The Cookshelf: Summer 2022

The Fresh Eggs Daily Cookbook: Over 100 Fabulous Recipes to Use Eggs in Unexpected Ways
By Lisa Steele, Harper Horizon, $27.99
Eggs get star billing for breakfast but tend to lose most-favored-ingredient-status by noon. Lisa Steele, a fifth-generation backyard chicken keeper, blogger, and author of six books on raising chickens, aims to change that. Beside recipes, Steele offers tips on how to detect an egg’s freshness, decipher egg carton labels, and store (even freeze) eggs. She also provides instructions on a variety of egg-cooking techniques, including salt-curing and pickling. Recipes are accompanied by colorful photographs and are organized by meal, several of which are great for summer. In brunch-friendly Eggs in Pots, eggs are baked in ramekins with a splash of cream, then sprinkled with fresh summer herbs. The Lemony Egg Salad Sandwich with Pesto and Avocado looks as delicious as it does messy. Raid your patio garden for tomatoes and basil to make fresh sauce for Baked Eggs Marinara. Eggs at happy hour? Yes! Lime Bourbon Sours get their frothy top from shaken egg whites. For dessert, make-ahead Meringue Nests can be topped with fresh Delmarva peaches or mixed berries. Cleverly, the recipe index lists recipes by number of eggs required.

Food IQ: 100 Questions, Answers, and Recipes to Raise Your Cooking Smarts
By Daniel Holzman and Matt Rodbard, Harper Wave, $35
School may be out for summer, but home cooks have an opportunity to improve their food IQ with this thoroughly readable, often funny book. Holzman, a chef and the author of The Meatball Cookbook, and Rodbard, a food writer and founding editor-and-chief of TASTE, seem ever curious. They debunk food myths, demystify ingredients and help home cooks navigate the modern culinary landscape. Each Q&A is followed by a recipe to put new-found knowledge into action. For example, “what’s the difference between a $30 knife and an $150 knife?” features a recipe for Classic Italian Chopped Salad. Topics range from basic—which kind of salt to use (it really does matter!) or how to best use your microwave, to ambitious, like making yogurt and deciphering baker’s math. The questions appeal to issues everyday home cooks face, such as “Is the broiler good for anything other than melting cheese?” In fact, it is. If you’ve left for work and forgotten to defrost (in this case) the steak you had planned for dinner, all isn’t lost with the recipe Fifteen Minute Frozen Broiler Steak. “Should I feel embarrassed to cook with canned beans?” No…and frozen veggies can produce a very respectable Frozen Spring Vegetable Risotto. Holzman and Rodbard also call on a cadre of culinary experts to weigh in, adding another layer of voices to this light-hearted master class in cookery.

Shellfish: 50 Seafood Recipes for Shrimp, Crab, Mussels, Clams, Oysters, Scallops, and Lobster
By Cynthia Nims, Sasquatch Books, $22.95
This compact primer on crustaceans and bivalves (aka “shellfish”) comes just in time for summer. Nims hails from the west coast but has traveled extensively to write about seafood, including to Virginia’s Eastern Shore. The book begins with shellfish basics meant to build confidence. Sometimes, just knowing how to select the best seafood can feel intimidating, especially given the cost. Each chapter focuses on a single shellfish type, with short introductions that provide guidance on buying, cleaning, and storing (including how long) to start you on your way. Recipe preparations are straightforward and ingredient lists are restrained to keep the focus on the flavor and the texture of the shellfish. Some meals are rustic, like the Grilled Clam Pouches with Bay Leaf and Butter, where the foil packets double as serving vessels (perfect for outdoor eating!). Others lean toward elegance, like the expert Seared Scallops with Capers and Lemons. And who can argue with a BLT when it is basil, lobster and tomato? While you won’t find a recipe for steamed crabs with Old Bay in this cookbook, there are lovely ideas for leftover crabmeat, such as Chilled Crab and Asparagus with Green Onion Aioli.

The Wok: Recipes and Techniques
By J. Kenji López-Alt, W. W. Norton & Company, $50
The Wok is so comprehensive that it is hard to imagine another resource a home cook might need to be successful and confident when cooking with a wok. Over 600-pages long, the book’s depth and breadth of explanations and the variety of recipes invites a slow and savory exploration. Even the section on ingredients, which could feel daunting, is made manageable via labels (essential, intermediate, advanced). Get the “essentials” and you can make many of the recipes in the book. Each cooking or chopping preparation López-Alt introduces, many with step-bystep photos, allows for practice in subsequent recipes. Americanized versions of dishes from countries such as China, Korea, Japan, Vietnam and Thailand are sometimes followed by recipes made in the region from which they originate. For example, Chinese American Kung Pao Chicken precedes the recipe for Gong Bao Ji Ding (Sichuan Chicken with Peanuts). Chapters are divided by method, including Stir Fries, where you’ll find recipes like Beef and Broccoli, or Braising and Simmering, with dishes like Mapo Tofu. Other chapters lead with an ingredient. There’s one on Rice, and another on Noodles, where Shanghai-Style Sesame Noodles and San Francisco-Style Vietnamese American Garlic Noodles are just a few of the tempting choices.

Browseabout Books
133 Rehoboth Avenue, Rehoboth Beach, DE, (302) 226-2665