Restaurateur Russell Norman on legendary New York chef Kenny Shopsin

In 2007 I went on a food research trip to New York, having made a shortlist of restaurants I wanted to visit. One of the places was Shopsin’s, previously housed in a corner shop in Greenwich Village, but recently relocated to the scruffy and unfashionable Essex Street Market on the Lower East Side.

I’d heard about Kenny Shopsin and his eccentric, uncompromising approach to home-style comfort food, and the word on the grapevine was that his place was unique – something difficult to describe, but once experienced, never forgotten.

I turned up one afternoon around 2.30pm to find it had closed for the day. It was a pokey market stall with a few tables – not really a restaurant at all. As I was peering through the shutter grille, a chap at the next stall asked if he could help and I wondered if there was a menu I might look at. He reached beside the shutter and pulled one off a dirty table. Thirty seconds later, a fellow with a terrifying aura of angry energy passed in front of me like a whirlwind and snatched the menu out of my hands. “That’s mine!” he barked. “Where’d you get it?” Somewhat gobsmacked, I explained that the guy at the next stall had given it to me. “Hey bud!” He screamed at the stallholder. “Do me a favour; don’t do me no fuckin’ favours!”

It turned out that the angry, sweary guy was Zak Shopsin, Kenny’s son, and when I had finally navigated the peculiar opening times, I also got to meet Kenny and to eat his inspirational food. The menu runs to more than 200 dishes and everything is cooked to order, in sequence, whenever Kenny is ready. It’s bonkers but it sort of works and everything is delicious. There are dozens of rules when eating at Shopsin’s: no sharing, you can’t order the same dish twice, no tables over five, no substitutions, no special requests, you can’t order drinks before food … When I later asked Kenny why there were so many rules, he told me they only really have one rule: “Don’t be an asshole.” I fell a little bit in love with Kenny Shopsin.

Kenny’s cookbook came out in 2008, and I think I was the first in line to buy it at McNally Jackson Books on publication day. I wasn’t disappointed. I absolutely loved it then and I love it now. It’s called Eat Me: The Food and Philosophy of Kenny Shopsin, and it is weird, beautiful, hilarious, crazy, informative, surprising and full of simple, homestyle recipes.

Kenny is not interested in cheffy showing off at all, and quite frequently tells you it’s OK to use tinned corn instead of fresh, or white sliced bread instead of artisan sourdough, or frozen batter, or cheap peanut butter … These are dishes that make you want to eat them. They are about flavour and comfort and they put a smile on your face. With dishes like Slutty Cakes, Blisters on My Sisters and JJ’s Way, I’m usually smiling just reading them, too.

My copy is a first-edition hardback and it is falling apart. I sometimes pick it up just to read a paragraph of Kenny’s home-spun philosophy. Here’s an example: “Most of the times when a customer makes a special request, it’s not about the food, but rather his own desire to be in control and to establish his own specialness. Making people feel special through this kind of ass-kissing is one of the services that a restaurant can provide, but it’s not a service that I want to provide. Some people tell me that they’re deathly allergic to something and I have to make sure it’s not in their food. I kick them out. I don’t want to be responsible for anyone’s life-or-death situation. I tell them they should go eat at a hospital.”

The roasted turkey story on page 181 is just wonderful (and the recipe for roasting a turkey that follows it will change your life). Kenny’s brilliant throwaway cooking tips are priceless: coring an apple with a melon baller (page 108), de-seeding a pepper without touching it (page 55).

But the recipe I come back to most frequently is the stunningly simple salsa roja on page 63. There are just five ingredients – tinned chopped tomatoes, tinned corn, coriander, jalapeños and garlic – and a method that goes something like: “combine all the ingredients and salt to taste”. Works every time, takes three minutes to prepare, keeps in the fridge for three days, has multiple uses, and tastes fantastic.

I sometimes wonder why more cookbooks can’t be like this. Then I think I’m glad they aren’t.