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Latest releases
Murdoch Books has just released the first two titles in their new Providore series of ingredients-based cookbooks. They are The Baker and The Butcher. The Baker Leanne Kitchen, ISBN 978-1741960976, Murdoch Books, RRP $39.95 While it might be easy to grab a packet of biscuits, a cake or a couple of muffins from the supermarket, they will never taste as good as home-produced baked goods. In fact, sometimes they are downright nasty.
Firstly, Leanne Kitchen deals with the basics – the equipment required, terms and techniques, ingredients, and freezing and thawing. Some people like to have a marathon baking session, so the latter section provides useful guidance on which baked goods can be successfully frozen. It’s always useful to have a little stash in the freezer for emergencies or unexpected guests, and proper packaging will ensure the product remains as good as freshly baked. Chapters include quickbreads, yeasted products, cakes, biscuits, pies and tarts, batters, and desserts. Each has a preamble covering the requirements and techniques for each category and some very useful advice on troubleshooting when things go wrong. Beginners might like to read the chapter introductions and then start with a recipe that suits their current level of competence. By working their way through from the least demanding recipes, they will soon get a feel for the various methods and be encouraged by their success rate. While there are some old favourites included, there are also plenty of interesting new recipes to try. Plenty of photos (by George Seper) show the finished products. The Butcher Leanne Kitchen, ISBN 978-1741960969, Murdoch Books, RRP $39.95 The Butcher follows a similar formula to its companion volume. Equipment and techniques are discussed first then Leanne Kitchen moves on to the various meats – beef, lamb, pork, veal, offal, poultry, and game. Chapters begin with a discussion on each variety, buying and storage, cooking methods and cuts.
Along the way there’s Pigeon with raisins and pine nuts, Portuguese spatchcock, Chicken, artichoke and broad bean stew, Blanquette de veau, Venetian liver, Crumbed brains with radicchio, pear and ginger salad, Warm pork salad with blue cheese croutons, Lamb crown roast with sage stuffing, Beef pot roast Provencal. An excellent section on offal reflects the growing popularity of some of these lesser cuts and pieces – if the restaurant boys haven’t already beaten us to the butcher’s. Future titles in the series will include The Dairy and The Greengrocer (in September) and The Patisserie and The Delicatessen (May next year).
Decadence Philip Johnson, ISBN 978-1921259500, Murdoch Books, RRP $34.95 Of all the kitchen skills, I think dessert-making is perhaps the most satisfying and it looks like Philip Johnson had a great time working on this delicious book. Desserts have long been a passion of his but it’s taken him till cookbook number five to concentrate on the final course.
Then come the warm wonders. Fig tarte tatin, Rhubarb sponge, Baked peaches with amaretti biscuit crumble, Steamed lemon pudding with crème fraiche ice cream, Pear and ginger upside-down cake. The cool and composed desserts aren't overly contrived but they are elegant. There’s Apple jelly with Calvados panna cotta, Honey parfait with grilled plums and pistachios, Saffron crema catalana, Spiced pears with labneh and pistachios, Honey Bavarian cream with balsamic strawberries. Many feature fruit. In the patisserie section, Johnson presents what he considers a good interpretation of his indivual style, which is simple, delicicious and irresistible. They certainly look that. I love the Blood Orange, almond and pistachio cakes and the Mango tartlets with macadamia nut ice cream. There’s a Banana and passionfruit brioche pizza and would make a brilliant brunch offering and a Mandarin tart to keep citrus lovers happy. A Silverbeet, raisin and pine nut tart has the surprise element and the Sweet potato cake with honey and cinnamon cream will have guests trying to identify the secret ingredient. The desserts in the special effects chapter will take time and patience to prepare, but they’ll ensure a spectacular finale to a memorable meal. They all have eye appeal and a cheffy presentation – Caramelised pear terrine, milk gelato and gingerbread, Goat’s cheese and honey parfait with candied walnuts and fig chips, Spiced quince trifle, Iced coconut parfait, pineapple sorbet and pineapple and lime salsa. Iced delights follow then there’s a chapter on basics such as Crème anglaise, Caramel shards, Tuiles, Raspberry coulis and other garnishes. The dedicated entertainer will bless Johnson for putting so many inspiring recipes in one book. There’s more than 90 of them and plenty of delicious photos by Jared Fowler showing the finished masterpieces.
