Ingredients Laid Bare.

Renaa is one of the top restaurants in Stavanger, Sven Erik Renaa has cleverly branched out his creative cooking brand to cater for people morning, noon and night through opening three very different eating establishments.  In Stavanger we have:

Renaa Express, a casual cafe this serves great coffee and is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner for those wanting to have a quick bite to eat or a rest from shopping.

Renaa Matbaren, an informal bistro where I often go with friends at the weekend to have a glass of wine, lunch and chat. Here they serve lunch and dinner using food sourced locally and has a great atmosphere.

Renaa, the main restaurant, where Sven’s true culinary skills can be sampled.  Renaa is often where I go for business dinners or to celebrate birthdays. Situated downstairs from Renaa Matbaren, Renaa is a more intimate setting, away from the hustle and bustle of Stavanger and has a fabulous relaxed, but refined elegance to it.  As I have mentioned before I love chefs that adapt their menu frequently so it is always a pleasant joy to go to Renaa to eat and see what is in store that evening.

But this post is not about the restaurants, it is about the book that Sven Erik Renaa published; Naked Ingredients 69 Sensual Recipes.  This book is not for those of a prude disposition, it can only be described as a fun, erotic cookbook with a little over half of it’s pages not focusing on food recipes. Yes there are many overtly sexual photos of glamour models but when you look at the food ideas and recipes they reflect Renaa’s philosophy of basic, raw ingredients prepared in an elegant way. Having fallen in love with Renaa’s food in his restaurants and because the book was a little shocking, it made sense to own his book, it has been on my shelf for 3 years now and often referenced for seafood inspiration.

Pros:

• Beautifully presented food
• Elegant recipe ideas
• Great for the confident amateur cooks those wanting to take their food and presentation up a notch

Cons:

• Not for those of a prudish disposition
• On occasion not all of the ingredients are listed on the ingredients list, so read through the recipe and check to see if some have sneakily made it in to the instructional text or the photos
• The book assumes you have a strong knowledge of cooking techniques in that some of the instructions are open to interpretation

The Verdict:
A beautifully designed book, in fact Naked Ingredients was nominated in 2010 for the Gourmand World Cookbook Award under the category “Best Cookbook Design”. It’s perhaps not something you would want to give your grandmother, but it’s Naked Ingredients is a visually successful and entertaining book with some great food ideas. It’s one of my go to books for inspiration.