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Books : Food & Drink : Restaurant Cookbooks
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Tetsuya Wakuda is a true artist. Inspired by the ingredients native to his adopted country (Australia), and the techniques and flavours of his birthplace (Japan), Tetsuya combines them to complement and highlight each other in the simplest ways to bring out the most complicated flavours. For those of us unfamiliar with his reputation, Tetsuya comes with a glowing forward by Charlie Trotter that refers to Tetsuya in the same breath as Alain Ducasse, Daniel Boulud and Thomas Keller, and rightly so.Tetsuya's presentation is perfection. Details such as minute brunoise and matchstick julienne are beautiful to behold, but it's his ethereal marinades, and his thoughtful use of Asian influence with ingredients such as fresh ginger and garlic, soy, mirin and wasabi, that make his dishes so memorable, and which allow us mere mortals to follow his recipes successfully. At Tetsuya, meals are presented as numerous small dishes, but you can multiply any of his recipes to work as main courses. "Linguine with a Ragout of Oriental Mushrooms" is simple to prepare, and bursts with the rich, earthy flavour of exotic mushrooms brightened by hints of garlic, sake, mirin, tomato and chile. "Tartare of Tuna with Goat's Cheese" requires sushi-quality tuna, but if you can get it, this dish is quick and easy and luscious with fresh, creamy goat cheese, and lively with cayenne, garlic, ginger, white pepper, and anchovies. Not all of Tetsuya's creations are Asian-influenced. There are many magnificent European-style dishes such as "Salad of Sea Scallops with Asparagus and Beans", "Venison with Roasted Shallots and Morels" and "Granny Smith Apple Sorbet with Sauternes Jelly".
Stunning photographs of dreamy dishes and delightful bits of commentary separate recipes laid out like poetry to make this a culinary page-turner and a gift-worthy coffee-table book. Without a doubt, Tetsuya would make an exciting addition to the kitchen collection of gourmets who love to cook with such ingredients as market-fresh produce, sushi-quality fish and shellfish, fresh venison, squab and guinea fowl. --Leora Y Bloom
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River Cafe Cook Book Green is the latest instalment in its authors' quest for perfection. (That this austerely high-minded project should be taking place in one of London's more expensive restaurants only adds a pleasing Zen-riddle quality). In the first River Cafe Cook Book, illumination was achieved through the wood-fired grill. That was OK, because one of those ridged grill-pans would do at a pinch, though we were left in no doubt it came a very poor second. By the time River Cafe Cook Book Two came out, the famous wood-burning oven had been installed, to the despair of many. In the new volume the focus is on the ingredients, specifically fruit, vegetables and herbs. Quality, freshness and seasonality, of course, have always been paramount at the River Cafe, and are now boosted by, wouldn't you know it, the adjoining organic vegetable garden. Combined with the Cafe's unbeatable network of organic suppliers, this may make some readers wonder whether it's worth trying to keep up any more.Emphatically yes, must be the answer. The River Cafe phenomenon has always been inspirational, if not aspirational; and the new book is packed with astoundingly good, simple recipes and ideas. It is constructed round the appearance of individual fruits and vegetables in the garden or the market. Perhaps in part to distinguish themselves from the rather many cookery writers who have previously adopted this approach, Gray and Rogers work through the year month by month rather than by season. Thus May brings apricots (Apricot, Lemon and Almond Tart, Apricot Jam Ice-Cream), asparagus (in Risotto, with Anchovy and Milk Sauce, in a salad with gulls' eggs), broad beans (in a Minestrone), melons (Melon and Lemon Sorbet, Melon Marinated in Valpolicella with Vanilla), spring carrots (Braised Spring Carrots and Artichokes, Carrots Marsala) and spring onions (Peas Braised with Spring Onions, Spring Onion and Thyme Pizza). So it goes on, beautiful, simple, delicious. And if our carrots aren't quite perfect, well, we can have a word with our greengrocer, or join an organic box scheme. Or we can just aspire. Not the least achievement of Gray and Rogers is to restore to this simple food the magical allure it possessed when most people knew it only through the early books of Elizabeth David. --Robin Davidson
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Excruciatingly chic to the highest degree, the playground of film stars and supermodels, the restaurants of the Nobu chain are among the hardest to get into on three continents. They are the personal inspiration of a Japanese sushi-trained chef, Noboyuki Matsuhisa, who, with unusual experiences in Peru, Argentina and Alaska behind him, was fortunate enough to open an establishment in Los Angeles into which part-time restaurant entrepreneur Robert de Niro happened to wander. During those years on the Pacific coast Nobu had begun to experiment, combining the pure, fresh, uncomplicated flavours of sushi with the Western flavours of garlic, chilli and coriander. As his clientele moved upscale, these were complemented by luxury ingredients such as truffles and caviar. Nobu the Cookbook represents the current state of play. Exquisite, expensive and breathtakingly stylish, this is food designed to impress