Hamdi Saidani is the editor of Delia Smith Recipes, an independent site with no connection to Delia Smith or her publishers. He has worked on food blogs and recipe websites since 2020, mostly on how people search for recipes on Google and Pinterest.
Why he built this site
Over those years, Hamdi kept finding Delia's name on recipes that were not really hers. Some changed her amounts, some mixed two of her dishes into one, and some were simply made up. Delia built her name on recipes that work, and a wrong page makes people think her recipe failed.
So he built this site to give her real recipes, with the proof next to them. He writes in plain English, the way he would want a recipe explained to him.
What you get here
- Her amounts, her oven settings and her method, checked against her own cookbooks and her website. The page names the book and the year, and often the page.
- Her words stay hers. Nothing is copied: each page is written in plain, simple English, so a cook anywhere in the world can follow it, even if English is not their first language.
- Cooking help from her own advice. The answers under each recipe come from her books, like which suet to buy, how to stop white patches on a summer pudding, or how to save a custard that turns grainy.
- The differences, explained. When her books and her website give different amounts or steps, the page tells you which version you are cooking.
- Honest labels. Where she has a method but no recipe of that name, the page says it is built from her methods and names the recipe it comes from. Any tip of Hamdi's own is marked as his own.
- A clear recipe card: grams (often with ounces too), oven settings for normal, fan and gas ovens, times, servings and a calorie estimate per portion.
The rule for every page is the same: her recipe, explained simply, with the source shown.
The books behind every page
Hamdi works from 23 of Delia's cookbooks:
- Frugal Food (1976)
- Book of Cakes (1977)
- Cookery Course (1978)
- Complete Cookery Course (1983 and 1992 editions)
- One is Fun (1985)
- Summer Collection (1993)
- Winter Collection (1995)
- How to Cook, Books One, Two and Three (1998, 1999, 2001)
- Vegetarian Collection (2002)
- The Delia Collection: Soup, Chicken, Fish and Chocolate (2003)
- The Delia Collection: Italian and Pork (2004), Baking (2005) and Puddings (2006)
- Kitchen Garden (2004)
- How to Cheat at Cooking (2008)
- Happy Christmas (2009)
- Delia's Cakes (2013)
See how a page shows its sources
- Jam roly poly: built from her Spotted Dick Rides Again, with the book and the page named.
- Summer pudding: where her books and her website differ, and which basin to use.
Found a mistake?
If something looks wrong, or your edition of a book says something different, tell him through the contact page. He will check it against the book and correct the page.