Don't Try This at Home: Culinary Catastrophes from the World's Greatest Cooks and Chefs edited by Kimberly Witherspoon and Andrew Friedman, ISBN 978-0-7475-8543-5, Bloomsbury. RRP $24.95
The revered Ferran Adria learned the hard way that lobsters can be extremely perishable when not treated properly. When said lobsters are destined to be the piece de resistance at a banquet for 3200 people, this is no minor tragedy. The lobsters were sourced, prepared off-site at some vast kitchens, placed in polystyrene containers till next morning, then despatched to Gerona for assembly on the plate alongside a cepes carpaccio and a salad with Parmesan and a pinenut vinaigrette. But while they had been refrigerated overnight, the polystyrene insulated them from the cold of the refrigerator so they’d effectively remained at room temperature all night. The lobsters were off – definitely off! At best, only 500 replacement lobsters could be located and the cepes assumed a more pivotal role in the eventual dish. Closer to home, Neil Perry had just opened his Sydney Rockpool. Lamb chops were on the staff dinner menu on the restaurant’s first Friday night, but the sprinkler system had been installed using conventional type heat-sensitive tubing rather than the tubing with relatively high-resistance used in most restaurants. As the chops flared on the grill, a massive water dump from the sprinkler system flooded the food stations where the night’s ingredients were prepped and in place. Putting things right for the evening’s guests was no mean feat. “After service that night, I took the men out for about 400 beers.” Anthony Bourdain’s meltdown came one New Year’s eve when boss finally handed round the night’s menu about 5.30pm, a killer menu that meant most dishes had to be made to order. But the kitchen printer hooked up to the waiters’ computer-order system wasn’t working. Suddenly, after a long lull it started spitting out orders. There was a lot of heat in the kitchen that night as backed-up orders spewed forth putting huge pressure on the cooks. Lack of food upset the patrons and bedlam ensued. Jamie Oliver, Antonio Carluccio, Raymond Blanc, Heston Blumenthal, Antony Worrall Thompson, Fergus Henderson, Tamasin Day-Lewis, David Thompson, Bill Granger, Giogio Locatelli, Mario Batali, Wylie Dufresne - in all 30 chefs and food writers share tales of their culinary catastrophes. Many of the well-told stories send a shiver down the spine. A great read and one that can be enjoyed in small bites.
Qmin: A Fresh New Approach to Indian Cuisine Anil Ashokan, ISBN 978-1-74175-066-9, Allen & Unwin, RRP $39.95 The more I sample and read about Indian cuisine, the more I realise it could become a lifetime study. I enjoy cooking Indian dishes and yet I realise I have barely scratched the surface. One thing is certain – whenever I cook up some Indian dishes, there are never any leftovers.
Anil Ashokan’s book was instantly appealing because, as the title says, this certainly is a fresh new approach to Indian cuisine. The author grew up in Mumbai, graduating from the renowned Bombay Catering School and trainingh at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai. Then he went travelling and eventually ended up in Sydney where he now runs Qmin restaurant. While the 120 or so recipes in this book reflect traditional Indian cuisine, Ashokan has given them a contemporary twist. He suggests preparing sauce bases, spice mixes and masalas in larger quantities to cut down on preparation time in subsequent meals. The sauce bases can be frozen. The recipes come from all over India and embrace seafood, poultry, lamb and other meats, vegetables, breads, rice and desserts. Some, like Kawari Jheenga – prawns marinaded in a spicy tamarind mix then coated with coarse semolina and shallow-fried with make an excellent snack or starters. Others, like a simplified version of the Rajasthan lamb with creamed corn, are more substantial. The meat dishes include spicy lamb rissoles, braised whole leg of lamb, minced lamb kebabs, baked hare, a delicious looking meat pie, pork chops East Indian-style, royal goat shanks, smoked quail and some interesting chicken dishes. Indian vegetable dishes have a lot of appeal. There’s a Goan homestyle dish of cabbage with potatoes, braised chillies from Hyderabad, baked eggplant, a beautiful dish of stir-fried sweet potato and spinach and, from Kerala stir-fried green banana and snake beans. Many will be drawn to a stuffed capsicum dish for its presentation potential. The bread and rice chapters include the familiar and the unusual and Ashokan has taken a lighter approach to Indian desserts which can sometimes be, as he says, “quite heavy”. I like his bending of the rules and turning a samosa into a sweet dish with an apple filling replacing the usual savoury one. I know I will get a lot of use out of this dish in the cool months ahead. Anyone planning an Indian dinner party would also find this an immensely useful resource. The tasteful photography in this cleanly designed book is by Greg Elms and the attractive food-styling by Virginia Dowzer.
Piri Piri Starfish: Portugal Found Tessa Kiros, ISBN 987-1740459099, Murdoch Books, RRP $59.95 Portuguese cuisine has had something of a boost in recent times thanks to the growing popularity of tapas restaurants. However, the shops aren’t exactly brimming with books of Portuguese recipes so this is a timely publication.
Piri piri is a hot chilli pepper, originally from Angola. It has been embraced by the Portuguese “who dribble piri piri oil over almost every dish,” Kiros explains, in a small section on the Portuguese kitchen. Other items she mentions include bacalhau or salt cod, bay leaves, coarse salt, and chourico sausage. The book commences with essential recipes – the various hot condiments, including piri piri oil and breads. Then there are the petisco plates, the “small bites” that are growing increasingly popular among the grazing diners. This is my kind of fare – sardine pate, chourico and broad beans flecked with mint, fresh sardines in escabeche, little prawn pastries, gratineed mussels, salt cod with chickpeas, the irresistible pasties de bacalhau, calamari and more. The starters and soups are refreshingly different – green bean and potato soup, tomato soup with coriander and poached egg, purslane soup, salt cod, coriander, garlic and bread soup. The mains and side dishes range from simple grilled sardines through to roast lamb with onions and green pepper. Of course there is roast rabbit, pork migas, enticing fish dishes. Desserts cover the substantial to the delicate. I just had to try making the coffee crème caramel and it was deliciously smooth. Plums in syrup, honey tart and custard-filled pasties de nata, sorbets, ice cream – and churros! For anyone looking to produce some interesting new flavours in the kitchen, this book is a winner. I did, however, find the ingredients listings too small, hard to read (a mix of upper case and lower case words, with random parts in italics) and confusing with sometimes two or three ingredients on one line. It would be very easy to overlook a vital ingredient. That aside, I am going to enjoy journeying through Portugal in my own kitchen.
