More Salad, the new title from Margo Flanagan and Rosa Power.
But Winter and Maehashi don’t shy away from meat, and the emphasis is on flavour, as is obvious from the titles in the top 20 – tasty, delicious, comfort, wholesome, yum. As has been the trend in recent years, most of the top 20 are Kiwi cooks, with a few Australians thrown in.
Brisbane baker Brooke Bellamy made a late charge with Bake with Brooki, selling 1000 copies in just a few weeks. Perennial British favourites Yotam Ottolenghi and Jamie Oliver remain popular, though this year Ottolenghi has been relegated to 7th place and Oliver to 18th.
Top 20 cookbooks
Tasty by Chelsea Winter (A&U)
RecipeTin Eats: Dinner by Nagi Maehashi (Macmillan)
RecipeTin Eats: Tonight by Nagi Maehashi (Macmillan)
More Salad: Two Raw Sisters by Margo Flanagan & Rosa Power (A&U)
Dinner, Done Better by My Food Bag (Penguin)
Edmonds Cookery Book, Revised (Hachette NZ)
Ottolenghi Comfort by Yotam Ottolenghi & Helen Goh (Ebury)
Seriously Delicious by Polly Markus (A&U)
The Simple Dinner Edit by Nicole Maguire (Plum)
Summer Favourites by Vanya Insull (A&U)
The Abundant Kitchen by Niva & Yotam Kay (A&U)
The Fast 800 Keto Recipe Book by Clare Bailey & Dr Michael Mosley (Hachette)
Simple Fancy by Margo Flanagan & Rosa Power (A&U)
More from A Quiet Kitchen by Nici Wickes (David Bateman)
Bake with Brooki by Brooke Bellamy (Penguin Random House)
Edmonds Classics (Hachette NZ)
Salad: Two Raw Sisters by Margo Flanagan & Rosa Power (A&U)
5 Ingredients Mediterranean by Jamie Oliver (Michael Joseph)
Wholesome by Sarah by Sarah Pound (Plum)
Yum! By Nadia Lim (Nude Food Inc)
