Joanne Harris, author of the best-selling novel Chocolat, has joined forces with chef Fran Warde to write a French cookbook. CHARLES HUTCHINSON tries out one of the recipes

Book: The French Kitchen, A Cookbook, by Joanne Harris & Fran Warde (Doubleday, £30, hardback)

Writer and chef's CV: Joanne Harris, novelist daughter of a French mother and Yorkshire father, is the author of international best sellers Blackberry Wine, Five Quarters Of The Orange, Coastliners and, most famously, Chocolat. She lives in Huddersfield with her husband and daughter.

Fran Warde trained as a chef; worked at the Caf Royal and on an Australian prawn trawler; ran her own cookery school; and moved into food styling and food writing. Food editor of Red magazine, she has written three books, Food For Friends, Eat Drink Live and Thirty-minute Italian (presumably as opposed to the One-minute Englishman). Lives in West London with husband and two children.

Philosophy: A collaboration between Harris, a writer who loves food and has a kitchen essentially French in character with a place at the heart of the family, and Warde, a chef who loves writing about food. "This book is a kind of family album, in which every recipe paints a picture, as well as, I hope, an introduction to some of the regional flavours of France," says Harris, who admits her role was one of "maximum enjoyment and minimum effort". Consequently, she is donating her royalties to the independent humanitarian medical aid agency, Mdecins sans Frontieres.

Presentation: A work of fact not fiction from novelist Harris, born of early memories of food, mixing pancakes with her great-grandmother in Vitre, making jam with her grandfather in Barnsley (not so French) and cooking sardines on a charcoal brazier in the sand. Tres bon photos of dishes, kitchens and French scenes by Debi Treloar add visual enticement to Harris's invitation to share the French belief in food preparation being a pleasure. "Look at what you are cooking, smell the ingredients, mix them with your fingers. Enjoy their sounds and textures. Bear in mind that cooking is about as close to magic as modern society allows". In a world where the microwave has become the magic wand of the kitchen, how welcome to read such nostalgic sentiments.

Ingredients: Inspired by a word or two from Harris, Warde gets busy at the furnace of their joint operation. Dishes are divided into Salads; Soups and Savouries; Fish; Poultry; Meat; Vegetables; Desserts; and inevitably from the Chocolat author, a whole section is dedicated to that old devil called Chocolate. Writing is practical, business-like, no-messing; the span of recipes is friendly, family-orientated and familiarly French rather than difficult nouvelle cuisine garnished with a Gallic shrug of superiority. Par example, black pudding and apple; onion soup; Christmas turkey with chestnuts; duck breasts in orange; garlic roast chicken; gratin Dauphinois; creme brulee. Conversion tables for weights, liquids and oven temperatures follow the index.

Recipe chosen: Naturellement, it had to be chocolate, and with midnight approaching chef Hutchinson was attracted by the prospect of Easy Chocolate Ice Cream (so easy in fact that the authors hadn't bothered with a picture of the pud, substituting a mood-enhancing leafy image from a vineyard instead).

Ready, steady cook: The recipe for this "grown-up" choc ice cream came courtesy of one Janick Gestin of Laill, and a round of applause to Janick, please, because it is indeed 'easy'... so long as you don't panic at the sudden mention of a 'bain-marie'. The book does go on to say you should place the mixing bowl on top of a pan of water, and voila, there's your bain-marie. Later, on 'beating' the ice cream after its first hour in Arctic conditions, I decided I was too dead beat to stay up to keep repeating the exercise. I need not have worried: come the morning, come Easy Chocolate Ice Cream.

Taste test: Slightly marbled tone to chocolate, as a result of double cream globules forming breakaway movement but no loss of flavour, with Kahlua to the fore. Yes, it really was almost worth the late-night £13 purchase at a 24-hour supermarket for that little Extra imported flavour. Oh, the choc of the new.

Verdict: A sunflower forms the centrepiece of the cover artwork, an apt image for a cookbook with a sunny disposition, even if it lacks a distinctive je ne sais quoi.

Easy Chocolate Ice Cream

Serves six

Preparation: 35 minutes

Freezing: Two hours

Ingredients:

150g dark or milk chocolate (70 per cent cocoa)

250ml milk

2 tbsp Kahlua liqueur

1 whole egg and 2 egg yolks

75g (3oz) unrefined caster sugar

1 level tsp cornflour

350ml double cream

Method

1. Break the chocolate into small pieces and place in a saucepan with the milk and Kahlua. Set over a low heat and stir until the chocolate has melted. Remove from the heat.

2. Place the egg and egg yolks with the sugar and cornflour in a heatproof bowl and beat until creamy and fluffy using an electric whisk. Pour in the melted chocolate and whisk well.

3. Make a bain-marie, heating the bowl mixture over a pan of simmering water. Stir constantly, until it begins to thicken (ten to 15 minutes). Remove from the heat and allow to cool a little.

4. Pour the cream into a bowl and whisk until it stands in soft peaks, then fold it into the chocolate mixture.

5. If you have an ice-cream machine, use it from here. If you live in the real world, where ice-cream machines come motorised with bells attached at the end of the street, transfer the ice cream mixture to a suitable container and leave in the freezer for one hour. Remove, beat until smooth and return to the freezer. Repeat until the ice cream has small crystals and can retain a good shape.

6. Serve with your favourite toppings: more chocolate in the shape of chocolate curls; creme Chantilly; iced Kahlua; or toasted almonds.

Updated: 09:34 Saturday, January 11, 2003