Seafood edited by Keith Austin, ISBN 978-1-921190-81-0, Fairfax Books, RRP $29.95 It’s easy enough to get in a rut when cooking fish. Most times I buy a firm fish that won’t fall apart in the pan then I simply shake the pieces in some seasoned flour and shallow-fry them, relying on a side dish or a zingy dressing for the salad to provide the palate with some titillation. But letting the fresh fish flavour speak for itself can get a little boring, so I’ve already flagged several of the recipes in this new book to liven things up at the dinner table.
It’s a good idea to do your homework before you go shopping for fish. Learn the characteristics of a good fresh fish and don’t compromise. Editor Keith Austin says Martha Stewart advises on her website to ask the fishmonger “where and when the fish was caught, gutted and cut, and ask for some serving suggestions as well.” But, says Austin, “this is all very well if you’re not the person waiting in line BEHIND the buffoon asking about the fish’s employment history and future prospects.” Indeed. Austin follows up with storage tips, and there’s a guide covering how much seafood to buy for whole or filleted fish and varieties like prawns, oysters, salmon and squid. The recipes begin on the right note in the soup section with Spiced tomato consommé with pork and crab dumpling. There’s a mix of ethnic influences as the chapter proceeds with a Greek fisherman’s soup, lobster miso soup, oyster and celery, seafood noodle, snapper head through to a Hungarian fish and potato stew with smoked eel. Innovative starters include Vietnamese Mieng kum on cha plu leaves, a terrine, fritters, fish balls, ceviche, a smoked trout brandade – in fact something to suit most tastes. The salads feature some interesting flavour combinations while the mains encompass a variety of cooking techniques and fish varieties. There’s a soupy shellfish casseroles, baked swordfish with herbs, garfish tizzied up with dukkah, a hedonistic salad of crayfish, mussels, prawns and pipis with lemon and avocado, Cantonese-style steamed fish, whole baked fish, pot-roasted fish, a much under-utilised fish, skate, with a crushed cherry tomato sauce, lovely whole sardines… There’s even a recipe for small scallop party pies. The contributors, who feature regularly in Fairfax Media publications, are Stephanie Alexander, Paul Blain, Tony Chiodo, Jill Dupleix, Terry Durack, Gabriel Gate, Brigitte Hafner, Lauraine Jacobs, Kathy Snowball, Fiona Smith and Tony Tan. Each recipe has an accompanying photograph. If you’re building a cook’s library, Seafood will be a worthwhile addition.
Baking edited by Kylie Walker, ISBN 978-1-921190-82-7, Fairfax Books, RRP $34.95
Baking is a great collection of recipes from 14 contributors, ranging from old-fashioned favourites like scones and shortbread, items for the picnic basket, muffins and loaves, tarts, puddings, pies, savouries and sinful celebration cakes. However, unlike the old cookbooks earlier generations cooked from, this book has plenty of photos of the finished products and there are modern twists that will appeal to 21st century cook. Maybe the rising cost of living will convince a new generation that baking is a worthwhile pursuit and the end result is vastly superior to mass-produced cakes and biscuits with all their additives. Baking is a good place to start.
Eating Well Tony Chiodo, ISBN 978-1-921190-74-2, Fairfax Books, RRP $24.95 Guilt-free. That’s what we all need – more guilt-free food. Tony Chiodo to the rescue with his “food for health and happiness”, featuring healthy recipes with natural ingredients.
Chiodo’s salads, snacks and starters form an interesting collection. Some would be great as part of a tapas menu – the grilled potato salad with tomato chilli salsa and avocado dollop, the salty sage bites, and the mussels in a warm herb vinaigrette, for instance. The soups look nourishing and restorative, particularly the lemony chickpea and greens soup. Several of the mains are one-pot meals where the major part of the meal is simply assembling the ingredients. Even the desserts have largely undergone a guilt bypass. This book appeals to me as one that would be useful for anyone trying to kick bad eating habits or get some sanity back into their meals.
1001 Foods You Must Eat Before You Die ISBN 9780733321672, ABC Books, RRP $65.00 There and numerous lists of 1001 things we need to do before we die – read certain books, visit various tourist landmarks. Now the challenge has broadened with the addition of 1001 foods we must eat. Fortunately some of the world’s best chefs and food writers have weighed in with their suggestions, so we don’t have to go it all alone. As Terry Durack points out in the introduction, the average human being will put away close to 65 tonnes of food and drink in a lifetime. I guess our 10,000 tastebuds deserve to get some enjoyment out of savouring each bite so this book may well prove to be the ideal vade mecum. Well maybe not one to be carried about one’s person as it’s another of the current batch of new books weighing in at more than 2kg. In fact Durack suggests it might also be used to weigh down a terrine overnight. 1001 Foods runs through the usual menu divisions beginning with appetisers and small food and ending with beverages. Contributors include Mario Batali, Heston Blumenthal, Mark Bittman, Julia Child, Tom Colicchio, Elizabeth David, Ina Garten, Donna Hay, Bill Granger, Marcella Hazan, Madhur Jaffrey, Nigel Slater, Rick Stein, Alice Waters, to name a handful.