with its artful simplicity. Perhaps the two most representative dishes are the most celebrated: the "New-Style Sushi", in which dressed raw fish is given a sizzling dressing of hot oil; and the beautiful "Black Cod with Miso", marinated in sake, mirin and miso for three days then grilled and baked and served with a single ikebana-like spear of pickled juvenile ginger.There are aspects of this cooking, however, which for all its glamour may require the turning of a blind eye. How many home cooks will be prepared to disembowel a live octopus (rather more challenging than dropping a lobster into boiling water)? And eyebrows may be raised among environmentalists at Nobu's championing of Arctic sea bass, a fish known before its cosmetic rechristening a few years ago as Patagonian toothfish and which is likely to become extinct within three years through illegal overfishing in the southern oceans. Food for thought. --Robin Davidson
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Rick Stein, British TV seafood cooking instructor and seafood restaurant owner, wasn't able to get every recipe he loves into his first book, Taste of the Sea. So he wrote Fruits of the Sea.Where Taste of the Sea was a kind of introduction to seafood cooking for those a bit hesitant about trying different kinds of fish, Fruits of the Sea is more like Stein's launching pad. He assumes he is preaching to an enthusiastic choir. Much of his information is right to the point, and his style of instruction is more refined. All the techniques for prepping different kinds of fish are described in clear language as well as illustrated in detailed photos. Included, too, is a discussion of many of the unusual ingredients Stein pulls into his recipes for that extra dash of brilliant flavour--preserved lemons, for example, or kaffir lime leaves. It comes as little surprise, then, that Stein opens with recipes like Basque Squid Stew, Moroccan Fish Tagine, Seafood in a Crab and Ginger Broth, and Mussels with Turmeric, Cumin, and Coriander.
He breaks his recipes into soup, stews, and clear broths; light lunch dishes; hot and spicy fish; deep-fried fish; summer fish and salads; fish from colder climates; elegant fish dishes; quick and simple fish; hand-held and party food; and food to finish with. As in the first book, you'll also find basic stocks and sauces and a list of alternative fish for the American and Australian markets. The user-friendly Fruits of the Sea will launch anyone, even a reader who may have been a bit reluctant to take the plunge, on a discovery of seafood. --Schuyler Ingle
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Just Desserts is a very fine book of puddings from energetic three-star Michelin chef Gordon Ramsay, expertly marshalled for the domestic kitchen by Roz Denny. Ramsay's imagination is obviously caught by the sweet course: he expends a great deal of innovative thinking to it with fascinating results. He is inclined to roast his fruit, for example, caramelising it for greater intensity of flavour; or he might deep-fry it, as in the elegant and fantastically nonchalant Fruit Tempura. His ices and creams include voluptuous nut creams and lavender, orange flower water or liquorice ice cream. Oriental flavours appear in ethereal dishes like the Thai Rice Pudding with Coconut and Lemon (serve with mango coulis) or Banana and Passion Fruit Sorbet. Cheesecake is light and flavoured with pumpkin. Proper homage is paid to comfort food, with recipes for Bread and Butter Pudding (Ramsay makes his with baguette and laces it with Baileys liqueur) and Steamed Toffee, Banana and Pecan Pudding. The chocolate recipes are particularly fine, with a Chocolate Mocha Tart standing out. Just Desserts is also an excellent primer of patisserie techniques, its explanations and illustrations of the standard syrups, pastes, sponges and pastries of the restaurant kitchen, here translated into domestic terms, being particularly lucid. The professional mysteries of the mousse, the parfait, the bavarois and the various manifestations of the meringue are made wonderfully clear. No holding back, then. --Robin Davidson
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Moro joins the starry ranks of beautifully presented London restaurant cookbooks such as The River Café Cookbook and Momo that have excelled in delivering the tastes of the Mediterranean to our colder climes. Both the cookbook and the restaurant are the realisation of the dreams of Samuel and Samantha Clark, chef-owners and now writers. Their passion for the intense flavours of the cuisine of Spain, North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean follow the saffron-cinnamon connection; the robust style of Spanish cooking balancing the lighter, more exotic dishes of the Muslim Mediterranean.Tapas favourites such as tortilla, pimientos del piquillo (sweet peppers), boquerones (anchovies), sardines and chorizo share the table with familiar mezzes like grilled chicken wings with tahini, baba ghanoush and tabbouleh. But the joy of Moro is that it balances such favourites with rarer fare and new inventive recipes with traditional ingredients, such as the colourful and deliciously rich carcuteria cecina with beetroot and almond sauce and grilled quail with rose petals. If you thought you knew what to expect from paella, try monkfish paella with saffron or pork, chorizo and spinach, or Chicken, artichokes and oloroso sherry. All of which might not leave much room for the bitter chocolate, coffee and cardamon coffee cake or the Malaga raisin ice-cream.
