Show us your latest cookbook acquisitions!

[Anna N]

6 hours ago, hotsaucerman said:

does anyone have the frantzen cookbook? any thoughts/feelings?

I did not know which book this might refer to so out of curiosity I decided to do a bit of research. I ended up spending a whole $1.99 for a Kindle edition of World Class Swedish Cooking by Björn Frantzén and Daniel Lindeberg. This is part biography, part philosophy of restaurant culture, part travelogue with a minimal amount of mudslinging. Although it talks about some recipes it is not by any means a cookbook. It would've benefitted from any kind of editor but it's not so bad that it's unreadable. For $1.99 it's hard to go wrong. 

[Anna N]

15 hours ago, Anna N said:

Although it talks about some recipes it is not by any means a cookbook.

I just wanted to add to this that although there are no recipes as we home cooks might recognize them, there are dishes described in such a way that perhaps a talented chef might be able to approximate them. But I was fascinated by a couple of recipes that even I might be able to tackle and that made something one could use in an ordinary household.
 

There is a great discussion of butter and how the Swedes prefer it and how it can be made.

Three kinds of butter are served if a baguette is on the "white menu".* In-house cultured butter, this butter mixed half and half with browned butter and finally this butter mixed with the fat from roasted bone marrow.

 

* Much more sophisticated people might recognize the meaning of a white menu. It means there is no menu. Every meal is based on what is available and at its peak. 
 

For reasons I cannot explain, @blue_dolphin's name and face kept flashing between the lines as I read this book. I think it was the way tiny bits of dishes were given in a way that they could be adapted to something tasty but doable by ordinary humans. Like she picks out parts of a menu from one book and combines it so well with parts of a menu from another book!
 

Here is an example of a dish and the amount of useful information about its preparation that is standard in this book:

"SLOWLY BAKED WILD-CAUGHT WHOLE FLOUNDER WITH FRIED AND CRISPY YELLOW ONION Roe from Mälaren, white wine sauce flavored with anchovy brine and chive butter, served with dill."

 

after much discussion of how flounder must be cooked and how this restaurant used a plate warming oven to accomplish the exact temperature considered vital, there is this much detail on how to make one small detail of this dish. 

 

"IN FURTHER DETAIL FRIED ONION

Thinly slice yellow onion and place in a bowl. Add butter at room temperature and carefully massage into the onion. The liquid of the onion will emulsify with the butter and bind the flavors together. Place in a nonstick pan and fry on medium heat until it starts caramelizing. Finish it off with a little good-quality sea salt. Shape into a quenelle with two spoons and top with a little finely chopped fried onion."

 

all the rest you must figure out for yourself. 😂

 

 

 

 

 

[Smithy]

Thank you for that additional information, @Anna N. I appreciated your explanation of "white menu" because I would have had entirely the wrong idea. 🙂 And yes, I can see @blue_dolphin getting some grand ideas from the book!

 

Two things really stuck out for me: the idea of compounding two types of butter (why didn't I think of that?) and making quenelles out of fried onions. Never would have thought of that one!

[Anna N]

5 minutes ago, Smithy said:

Thank you for that additional information

Whew. I was afraid I was going on a bit too much.  But yes, those butters are such an eye-opener. 

[blue_dolphin]

1 hour ago, Anna N said:

For reasons I cannot explain, @blue_dolphin's name and face kept flashing between the lines as I read this book. I think it was the way tiny bits of dishes were given in a way that they could be adapted to something tasty but doable by ordinary humans. Like she picks out parts of a menu from one book and combines it so well with parts of a menu from another book!

 

Before I go to read the Björn Frantzén book I was just enabled to download, I'm going to use @Anna N's comment as a very appropriate segue to share my thoughts on Extra Good Things (eG-friendly Amazon.com link), the lastest cookbook churned out by the Ottolenghi machine.  It's not at all fine dining like the Frantzén book but it's a great little idea book to choose parts of a dish to adapt into something else. 

 

This is the second Ottolenghi Test Kitchen (OTK) book and like the first one, Shelf Love, lists Noor Murad as the first author. Both books are slim paperbacks rather than almost oversized hardback tomes.  I really love the earlier books, Ottolenghi, Jerusalem, NOPI, Plenty and Plenty More.  Not as crazy about the next two, Simple and Flavour, though both have some good recipes. After those two, I boycotted Shelf Love because it seemed like the books were being pushed out too fast and duplicating recipes already in Ottolenghi's columns in The Guardian or NYT.   I was going to skip Extra Good Things as well but saw a few dishes mentioned in an online cooking group that sounded interesting so I decided to look into it.  Having spent some time with it, it think the recipes are good but it really shines in calling out the "Extra Good Things," that give the book its name.  