I’m up for the challenge. A lot of the 1001 foods and dishes I’ve already had or made. But this cookbook will be a good starting point for anyone who feels they are in a culinary rut or just wants a useful collection of recipes enclosed in one cover. There are more than 250 recipes, plus comprehensive notes on individual ingredients like udon noodles, gooseberries, polenta, short ribs, black-eyed peas, pickled eggs and hundreds more. The format is attractive and the book is beautifully illustrated with plenty of photographs. A great idea well executed.
The Age Cheap Eats 2008 edited by Nina Rousseau, ISBN 978-0-14-300592-6, Fairfax Books, RRP $22.95
While The Age’s Good Food Guide is great for the upper end of the market, we also need a guide to the hidden treasures in our own neighbourhood that won’t cause a plastic meltdown in the wallet. Best meals in the city and country under $30, more than 500 reviews, including over 100 new places to eat and drink. The book is divided into regions while the index allows the hungry to find which restaurants serve their favourite ethnic cuisines, which are BYO, where the cafes, foodstores, bars and vegetarian places are. This is also a book to put in the glovebox when heading out of town. Excellent maps are great for locating bars and eating spots in a particular neighbourhood – handy for out-of-towners looking for something close to their accommodation, perhaps. The 2008 guide has undergone a makeover. It’s a well presented book and not too large to pop in a handbag. A must for the dedicated foodie.
Mrs Harvey's Sister in Law: And Other Tasty Dishes Margaret Dunn, ISBN 978-1741960808, Murdoch Books, RRP $34.95 My handwritten personal recipe collections are peppered with Alma’s Cakes, Alva’s Biscuits, Marjorie’s Sky High Buttercake, Bala’s Pickle, Albie’s Fruitcake. Some of these people were my mother’s friends, some mine, some were relatives. Making these recipes, many of which became family favourites, reminds us of the people who gave them to us.
Margaret Dunn has been far more organised. She has been an inveterate collector since childhood. “It is one of my proud boasts that I never lose recipes… I seem to have spent my life saying to people ‘May I have the recipe?’ ,” she says. Now she has assembled all her family favourites together in one book. “I began this book because of the way I feel about cooking – because I didn’t want the recipes I had known and loved to be lost. Many of these have come from the handwritten book which my mother, my aunts and my grandmother all kept, reading almost like diaries in their progression of names and places attached to the recipes, and fascinating in their wealth of small added instruction.” He following generations can well be grateful for her forsight. This is a beautifully nostalgic book. I can identify with page after page. There’s talk of luscious crayfish sandwiches in the days when prices were modest. Mother’s Savoury Steak sounds like my own mother’s braised steak. And lemon flavoured barley water, a sort of cure-all that was supposed to “cool the blood” was made when anyone was poorly. Sunday roasts “and none of your fancy foreign ways either”. As Margaret Dunn observes, “There never seem to have been recipes for these things. You learned to do them from your mother, simply by being in the kitchen.” There were the inevitable dishes that followed the roast dinner, sometimes for days – curry, rissoles, shepherd’s pie, devilled meat. Dads usually have their own specialties. Dunn’s father’s hot pot recipe is given, along with her brother-in-law’s one with its “secret” ingredient, garlic – “secret” because he didn’t want his garlic-hating mother to find out that’s what gave it the flavour she savoured. There are dozens of recipes from starters to afters, many with chatty little introductions. And as for Mrs Harvey’s Sister-in-Law – it’s a set lemon pudding served with custard. I think this is a book that might appeal to the older cook as those born after the mid-60s will probably baulk a bit at the imperial weights and measures but anyone who can move seamlessly from imperial to metric will have no quibble. It’s a charming social history and it’s certainly one to bear in mind for Mother’s Day in a few weeks’ time. However, I must observe that the book’s design troubled me. It has a folksy stitched sampler style of type face for its headings, sometimes teamed with a naive script. There are slabs of upper case type and some pages are padded out with jarring lines of black hearts, others have harsh black backgrounds with reverse type. And the pale green matt cloth cover, while probably appropriately evocative of an earlier age, may not be too kitchen-friendly. Even the vintage 1950s Better Homes and Garden's gingham-covered cookbook has a smooth wipeable cover.
Cooking with Foods That Fight Cancer Richard Beliveau and Denis Gingras, ISBN 978-1-74175-434-6. Allen & Unwin, RRP $35.00 Following on from their best-seller Foods That Fight Cancer, Beliveau and Gingras have teamed up with professional chefs to produce a book of recipes covering the arsenal of cancer-fighting foods. They say, “Plants are without a doubt the foods with the greatest potential of lowering the risk of developing a whole slew of cancers.”
The contributing chefs were asked to include in their recipes fruits, vegetables and spices whose credentials as important sources of anti-cancer molecules had already been well established by scientific research. They were asked to respect the cultural authenticity of recipes by preferring ingredient combinations in line with culinary tradition, and they had to invent quick and easy-to-make dishes made from readily available ingredients. The result is a tasty collection of recipes that have the added bonus of containing plenty of the dietary good guys. They range from breakfasts and brunches through to snacks, appetisers, soups and broths, first courses and mains, sauces and seasonings, side dishes and salads, and end with desserts. There are plenty of delicious choices embracing a range of cuisines – Indian cabbage, turmeric-curry chicken, pissaladiere, soba noodles with tuna and ginger, teriyaki salmon, Tex-Mex chilli, Korean-style grilled beef. Just because it’s good for you doesn’t mean it has to be boring. Favourite dishes from countries with a low rate of cancer are included and true to their brief, the chefs have come up with recipes that are uncomplicated. There are plenty of photos to encourage the cook and there’s no time like today to examine our eating habits and see if we might do better – with this book as a guide.
