The Cookshelf: Fall 2019
"And all at one, summer collapsed into fall." ~ Oscar Wilde
Reviews by Browseabout Books: 133 Rehoboth Ave., Rehoboth Beach, DE; 302.226.2665
PREP
The Essential College Cookbook
By Katie Sullivan Morford
Roost Books, $18.95
Though deemed “the essential college cookbook,” PREP is really geared toward any young person starting to cook. Morford, a registered dietitian and food blogger, assumes her readers are novices and know nothing–and that’s just fine! The pint-sized book deftly covers what might seem obvious, yet Morford slips the information in bite-size portions that are easy to digest. Besides a quick introduction on basic cooking terminology and equipment, she offers tips with each recipe – for example, in the salad section she explains how to wash lettuce, and in the baking section, why it is important to pack the brown sugar. She covers food safety, too. Recipes feature beans, pasta, grains and eggs, and play to a young person’s tastes: Loaded Nachos, Sizzling Fried Rice, Breakfast Burritos, and One-Bowl Chocolate Chip Cookies. She occasionally offers up more complex dishes like Pesto Quinoa or Skillet Skirt Steak with Herb Butter. Perhaps most important, she reminds her readers that failure is part of cooking. Expect it. Even the most experienced cook can appreciate that!
Charcoal
New Ways to Cook with Fire
By Josiah Citrin and Joann Cianciulli
Avery, $30.00
Josiah Citrin built his career via the fine-dining, Michelin-star route, but his latest cookbook/ restaurant venture taps into a more low-key, casual vibe featuring live fire and coals. The beautifully photographed book is cleverly divided into grilling modes: Over the Coals, In the Coals, On the Coals, With the Smoke, and Off the Coals. What’s nice is that vegetable dishes, like Charred Brussels Sprouts and Blistered Broccolini, get just as much attention as recipes for meat and poultry, like the Chicken Skewers with Backyard Tomato Glaze and the Porcini-Dusted New York Strip. The chapter about cooking in the coals, where items such as cabbage, potatoes, carrots, fennel, beets and corn get thrust into the hot-coal center, results in an incredible array of boldly flavored dishes: Corn Elote with Lime, Chile, Cilantro and Cotija Cheese; Coal Roasted Carrots with Ricotta, Herbs and Black Pepper Honey; and his signature whole Cabbage Baked in Embers with Yogurt, Sumac and Lemon Zest. With the fall air turning the evenings cooler, it feels like the perfect time to give charcoal grilling a try.
Mocktails
Nonalcoholic Cocktails with Taste and Style
By Carolyn Hwang
Weldon Owen, $22.99
More and more, restaurants and bars are featuring cocktails sans alcohol, and not just club soda and lime; rather, the drinks are complex and often visually stunning. Caroline Hwang’s photo-forward Mocktails is a great entrée into the world of alcohol-free drinks. The recipes use the same equipment needed to make “real” cocktails – a shaker, muddler, blender, strainer and jigger, and are served in similarly specialized glassware, some of which are rimmed with a variety of salt or sugar combinations. Many of the drinks use blends, like fruit and vegetable purees, and shrubs, which are fermented and strained marriages of fruit, sugar and acid. Recipes range from simple, like the Strawberry-Thyme Cooler featuring three basic ingredients plus simple syrup, to more complex, like the Celery Lime-A-Rita, which involves pureeing celery stalks with orange and lime juice - worth the effort! The elegant Apricot Bellini gets its bite from an Apricot Shrub, and the Kaffir Lime & Rosemary Flip, complete with foamy egg white topping, rivals its alcohol-based counterpart in visual appeal.
The Perfect Pie
By America’s Test Kitchen
$35.00
Not to be left out of the “perfect” series – The Perfect Cookie (2017) and The Perfect Cake (2018) – America’s Test Kitchen has released The Perfect Pie cookbook just in time for fall baking. Ever trustworthy, America’s Test Kitchen does exactly that: test and re-test recipes and kitchen equipment. Their motto is, “We make the mistakes so you don’t have to.” The goal of this book is to provide foolproof recipes for any kind of pie, from the classics, such as Deep-Dish Apple Pie, Pumpkin Pie and Pecan Pie, to cream and custard pies, like Banana Cream Pie, Lemon Meringue Pie and Chocolate Chess Pie. The “Upping Your Game” chapter teaches more complicated pie making and decorating techniques, like fancy pastry top and edge designs, apple rosettes for the Salted Caramel Apple Pie, and pralines and crumb toppings for a variety of fruit pies. There’s a chapter featuring regional pies such as the Virginia Peanut Pie and North Carolina Lemon Pie, plus an entire section dedicated to crusts of all types, including vegan and gluten-free dough. Happy rolling!
Thanksgiving 101
By Rick Rodgers
William Morrow Cookbooks, $16.99
No, it isn’t too early to start thinking about Thanksgiving. Get your plan together, and maybe even take a few practice runs on some of the more vexing recipes of America’s most celebrated dinner by treating yourself to now-a-local-resident chef Rick Rodgers’ Thanksgiving 101. Unsure about how much and what kind of turkey to buy? Wondering if it is best to cook the turkey with the lid on or off? Oh, so many questions…many of which are answered or explained through Rodgers’ years of research on everything there is to know about turkey. Interspersed between the recipes are fun facts about the holiday and some of its popular ingredients and recipes, like Green Bean Casserole, and Rodgers’ own Cranberry, Ginger, and Lemon Chutney. Rodgers puts together several sample menus complete with timetables to follow. There’s even a section on what to do with turkey leftovers once you tire of the traditional turkey sandwich. Mongolian and Broccoli Turkey Stir Fry, anyone?
