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Tuesday, July 19, 2016

* FOOD BOOK OF THE MONTH! * Chickpea Flour does it All (The Experiment)

CHICKPEA FLOUR DOES IT ALL (The Experiment, 2016, 226 pages, ISBN 978-1-61519-304-2, $19.95 USD softbound) is by Lindsey S. Love, a food photographer and blogger/recipe developer in Brooklyn doing free-lance work for food mags. Here she has about 100 seasonal recipes that are gluten-free and dairy-free, very useful for vegans. Chickpea flour is also a soy-free alternative to tofu. There is a bonus in that the flour is high in protein, versatile and inexpensive. There are a lot of sweet and savoury dishes here.
Chickpea flour can be used to thicken and flavour hearty dishes, give the dish a protein boost, adds creamy texture to dairy-free dishes, and forms an alternative to wheat-based pizza and pancakes/crepes. Love comes with eight log rollers. Her arrangement is by season, beginning with winter. Preparations have their ingredients listed in avoirdupois and some metric measurements, but there is no table of equivalents. The typeface is a bit small and the ink seems to have been screened to a gray tone. It would be more easily viewed by millennials than by seniors.
Audience and level of use: chickpea lovers, vegans, gluten-free adherents.
Some interesting or unusual recipes/facts: grilled harissa cauliflower with quinoa toss;  mung bean pancakes with carrots and scallions; chipotle queso dip; strawberry s'mores; fig and hazelnut clafoutis; spiced chickpea pancakes with charred corn and radish salsa.
The downside to this book: there is just the one basic socca prep labeled "socca".
The upside to this book: excellent photography by a food specialist.
Quality/Price Rating: 89.

Chimo! www.deantudor.com

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