The Red Bodyguard: The Amazing Health-promoting Properties of the Tomato Ron Levin with Gerard Cheshire, ISBN 978-184046885-4, Icon, RRP $16.95 Tomatoes are always on my shopping list. We get through kilos and cans of them every year and I guess we take them for granted.
Tomatoes contain the carotenoids beta-carotene (yellow) and Lycopene (red). The new and unexpected buzz of enthusiasm associated with tomatoes is related to the perceived health benefits attributed to lycopene. Tomatoes are the richest source of lycopene but growers are seeking to heighten the lycopene percentage in their crops. Earlier genetic modification of tomatoes to enhance their shipment qualities led to consumer reluctance and the GM tomato was axed but there is now a renewed interest in artificially engineering tomatoes to increase higher more reliable levels of those chemicals known to be beneficial to human health. The author explains free radicals and the role the antioxidants beta carotene and particularly lycopene can play in neutralising the free radicals and offering cancer protection. Looking at the considerable scientific evidence garnered from round the world, he concludes that the tomato is a powerful health-promoting companion and bodyguard. “In addition, since eating tomatoes is both pleasurable and harmless, I say let’s do it anyway.” The Red Bodyguard reveals that cooked and processed tomatoes are the best form, and that coronary heart disease, prostate cancer and possibly much more should fear this incredible fruit. The book is easy to read and a handful of recipes offer ways of getting a daily tomato fix. Ron Levin, a qualified pharmacist, was until retirement in 2002 Managing Director of a very successful Johnson & Johnson subsidiary pharmaceutical company in the UK. Gerard Cheshire is the author of more than 100 books including the Collins Gem publication Chemical Elements.
Feeding the Bump: Nutrition and Recipes for Pregnancy Lisa Neal ISBN 978-1-74175-371-4, Allen & Unwin, RRP$29.95 Proper nutrition is very important in pregnancy. In fact for those who have decided to have a baby, it’s timely to prime the body for the best possible experience so Lisa Neal deals first with the preconception diet and focuses on the nutrients that are important.
Initially, it might seem difficult to heed dietary advice when suffering from first-trimester nausea. It’s not always “morning” sickness. Some pregnant women can experience nausea at other times of the day. There are tactics for coping and surprisingly food can help relieve nausea. Neal suggests small regular meals or nutritious snacks to maintain blood sugar levels and offers suggestions on foods to avoid at this time and those that can ease nausea. There are also foods to avoid throughout the pregnancy, such as raw fish, uncooked meats, organ meats and soft, unpasteurised and imported cheese. Sugar, caffeine, alcohol and processed foods that contain chemicals and preservatives should be minimised. Healthy food preparation and hygiene is also stressed. Neal offers tips for healthy eating, providing for the mother’s and growing baby’s requirements through each trimester. She deals with food aversions and a changing palate, as well as food cravings. So how does the pregnant woman feed the bump with the right food? The book has healthy snacking ideas and includes more than 100 recipes that will provide a balanced diet that meets the demands of the mother and the growing foetus. Each recipe has a footnote explaining what nutrients it contains, what is good about it for the mother and how the baby benefits. This is a sensible non-preachy book that both expectant parents will benefit from reading. The recipes are interesting and palatable. There are plenty of ideas for ringing the changes with basic recipes. Neal also lists some meals that can be pre-prepared and frozen for up to two months for use after the baby arrives. Recipes that are ideal for the lactating mother are also suggested, along with quick-to-prepare meals that will provide a nutritional boost when it’s required. Lisa Neal, while neither a chef nor a dietician, worked closely with obstetricians, dieticians, a lactation consultant, a midwife and a nutritionist to ensure the information in her book is reliable and authoritative. She wrote it because of “a sheer lack of anything else available in the market”. This will help fill the gap.
The River Cottage Fish Book Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Nick Fisher, ISBN978-0-7475-8869-6. Bloomsbury, RRP$79.75.
Now, in conjunction with Nick Fisher, F-W has brought out the companion volume, a hefty 606-pager all about cooking and eating fish. This is no once-over-lightly bit of froth some prolific cookbook authors churn out with monotonous regularity. It’s a seriously researched work with plenty of hands-on guidance for anglers or those who like to buy their fish and shellfish whole and deal with it themselves. We’re urged to eat fish two or three times a week, particularly for their Omega 3 oils but also for vitamins A, D & B, magnesium, calcium and other trace elements. Shellfish and other crustaceans also supply iodine, zinc and iron plus selenium and taurine. Oily fish in particular provide quite a health cocktail for our 21st century bodies. The authors cover the various issues of overfishing, sustainability, controversial commercial fishing techniques such as beam trawling, and fish farming and urge consumers to take an interest in the issues so they can make a more informed decision at the fishmonger’s counter, asking questions about the provenance of the fish they buy. It’s also important to know what to look for when choosing fish and shellfish, crustaceans, squid. While the book lists fish species to look for and those to avoid, it is written from the UK perspective. However, it’s easy enough to jump online and check the recommendations for the country you live in. Once you’ve caught or bought your fish you need to know how to get it ready for the pan and there are two very well illustrated chapters on everything you need to know about prepping finned fish, shellfish and the rest. If the sight of a whole squid or octopus sends you scuttling for a bag of frozen squid rings, there’s a reassuring section that will have you operating like a fishmonger in no time. Same for preparing crabs. Time to get the pan out and around 300 pages are given over to fish recipes embracing the various techniques from not cooking at all through to smoking, baking, grilling, poaching, stewing, frying, open-fire cooking and salads. This is a great collection ranging from the thrifty to the sophisticated and plenty in between. The remainder of the book concentrates on British fish but this should not deter you because the scientific names are given and it’s easy enough to cross-check online which of these fish can be caught in other parts of the world. This is a splendid book for anyone wanting to include more fish in their diet and wanting to be better informed about the choices they make and the issues they need to consider.
