MARCH BOOK REVIEWS 2024
RECIPES FROM MY INDIAN KITCHEN; traditional & modern recipes for delicious home-cooked food (Ryland Peters & Small, 2017, 2024, 160 pages, ISBN 978-1-78879-516-6 $34 CAD hardbound) is by Nitisha Patel, a professional chef doing recipe development and food consulting in the UK. It was originally published in 2017 as "My Modern Indian Kitchen" but these are also her family recipes from India, for over 60 preps of home-cooked Indian food. She has some cultural notes in her primer on spices and then moves on to street food, curries, vegetarian dishes, sides, rice, chutney, raita, and desserts. Preparations have their ingredients listed in mostly avoirdupois measurements (except for the desserts which are scaled, for the most part), but there is no table of metric equivalents.
Audience and level of use: Indian food lovers looking for modern interpretations.
Some interesting or unusual recipes/facts: amritsari fish pakoras; keralan king prawn curry; malabari mussels; tandoori spatchcock poussin; veg manchurian; goan sausage and king prawn pilaf.
The downside to this book: a little thin on the number of recipes
The upside to this book: colourful, good memoir material in each recipe. Quality/Price Rating: 88, by Dean Tudor of Gothic Epicures Writing.
THE SCANDIKITCHEN COOKBOOK; recipes for good food with love from Scandinavia (Ryland Peters & Small, 2015, 2024, 176 pages, ISBN 978-1-78879-599-9 $35 CAD hardbound) is by Bronte Aurell, Danish restaurateur and TV food celebrity, who runs the ScandiKitchen Cafe and shop in central London along with her Swedish husband. It was originally published in 2015 as "The Scandi Kitchen". She has also been published widely. Here she has an introduction to Scandinavian food through 75 dishes for all occasions. The contents begin with a pantry/larder, and move on to breakfast, open sandwiches, smorgasbord with soups and salads and light dishes, followed by dinner and desserts. There is even a chapter on fika (get-together with coffee with cakes). Try the breakfast open sandwich, shrimp and asparagus open sandwich, a Nordic Christmas, or traditional Danish apple trifle as individual servings. Preparations have their ingredients listed in both metric and avoirdupois measurements. Quality/price rating: 87, by Dean Tudor of Gothic Epicures Writing.
BEST OF BRIDGE DONE IN ONE; perfect recipes in one pot, pan or skillet (Robert Rose, 2023, 224 pages, ISBN 978-0-7788-0712-4 $34.95 CAD hardbound) is by Emily Richards (cookbook author and recipe developer)) and Sylvia Kong (cookbook author and food stylist). Both are home economists, and both have been busy revising the Best of Bridge series of cookbooks over the years. After almost half a century and 4 million books they have created a collection of one-pot recipes. This all-new book of 105 recipes uses just one cooking equipment, whether it be an electrical one-pot, a pan, a cast iron pan, a skillet, a bowl or a sheet pan. As always, the new Best of Bridge team look to family-friendly preps, easy-to-prepare meals, after-work dinners, entertaining crowd pleasers, flavour variations, ingredient substitutions, make-aheads, freezer options, easy clean-up, budget conscious foods, and the like. Virtually goof-proof. Here, even kids can make some foods. The range of contents include breakfasts, apps, salads, soups, sandwiches, red meats, poultry, fish and seafood, veggies, sides and desserts. You could try creamy mushroom and lentil orzo, vegetable beef curry, cinnamon-glazed pumpkin sheet-pan pancakes or skillet lasagne. The index includes lists of dishes for each specific pot; there are also recipe icons to guide you through the equipment and the food. It's a good looking book with excellent colour photos and large bold print. And, of course, the publisher is well-known for using BOTH metric and imperial measurements in all the preps. Quality/price rating: 92, by Dean Tudor of Gothic Epicures Writing.
FRENCH FROM THE MARKET (Gibbs Smith, 2024, 224 pages, ISBN 978-1-4236-6488-8 $53 CAD hardbound) is by Hillary Davis, cookbook author and lecturer, with about a half dozen or so cookbooks about French cuisine on her resume. Currently, she lives in the Hamptons with several months spent annually in France. Her latest book here has gobs of recipe photos and photos of French markets. Her contents range from starters through to desserts, and emphasizes Parisian foods and South of France foods. This is traditional French cooking, fresh from the market daily. She's simplified a few recipes such as quenelles and tarte Tatin. She's got some innovative recipes such as alpine parsnip hummus with hazelnuts. But mainly it is a French provincial cookbook, with bistro oeufs, a chicken in every pot, Alsatian onion crispbread, Provencal vegetable pistou soup, chilled summer tomato soup with soft garlic breadcrumbs, frisee salad, camargue rice salad, and red wine-poached cherries and grapes with cardamom chantilly among the 100 plus engaging preps. My fave dessert was the Pont Neuf baked figs with brie, walnuts and honey. Yum yum. All the preps have imperial measurements, but there is a metric conversion chart. Quality/price rating: 94, by Dean Tudor of Gothic Epicures Writing.
BOOK OF REAL GUUUD BARBECUE; grilling, slow roasting and smoking, beer-can burgers, fireball whiskey meatballs, venison stew, stuffed alligator, rubs, marinades, and more (Firefly Books, 2024, 256 pages, ISBN 13-978-0-2281-0511-4 $29.95 CAD softbound) is from the BBQ Pit Boys, founded in 2007 as a YouTube cooking channel; they host the largest BBQ community in the world. It is now world-wide with over 2.2 million subscribers and about 1.5 billion views - the most watched BBQ cooks on both YouTube and Facebook. The record shows that they have five million plus followers on all social media platforms. And now, for those without an Internet connection comes a BOOK!! It's all backyard grilling, with material on charcoal, a knife, and rubs/marinades. They thrive on being low-key, much like Bob and Ray were in their prime. There are many basic preps and methods here, for what are basically "grilling" and "slow-bbq" - steaks, fish, pork shoulder, lamb, and many sides. It's just about goof-proof. The book is very colourful with chapters devoted to burgers and sausages, meatballs and pies, beef, pork, lamb, game, poultry, seafood, fish, sides, sauces, et al. Lots of photos of the boys and the meats. As the jacket says: "this isn't just a cookbook, its a way of life." A good book for beginners. Just a couple of quibbles -- no index (look to the chapter contents) and no metric measurements (and no conversion tables). Quality/price rating: 89, by Dean Tudor of Gothic Epicures Writing.
