The Cookshelf: Spring 2022

Grains for Every Season: Rethinking Our Way With Grains
By Joshua McFadden with Martha Holmber; Artisan, $40
Joshua McFadden’s previous cookbook, the veg-forward Six Seasons, won a James Beard Award. This latest effort focuses on grains. The book looks and feels like Six Seasons (why deviate from success?) and is organized by grain (barley, corn, quinoa, rye, wheat, and more). These grains feature in starters, baked goods, salads, and entrees. The warming Quinoa and Chicken Soup with French Lentils and Herbs is perfect for a cool spring evening and pairs nicely with Super-Crisp Flatbread That Tastes Like Cheez-Its (really!) made with whole wheat flour. Retro tuna noodle casserole gets a makeover by replacing pasta with wheat berries and adding broccoli to the creamy, cheesy sauce. Comforting risotto is made with farro instead of arborio rice; suggested additions of mushrooms, seafood, meat or vegetables make this dish easy to adapt to many different occasions and dietary preferences. Desserts get a flavor and nutrition boost, too, in such treats like Super Fudgy Chocolate Oat Layer Cake with Chocolate Oat Milk Frosting. McFadden’s mix and match approach, pairing grain with vegetable and protein depending on the season, is showcased in four bonus folding pullout sections that feature stir-fries, pizza, pilafs, and grain bowls. This exciting cookbook will carry you throughout the year with healthy, seasonal, grain-based recipes.
If you like this suggestion, here’s another: Grist: A Practical Guide to Cooking Grains, Beans, Seeds, and Legumes by Abra Berens

Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Shelf Love
By Noor Murad and Yotam Ottolenghi; Clarkson Potter, $32
Fans of the Ottolenghi brand and his previous cookbooks will appreciate this inaugural effort by OTK, led by Noor Murad. During the pandemic, the test kitchen team peered deeply into the recesses of their refrigerators and pantries, like many of us did. The result was an exploration on how to use what we already have on hand creatively. The chapters are aptly named: “That one shelf in the back of your pantry,” “Your Veg Box,” “Fridge Raid,” and “Freezer is your Friend.” A glut of eggplant is transformed into vegan-friendly Smoky, Creamy Pasta with Burnt Eggplant and Tahini. A few sweet potatoes left in the bin form the base for flavor-packed Sweet Potato Shakshuka with Sriracha Butter and Pickled Onions. Don’t have sriracha? Use another hot sauce hanging out in your fridge as a substitute. The last few pickles in the jar provide the crunch on top of Beyond Potato Salad, where yellow potatoes and hard-boiled eggs are mashed with mayo then drizzled with a chopped pickle and herb-infused oil. My almost-full bag of oat bran got new life in Verena’s Road Trip Cookies, loaded with oatmeal, oat bran, cinnamon, raisins and browned butter. The cookies didn’t last long enough to make it out the door. It’s fun to forage in your very own kitchen when it leads to imaginative and tasty dishes on the table!
If you like this suggestion, here’s another: Kitchen Remix: 75 Recipes for Making the Most of Your Ingredients by Charlotte Druckman

52 Shabbats: Friday Night Dinners Inspired by a Global Jewish Kitchen
By Faith Kramer; The Collective Book Studio, $32.50
In 52 Shabbats, Faith Kramer highlights diverse food traditions in Jewish communities from Europe, North Africa, Mexico and beyond. The Friday evening observance of Shabbat is an opportunity to explore these global flavors with family and friends. Hawaij Vegetable Soup gets some of its warmth from the hawaij spice blend from Yemen. Matzo balls in Matzo Ball and Pozole Chicken Soup incorporate jalapenos and cilantro, and the soup is finished with sliced radishes and a squeeze of lime. Pickle-Brined Chicken Two Ways (baked or fried) and Skillet Paella with Chicken and Sausage with saffron and smoked paprika are two of many comforting and hearty mains. Kramer mines her family’s recipe box for brisket—a Shabbat staple—which includes pomegranate molasses for “tart sweetness.” Leftovers star in Brisket Fried Rice. For more casual fare, there’s Lamb Hummus Bowls made with store-bought (or homemade) hummus. Turkish Coconut Pudding sprinkled with pistachios and pomegranate seeds provides a sweet note. There are numerous helpful hints for making things ahead. Who doesn’t need that? Whatever dish you choose, Kramer reminds readers that, “The main ingredient of a Friday night dinner menu is intention---purposefully setting aside and honoring the specialness of the day. As long as you have that, you have Shabbat.”
If you like this suggestion, here’s another: Jew-ish: Reinvented Recipes from a Modern Mensch by Jake Cohen

Bittman Bread: No-Knead Whole Grain Baking for Every Day
By Mark Bittman and Kerri Conan; Harvest, $35
If you are looking to advance your bread baking skills to incorporate (you guessed it) whole grains, Bittman Bread is your answer. Mark Bittman and Kerri Conan take the groundbreaking and deceptively simple no-knead method (see Jim Lahey’s My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method) forward a notch by using only whole grain flours (except for the starter loaf). While there is no kneading involved, there are several steps including timed intervals of folding the dough, but the reward is a substantial, chewy, crusty loaf with a soft interior. Master the basic recipe and then try any of the nine variations, which add cheese, seeds, olives, herbs or other whole grain flours. Besides bread, there is pizza, focaccia, and even sweets like buttery, sugar-crusted Cinnamon Rolls that are turned out using a similar process as the basic bread recipe. The key to success with Bittman’s bread is figuring out when you have the time to be attentive to the final dough preparations and work back the clock to find the best time to start a recipe. Once you get accustomed to the process, it becomes second nature. It isn’t easy to produce whole grain baked goods that provide texture and flavor that is as appealing (though different) as we’ve come to expect when baking with refined flours, but Bittman has done just that.
If you like this suggestion, here’s another: My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method by Jim Lahey

Browseabout Books
133 Rehoboth Avenue, Rehoboth Beach, DE; (302) 226-2665;
*Special thanks to Claudia W. for her help in testing many of the recipes in this review.