Feast Bazaar Barry Vera. ISBN 978-1741960761, Murdoch Books. RRP $39.95.
English-born Barry Vera trained as a chef in France and worked for some of the world’s best restaurants and chefs before packing his knives and heading to Australia in 2001. In 2006 he opened Vera Restaurant Café & Bar in Brighton, Melbourne. Feast Bazaar is based on his TV series on SBS and Foxtel, starting with Feast India. And a feast for the eyes it is, too. Photos taken at the various filming locations add to the atmosphere and the dishes look inviting. Some are quite simple. There’s a carrot salad from Morocco made from cooked carrot rings drained and mixed with vinegar, lemon juices, spices, sugar and fresh coriander. Ground beef kebabs from Syria are served with a surprise ingredient – black desert truffles. Some dishes, like the Indian-style crayfish, have found their way onto Vera’s restaurant menu. While I’ve made variations of some of the recipes over the years, others are quite new to me and an incentive to put the book on my bench and sample the likes of a Berber tagine omelette, Middle Eastern cauliflower and tahini, spiced prawns with coriander chutney, and spinach and feta fatayer – a type of pie. Feast Bazaar is something of an international buffet and an attractive exposure to three different cuisines.
Eat Well Live Well with Growing Children Karen Kingham, ISBN 978-1921259241 Murdoch Books, RRP$26.95 One year, school had been back a fortnight and I happened to plunge my hand into a certain small son’s schoolbag looking for a missing school notice. There I found one lunch for each day he’d been back at school – untouched. That schoolbag was a biohazard.
I’d have welcomed this book with its excellent collection of recipes developed with growing children in mind. It covers breakfasts, light meals, lunchboxes, main meals, rice and pasta, party food and desserts. Each recipe contains a nutritional analysis, making it easy to plan a balanced diet for a growing child. And for those whose knowledge in that direction is a little shaky, there’s a useful chapter on the various food groups and healthy choices. The dishes look fresh and attractive – meatballs in tomato sauce, pea and ham risotto, fresh spring rolls, chicken satay, chickpea and parsley salad, chilli con carne, more than 100 in all. Many are dishes Mum and Dad will enjoy, too. One way of getting kids interested in food is encouraging them to help in the kitchen – they’re more likely to eat something they’ve had a hand in preparing. “Obesity epidemic” is becoming a 21st century mantra. Following the good advice in this book is one way of fighting it by encouraging children to enjoy good food that offers balance.
More Gluten Free and Easy Robyn Russell, ISBN 978-1921259432, Murdoch Books, RRP $34.95
These days she refuses to be classified as a “coeliac sufferer”. “Sure I’m a coeliac but I’m not suffering at all.” To the casual browser, this is a delicious cookbook. I’d happily try any of the recipes. It starts with tips for gluten-free baking – being a coeliac doesn’t mean goodbye to cakes. While the coeliac has fewer choices when it comes to takeaways and snacks, having a good store cupboard means something can be quickly on the table when it’s one of those demanding days. Russell gives a great guide to the sort of things that should be in the pantry. But there’s no need to be a second-class citizen, she says and her fresh inviting recipes demonstrate that. A while back I was asked if I had any gluten-free recipes books and I was able to pull one out of my library, though it wasn’t very exciting. But Russell’s book – her second – is the sort of companion that will keep the coeliac inspired and happy and not in the least bit deprived. How do these sound? Crab cakes, cupcakes, balsamic strawberry cheesecake, falafel slice, Genoa spone, goulash, chicken pad Thai, lime and coconut tart, rum and raising biscuits, lamingtons, roast capsicum and walnut dip, ham and Swiss quiche, zucchini fritters… Not too much deprivation there. This book will be of value to the newly diagnosed coeliac, to people who need to cook for a coeliac, and for coeliacs who want to extend their repertoire safely.
Produce Lynne Mullins, ISBN 978-1-921190-67-4, Fairfax Books, RRP$59.95 I’ve previously reviewed Lynne Mullins’ Whip It Up where she took a look at 75 different ingredients and offered three uses for each of them. This time she concentrates on produce and this is a far more substantial book, containing more than 350 recipes and 100+ items of produce, including herbs and exotics.
The market shopper will appreciate that the book takes the A to Z approach through the fruit, vegetables and herbs so that it’s quick and easy to find a use for that bargain bag of nectarines or the luscious bunch of watercress. This book isn’t just a collection of fruit and vegetable recipes, however. Meat, poultry and fish figure in there, too, and can be found through the index. There are a number of beautiful photos, mostly of produce and or various markets about the world, rather than of the dishes. But that in itself makes the book appealing – what can be more beautiful than peas peeping out of their pods, bunches of little red radishes, a glistening slice of starfruit, baskets of chillies or strings of garlic. As Mullins observes, “Most fruits and vegetables are quick and easy to prepare with panache and minimum effort.” That's what we like and with summer’s bounty now reaching the markets, this is a book that will provide plenty of inspiration.