If some of the ingredients leave you a trifle bewildered, Moro ends with an appendix of suppliers from specialty ethnic shops to local supermarket fare and a terrifically handy almanac of vegetables and fruits in season. Like its other restaurant cook books, Moro also serves up a feast for your eyes and belongs on your coffee table as well as in the kitchen, splendidly extending and deepening our appreciation for these too often over-looked cuisines. --Fiona Buckland
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Roasted meats seasoned with precious saffron underlaid with the pungent notes of cumin, cinnamon, and turmeric, marinated fish snuggled in a bed of almonds, pickled lemon and couscous, simultaneously sweet and piquant salads, delicate and sugary pastries flavoured with fragrant orange-blossom water, dripping with honey and served with a fresh rinse of mint tea. What more proof could there be that food for the body should be food for the soul? Small wonder that the worshippers of sensual culinary delights have anointed Momo one of the most successful new restaurants in recent years, for vibrantly conjuring up the atmosphere of a North African souk right in the heart of London.The Momo Cookbook is much more than a recipe collection. Prose portraits of the land of the Maghreb (Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria) connect its rich history to the development of a distinctive cuisine which, over the centuries, has been influenced by Jewish, Arabic, Italian and Spanish culture. Stunning location photographs bring the colourful landscape, its traditions and people to life.
But the meat of the book is, of course, the food. The 90 recipes open a door to North Africa and fortunately the ingredients do not cost the price of a return flight: lots of vegetables, fruits, cereals, meats, fish and poultry which, with the artful use of spices, herbs and fragrant waters, are transformed into marvels. Momo himself identifies traditional recipes (such as mechouia, a roasted pepper and tomato salad, harira, a rich and thick soup made with cereal, and briouats stuffed and fried pastry parcels) as well as modern dishes created in the restaurant (such as fillet of John Dory with confit aubergines and polenta, dried fruit salad with aromatic spices, and boureks of crispy vegetables) yet easily prepared in a home kitchen, such as the one dish tagines. Although some of the more exotic ingredients such as orange-blossom water may need searching out if you don't live in a large multi-cultural city, there are helpful and surprisingly easy methods to prepare such ingredients as pickled lemons and almond milk, as well as a full glossary and meal plans. A doorway to a land where sugar and salt, spice and honey ride together happily will always serve up pleasure, whether on the coffee table or the kitchen counter.--Fiona Buckland
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Exotic spices, traditional fare and flavours from throughout the world can be found in abundance in the latest Rick Stein offering-Seafood Odyssey.From the classic cookery of France to the Far East and Thailand, Rick Stein has undertaken a personal journey to bring back flavours from Europe and more exotic climes. Travelling with his curiosity and the childlike delight in discovering new flavours, he has sampled each country's unique cooking styles, tastes and textures and bound them up in a book to enjoy in all kitchens and, of course, on all dinner tables! Culinary classics like the Charleston Seafood Gumbo, Baked Whole Sea Bass (with roasted red peppers, tomatoes, anchovies and potatoes) and Kedgeree of Arbroath Smokies, are mixed in with more unusual dishes such as Indian Sardine and Potato Curry Puffs, Singapore Chilli Crab and the French Tarte aux Moules (highly recommended).
