His latest book, Jamie's Ministry of Food (Michael Joseph, hbk, $75), is subtitled "Anyone can learn to cook in 24 hours". He wants to bring back the wartime Ministry of Food, which mobilised women who could cook to teach those who could not to make home-cooked meals from a few good ingredients.
Now, he wants people to pass on recipes and help people who do not cook.
If you teach four people how to make a meal from a recipe and they pass it on to four more people each, and each of them pass it on again, soon there will be thousands of people able to cook.
Oliver's recipes are simple but flavoursome, with copious illustrations so beginners can follow them.
There are recipes for mince, pasta, roasts, curries, stews with variations, pastry tops, potato tops, dumplings, vegetables, fish, desserts and numerous other everyday meals for today's busy people who want to eat healthy, home-cooked food.
Throughout are encouraging photographs of people who have learned they can cook - old, young, mothers, farmers, widowers, singles - who are proud of their achievements and developing a sense of taste.
It is a pity this book is so expensive as it should be on most people's kitchen bench, both those who have not yet discovered they can cook and anyone who wants simple, good food.
Give it to someone this Christmas and pass on a recipe or two.
Here is the recipe for fish pie from Jamie's Ministry of Food.
Smoked haddock is not generally available in New Zealand, so substitute any type of smoked fish such as blue cod or kahawai.
Fish pie
serves 4-6
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1kg potatoes
1 carrot
2 sticks of celery
150g good Cheddar cheese
1 lemon a fresh red chilli
4 sprigs of fresh flat-leaf parsley
300g salmon fillets, skin off and bones removed
300g undyed smoked haddock fillets, skin off and bones removed
125g king prawns, raw, peeled
olive oil
optional: a good handful of spinach, chopped
optional: a couple of ripe tomatoes, quartered
To prepare your fish pie
Preheat the oven to 200degC and bring a large pan of salted water to the boil.
Peel the potatoes and cut into 2cm chunks. Once the water is boiling, add your potatoes and cook for about 12min, until soft (you can stick your knife into them to check).
Meanwhile, get yourself a deep baking tray or earthenware dish and stand a box grater in it.
Peel the carrot. Grate the celery, carrot and Cheddar on the coarse side of the grater.
Use the fine side of the grater to grate the zest from the lemon.
Finely grate or chop your chilli.
Finely chop the parsley leaves and stalks and add these to the tray.
To cook and serve your fish pie Cut the salmon and smoked haddock into bite-size chunks and add to the tray with the prawns.
Squeeze over the juice from the zested lemon (no pips please!), drizzle with olive oil and add a good pinch of salt and pepper.
If you want to add any spinach or tomatoes, do it now.
Mix everything together really well.
By now your potatoes should be cooked, so drain them in a colander and return them to the pan.
Drizzle with a couple of good lugs of olive oil and add a pinch of salt and pepper. Mash until nice and smooth, then spread evenly over the top of the fish and grated veg.
Place in the preheated oven for about 40min, or until cooked through, crispy and golden on top.
Serve piping hot with tomato ketchup, baked beans, steamed veg or a lovely green salad.
This is a fantastically simple fish pie which does not involve poaching the fish or making a tedious white sauce.
Loads of good, fragrant veg are added quickly by grating them in.
You can use whatever fish you like, making this as luxurious as you want it to be.
If you like your fish pie to be creamy, feel free to add a few tablespoons of crème fraîche to the fish.
PS: Some supermarkets now offer lovely packs of different fish and shellfish for using in fish pies. Keep a look-out, and if you buy one you want it to be about 700-750g in weight for this recipe.