5 Nights a Week: Every Recipe You'll Ever Need for Midweek Cooking Valli Little, ISBN 978-0-7333-2245-7, ABC Books, RRP $39.95 I’ve often speculated on what it must be like to come home from work every night wondering what delights there will be on the dinner table. It must be great to walk through the door on a chilly evening and be wooed by the aroma of a comforting winter casserole bubbling away in the oven. Or find a chilled Thai salad in the fridge on a blistering day. I guess I will never know. No surprises for the cook. While I have a pretty extensive repertoire of dishes, and I am constantly trying new recipes, I still have my “OMG – what are we going to eat tonight?” moments.
The recipes are grouped in lots of five so it’s easy to run down the contents list and find soups, no-cook meals, things to serve on toast, peas and beans, vegetarian, pizzas, burgers, fish, chicken, pork, Moroccan, Indian, Asian, desserts and so on. There are even some mid-week entertaining dishes as well. Simple dishes like bangers, spuds and peas take on a new lease of life when the sausages are sliced thickly and put on a large platter with halved chat potatoes, peas, feta and sliced red onion, dressed and tossed with mint and parsley in a salad. Chicken breasts topped with beetroot relish and served on a mixed green and canned bean salad, make a colourful dish. The burgers look interesting and the ethnic dishes will introduce some new flavours to the diet. There’s a good mix from substantial fare like Moroccan pasties with roasted beets and carrots, to a light meal for two of chicken and snow peas with Thai dressing. A forward planning session at the weekend, deciding on the week’s menu and some focussed shopping for the ingredients would streamline things even further. Little gives advice on the best way to do this and also shares her list of pantry and fridge/freezer staples With around 150 recipes gleaned from the archives of Delicious magazine, this book certainly offers plenty of variety for evening meals. It’s great achievable fare. And if the circling vultures can be persuaded to do some spud peeling, can opening, stirring and pot-watching, dinner could be on the table in double-quick time.
The World in Bite Size: Tapas, Mezze and Other Tasty Morsels Paul Gayler, ISBN 978-1-85626-721-2, Kyle Cathie (distributed in NZ by New Holland Publishers), RRP $NZ41.95 $AUD34.95 Grazing has become the new eating for many people as we embrace the tapas culture. Paul Gayler has taken it a step further in this book by also including the dim sum of China, the antihitos of Mexico, the cichetti of Italy and the mezze of the Middle East.
Chapterwise, Gayer explores the Americas with such dishes as Peruvian potato cakes, little Mexican picaditas, crab nachos, and fresh cod Buljol. Spanish tapas include pizza-like coca, Galician empanadillas, prawns with green mojo sauce, black paella, and mini potato tortillas. From Europe there are Stilton fritters, a Russian aubergine salad, pork rillettes, salmon tartare on blinis, monkfish spiedini. North Africa and the Middle East is represented by chickpea and spinach fritters, twoce-cooked meatballs from Syria, falafel-like pea and mint tameyas, mackerel-filled Lebanese pastry, spicey pork from the Yemen, Tunisian fishcakes. The Spice Route takes us through India, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia with fish pakoras, Thai-style clams, lemongrass fishcake skewers, paneer wrapped in peppers. There are dim sum from China, sushi from Japan and other Far Eastern morsels. These are just a taste of what’s on offer. In all, there are more than 130 bite-sized delights from many destinations. There’s a mix of make-ahead and prepare-ahead dishes. Many will also make tasty starters for a more formal dinner or the focus point for a family meal. This is an attractive book with plenty of beautiful full-page photos by Peter Cassidy.
Seasonal Steve Manfredi, ISBN 978-1-921190-80-3, Fairfax Books, RRP $34.95 As Steve Manfredi says in the introduction to his book, working seasonally makes good sense. Produce tastes better when in season. So Seasonal is based on using quality ingredients when they’re at their best.
This is much more than a recipe book, however. With each dish, Manfredi tells the shopper what to look for when buying the major ingredient, gives some information about it – perhaps how to prepare it for cooking, or some historical data – and what other ingredients with go with it on the same plate. As we simmer, sauté, braise and bake our way through the seasons we learn about such diverse produce as rabbits, mud crab, anchovies, fresh ginger, corn, rockmelon, octopus, turkey, stone fruits, borlotti beans, parsley, quail, pistachios, clams, lemons, rhubarb, duck, swordfish, yabbies. Each season is broken down into entrees, mains and desserts and a brief index of seasonal dishes in the front of the book makes it easy to mix and match dishes for a complementary menu. The food is interesting and looks appealing and the recipes aren’t overly complicated, giving the star ingredients a chance to shine through. I for one can’t wait to drop a piece of gorgonzola into the centre of a ripe fig and bake it to creamy melting point. Fairfax Books has put out some great seasonal titles in the past year and this book will sit nicely beside them in the enthusiastic cook’s library.