In addition to providing clear and concise recipes with mouth-watering pictures of the finished dish, there are also delicate watercolours illustrating the groups of different fish and shellfish. Rick Stein's love of the many varieties of fruits de mer shines through as he describes each ingredient and recipe with loving flair and encourages the reader to experiment with seafood in the kitchen. --Rebecca Loades
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If Rosemary Shrager is roaring with laughter on the cover of Rosemary, Castle Cook (and she is), you can understand why. She has what must be the almost unalloyed pleasure of running a summer cookery school in a castle overlooking the Sound of Taransay on the Isle of Harris, in the Scottish Hebrides. Rosemary, Castle Cook is as much a tribute to this magically beautiful place as a record of her cooking. The cooking, in any case, is guided and coloured by the seasonal availability of the local ingredients. And what ingredients! Blessed with the best fish and shellfish in the world, feathered and furred game, fine beef and lamb, and soft fruit of unparalleled quality, Harris has much to offer the cook. Rosemary Shrager's cooking is fairly straightforward, allowing the superb quality of her raw materials to emerge. She cooks pretty much in the French tradition (she has worked for Pierre Koffmann and Jean-Christophe Novelli), with results that are at once robust, elegant and subtle. Her Crab Risotto is flavoured with leek and shallot and garnished with mussels and peas; she pairs, sumptuously, turbot and lobster in a cream sauce. Seared medallions of venison sit on a bed of spinach surrounded by a deep fawn morel mushroom sauce: the visual effect is as ravishing as the flavour must be superb. Puddings range from exquisite raspberry soufflés to that crowning marvel of Scottish cookery, the Clootie Dumpling. If this book gives a true flavour of Rosemary Shrager's qualities as a teacher, then she must be inspiring indeed. The only pity is that we don't all have the same first-class produce on our doorsteps. That is hardly her fault, of course, so there is no reason to withhold an unreserved recommendation for the Castle Cook. --Robin Davidson
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River Cafe Cook Book Green is the latest instalment in its authors' quest for perfection. (That this austerely high-minded project should be taking place in one of London's more expensive restaurants only adds a pleasing Zen-riddle quality). In the first River Cafe Cook Book, illumination was achieved through the wood-fired grill. That was OK, because one of those ridged grill-pans would do at a pinch, though we were left in no doubt it came a very poor second. By the time River Cafe Cook Book Two came out, the famous wood-burning oven had been installed, to the despair of many. In the new volume the focus is on the ingredients, specifically fruit, vegetables and herbs. Quality, freshness and seasonality, of course, have always been paramount at the River Cafe, and are now boosted by, wouldn't you know it, the adjoining organic vegetable garden. Combined with the Cafe's unbeatable network of organic suppliers, this may make some readers wonder whether it's worth trying to keep up any more.Emphatically yes, must be the answer. The River Cafe phenomenon has always been inspirational, if not aspirational; and the new book is packed with astoundingly good, simple recipes and ideas. It is constructed round the appearance of individual fruits and vegetables in the garden or the market. Perhaps in part to distinguish themselves from the rather many cookery writers who have previously adopted this approach, Gray and Rogers work through the year month by month rather than by season. Thus May brings apricots (Apricot, Lemon and Almond Tart, Apricot Jam Ice-Cream), asparagus (in Risotto, with Anchovy and Milk Sauce, in a salad with gulls' eggs), broad beans (in a Minestrone), melons (Melon and Lemon Sorbet, Melon Marinated in Valpolicella with Vanilla), spring carrots (Braised Spring Carrots and Artichokes, Carrots Marsala) and spring onions (Peas Braised with Spring Onions, Spring Onion and Thyme Pizza). So it goes on, beautiful, simple, delicious. And if our carrots aren't quite perfect, well, we can have a word with our greengrocer, or join an organic box scheme. Or we can just aspire. Not the least achievement of Gray and Rogers is to restore to this simple food the magical allure it possessed when most people knew it only through the early books of Elizabeth David. --Robin Davidson
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The Merchant House is a small, Michelin-starred restaurant in the Welsh Marches town of Ludlow, operated by the gifted and creative chef Shaun Hill. It is somewhat unusual in that Hill, who made his name at the country house hotel Gidleigh Park, has turned his back on the standard restaurant kitchen with its brigade of assistants and cooks alone in what is to all intents and purposes a domestic kitchen. He also does his own shopping and washing-up. The food that he records in Cooking at The Merchant House is presumably pretty much as he cooks it, not requiring the usual scaling down by home economists, and not bolstered by substitutions for the complex sauces and stocks of the metropolitan chefs. And what food it is: manageable but inventive, robust yet elegant, earthy but approaching the sublime. Hill is inventive, but rightly appreciative of traditional flavours and combinations, which play a major part in his food. One dish that perhaps sums it up is the wonderful Lobster with Chickpea, Coriander and Olive Oil Sauce, in the which the sweet poached shellfish, shelled, is set off by the subtly spiced, dhal-like sauce. But Cooking at The Merchant House is full of such treasures: Pheasant and Chestnut Soup; Red Pepper Bavarois with Asparagus; Warm Celeriac Mousse with Mushroom Sauce; Roast Loin of Veal with Marsala; Rhubarb and Strawberry Gratin. Terrific stuff, and sauced with Hill's occasionally astringent observations on buying, converting and running a restaurant. --Robin Davidson