Soffritto: A Delicious Ligurian Memoir Lucio Galletto and David Dale, ISBN 978-1-74175-076-8, Allen & Unwin, RRP $49.95
In Sydney in 1981 they set up Lucio’s restaurant in Sydney, now an Australian institution. Although Lucio revisited Italy in the intervening years, he didn’t pay much heed to his surroundings, until he went there with author David Dale and started looking at his old home with new eyes. During three visits they looked for Lucio’s soffritto, the local word for basic ingredients that give a dish its identity. Lucio met the fishermen and came to kow them as people. He discovered what was behind the pecorino, what made the prosciutto so good, how produce arrived at the markets. He got to know his old neighbourhood which he’d taken for granted in his youth. This book traces those journeys, the people met along the way – friends, family, cooks, food producers. It also takes a look back at Lucio’s roots. Piece by piece the picture is assembled as Lucio comes to understand the family, food and culture that made him the man he is today. It’s a biography, a travel book, a love story, a war adventure. Pulling it all together is the food. This is woven into every chapter and, as the subtitle suggests, this is a delicious memoir. For those who become hungry sharing Lucio’s journey, there’s a recipe section at the end which covers the meals served at the family restaurant Capaninna Ciccio in Lunigiana, dishes made by his mother, traditional dishes from the mountains around Pontremoli and a dinner he served on his return to Sydney. Paul Green’s photograph of the people, the landscapes and the food add much to the story. Soffritto joins a growing library of books that combine a personal story with a recipe collection.
Fantastico!: Modern Italian Food Gino D’Acampo, ISBN 978-1-85626-744-1, Kyle Cathie (distributed in NZ by New Holland Publishers) RRP $NZ45.95 RRP $AUD39.95 Italian cooking is a reflection of the produce of Italy’s individual regions. Proximity to the sea, local climate, geography, soil all influence what produce is available, what will grow locally. History has also played its part as influences have crept across the borders from neighbouring countries.
Gino D’Acampo is a modern boy with a modern approach to Italian food. He grew up in the south of Italy so his recipes include some traditional ones – exactly as his grandfather would have made. But he also wanted to convey the sort of food that is now available in Italy so he’s added some modern dishes, often with his own personal twist. And he’s been influcned by the food he enjoys from other countries. He maintains everyone can cook, but it must come from the heart. “If you are not in a good mood, don’t attempt to cook. Get a takeaway.” I can identify with that. I also know there’s nothing like an indifferent takeaway to make you keen to get into the kitchen and do better! Another one of his rules is don’t try to make a “healthier” version of a recipe. “Get your arse down to the gym.” He also recommends cooking alone, never cooking garlic and onion together, and putting all your effort into the flavour of a dish rather that worrying about presentation. His motto “Minimum effort, maximum satisfaction” will resonate with most of us. Each chapter includes a handful of cooking tips, and none of the recipes is unduly complicated. His book begins in a very practical way with a page of first aid for food. How to revive tomatoes that aren’t as good as they should be (seasoning, oil, basil), dealing with unripe or over-ripe produce, recycling stale bread and using orphan egg whites. Following the time-honoured tradition, D’Acampo starts with a leisurely breakfast. Eggs with Mediterranean vegetables in tomato sauce will do me, specially as the vegetables can be prepared well ahead (as in “previous night”). There are twists like ciabatta with grilled sausages an “Italian hummus” but then there is also a very traditional Neopolitan-style pizza. Who doesn’t love antipasti. This is no sweep along the deli counter for the usual overworked collection. There’s deep dried taleggio with strawberry sauce, some truly tempting looking deep-fried polenta sandwiches stuffed with cheddar and salami. I would make them and I’m not even a polenta fan. Likewise the tuna and sundried tomato fishcakes. And more. Salads, pasta, risotto – a good mix of traditional and modern. I like my oysters raw, but one recipe in the fish section could tempt me to cook some devilled oysters with a spicy tomato sauce. In the meat section, D’Acampa has gone for favourite regional dishes but given them his own twist. There’s a particularly fine crispy chicken breast dish topped with taleggio and serrano ham. The vegetable dishes have some nice inventive touches, particularly the cauliflower given a tarting up with some capers and olives, spicy spinach with garlic and chillies and a broccoli stir-fry with a nod to the orient. The double chocolate mousse with pistachio and chilli must be a good one because someone couldn’t resist tucking in before Kate Whitaker had finished taking the photos. Gino D’Acampo has appeared regularly on TV shows in the UK including Ready, Steady, Cook, Good Food Live and Saturday Cooks, as well as appearing in his own TV servies An Italian in Mexico. He is a leading supplier of quality ingredients to the UK and has created his own range of pasta sauces and olive oils. This is his first book and his light fresh approach will be welcomed by those who don’t always get to the gym. There are also a good number of dishes that would suit vegetarians.
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Here Down Under we are blessed with great seafood and other lovely fresh ingredients and the contributors to this book have come up with a great range of inspiring dishes.
“Old fashioned cooking is trendy again,” says the publicity blurb for Baking. Maybe the cupcake boom reminded people baking was a relaxing satisfying way of spending a couple of hours in the kitchen. Even one of my own adult sons recently discovered baking doesn’t require years of practice to turn out a pretty respectable batch of biscuits or a luscious tin of brownies.
By now most of us know we should start our day with breakfast and Chiodo has come up with some unusual suggestions including sweet dandelion-blossom fritters, though I am not sure where he sources his dried dandelion flowers. (I was hoping his website, 