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Rick Stein confesses that, following the world-wide peregrinations of his Seafood Odyssey, the prospect of a seafood tour of the coasts of the United Kingdom and Eire seemed humdrum. That he was completely wrong is shown triumphantly by the resulting Seafood Lover's Guide, an account of the fish and shellfish harvested around the coast, where to buy it and how to cook it and eat it. This book will be for many readers an eye-opener in the richness and variety of the country's seafood. Starting from his home in the west country, Stein travels the length of a coastline "of matchless beauty", talking to fishermen, suppliers and cooks. He skilfully maintains a very delicate balance between a chef's enthusiasm for the product, as it were, on the one hand, and a proper dismay at the state of the fisheries after decades of thoughtless over-fishing. Yet the overall mood is optimistic, as he meets so many people who care so passionately about the fruits of the sea. Each regional section contains a choice selection of Stein recipes, some local, some modified, some unapologetically foreign, all expertly crafted (of course) and delicious, all designed to show off the superlative quality of the seafood. Representative highlights might include Gurnard Fillets with a Potato, Garlic and Saffron Broth, Split Herrings with a Caper and Fresh Tomato Salsa, Seafood and White Bean Cassoulet with Salt Cod, Garlic and Toulouse Sausage, and the exquisitely simple Halibut Poached in Olive Oil with Cucumber and Dill. Regional listings of seafood restaurants, fish and chip establishments, fishmongers, seafood suppliers and smokers add further value to this very classy production. --Robin Davidson
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The indefatigable Patricia Wells constitutes something of a one-woman Paris tourist industry. The Paris Cookbook is the latest bulletin from her long, enthralled love affair with the French capital and its food. She is not shy of declaring her passion: it is her life's interest and she is, perhaps rightly, proprietorial to a degree. "This then," she declares in the introduction, "is my Paris." Over 150 recipes have been extracted from the food markets and restaurant kitchens of the city and assembled into a heady collection. Traditional bistro favourites such as Grilled Flank Steak, Onion Soup, Sauerkraut with Pork and Sausages, and Almond Ice-Cream rub shoulders with the more sophisticated and luxurious productions of the grand chefs, which include Watercress Soup with Caviar, Coddled Eggs with Cream and Maple Syrup, Black Truffle Mayonnaise and Fricassé of Chicken with Morels. Wells has her favourites among the chefs of Paris, and the name of Joel Rebuchon, with whom she has collaborated on a book, appears frequently, together with those of his acolytes. Indeed, one suspects a degree of harmless collusion between Wells and her chef friends, as she helpfully appends address, telephone number and Métro stop of the contributing restaurant or shop to many of the recipes, presumably in case one is so overcome as to require instant assuagement at the source. This would be understandable, as (despite a tendency to gush) she has put together a remarkable set of recipes that vividly evoke the vibrancy of the Paris food scene. --Robin Davidson
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For nearly 35 years Le Gavroche has been one of the finest restaurants in London, serving exquisitely balanced food in the classic French tradition. Founded by Michel and Albert Roux, and now run by chef Michel Roux Jr, its pre-eminence is celebrated in Le Gavroche Cookbook, a superb collection of 200 dishes from the restaurant's recipe books. The book is organised seasonally, with an emphasis on the freshest and finest ingredients (if you're going to try to cook this type food, you have to buy the best--there's no point otherwise). Gulls' Eggs with Caviar, Roast Black Leg Chicken with Fresh Pasta, Foie Gras and Truffles, from the Spring section; Stuffed Sea Bass with Fennel, from Summer; Lobster Soufflé with Quail's Egg and Brandy and Rich Braised Stuffed Hare, from Winter: this is luxurious and expensive cooking. Challenging, too. Michel Roux Jr doesn't give much in the way of guidance for the inexperienced but ambitious cook: the instructions are plain to the point of austerity, but assume a considerable degree of skill and familiarity with the procedures of classic French cuisine. The results, though complex, are beautifully balanced. Of its kind, this food is perfect, representing an ideal of sophistication to which cooks can aspire. The book is elegantly (and robustly) produced and amply illustrated, adding to the pleasure of using it. --Robin Davidson