 

Each recipe in the book highlights an Extra Good Thing (a pickle, sauce, crispy topping, infused oil, or basic dessert techniques), uses it in the recipe and offers a few suggestions for other applications or uses.  What really sells me on the concept though, are the pull-outs in the front and back of the book.  Amazon's "Look Inside" feature has a sampling of recipes but doesn't show the pull-outs and I think they make the book so I'm showing them below. The one in front, lists the Extra Good Things that can turn toast or rice or baked potatoes or roasted vegetables into a meal.  I don't know if these photos are going to be readable but they'll at least give you the general idea. 

Looks like everything goes with Roast Veggies 🙃

 

The pull-out in the back is the sort of "recipe type" listing that has become quite common in recent cookbooks.

Not quite as interesting to me as the first pull-out but I think it will still be handy as I find the similar listing in I Dream of Dinner useful as well. In fact, I consider both of these to be good "idea" books.  I may not cook the exact recipe but browsing through these listings can give me ideas and help me figure what I'm in the mood for. 

 

So far, I made the sweet potato wedges with goma dare and crispy tofu (posted here in the lunch topic) and plan to use some of the leftover sesame-based goma dare sauce, the crispy tofu bits and the Aleppo pepper-infused olive oil to top a soup as they worked together very well. 

I also made the broccolini with peanut gochujang dressing but turned it into a meal by adding noodles and shrimp (posted here in the breakfast topic) and I've got a few others marked to try. There's a black lime focaccia with smoky chipotle oil that I have to make because I really can't imagine the flavors. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 3, 2023 by blue_dolphin (log)

[Anna N]

1 hour ago, blue_dolphin said:

Before I go to read the Björn Frantzén book I was just enabled to download, I'm going to use @Anna N's comment as a very appropriate segue to share my thoughts on Extra Good Things (eG-friendly Amazon.com link), the lastest cookbook churned out by the Ottolenghi machine.  It's not at all fine dining like the Frantzén book but it's a great little idea book to choose parts of a dish to adapt into something else. 

Thanks so much for this. I am going to look into whether or not a Kindle version is available. When for any reason one's ability to engage in serious cooking activities is compromised then the ability to add some pizzazz to a limited menu can be, I want to say a lifesaver, but I mean something different. Perhaps I mean something like rai·son d'ê·tre. Giving one a sense of still belonging to a cooking community. 

[eugenep]

I  got these because Steven Raichlen's sauce recipes for bbq and grill are really good. I have many other bbq/grill books by Cooks Illustrated, Weber, Myran Minx, and famous cooks but Steven's sauces are very international, across different cultures and more importantly, they work and taste good. The ratios, textures, and flavors make sauces easy. 

 

 

 

 

[Anna N]

 

 

 

I stumbled across this book while reading the Lifestyle section of the Guardian. It was the name of the featured recipe that roped me in, Flummadiddle! How could anyone who loves language and food possibly resist at least a peek? So I downloaded the Kindle sample and was further pulled in. 

The author proposes to follow the life of bread for five days starting from barely cool out of the oven until it is barely edible at the five day mark. This is bread in general not the  life of a single loaf. There are no recipes for making bread!  It is assumed that you have a source of bread whether home baked or store-bought.

So it moves from a bread, butter and jam sandwich (recipes for the butter and jam are provided)  to kvass. In between are other sandwiches, soups, salads, stratas, bread puddings, in other words all those things that can be made from bread as it moves from fresh to stale.

Quantities include a "comical amount of black pepper", "1 enthusiastic  teaspoon English mustard", "between one and 1000 cloves, depending on preference". I'm a sucker for  humour in a cookbook.

Along the way I learned of some new dishes and some new words including banjo egg, salmorejo, Glamorgan sausages, Scotch woodcock, pangrattato. (I know I have run across banjo egg before). 

Despite the humour this is a serious book. There are recipes for cassoulet, mushrooms on toast, grilled mackerel with bagnet verde, savoury bread puddings, a twist on Judy Rodger's  chicken.  I have bookmarked a number of recipes.   
 

I think it would appeal most to those who bake bread frequently and find themselves wishing for ways to use at least some of the excess which seems to me must be an issue for frequent bakers. 
 

there are no photographs. The illustrations are attractive and sometimes amusing line drawings.  For someone who is usually put off by a book which has no photographs, I didn't miss them one bit. 

[weinoo]

On 2/2/2023 at 2:41 PM, Senior Sea Kayaker said:

I've been on the hunt for this cookbook for over twenty years after first reading 'Kitchen Confidential'. 

Originally published in 1975 and reprinted in 2018 (as I recently discovered).

 

 

It's a good read as well as a good cookbook written by someone who loves seafood. Lots of local history and descriptions of a place that has changed a lot in some forty odd years.

 

I just put one on hold for me...we'll be in Provincetown late April, and I know just where to get it.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

2 hours ago, Anna N said:

 

 

 

I stumbled across this book while reading the Lifestyle section of the Guardian. It was the name of the featured recipe that roped me in, Flummadiddle! How could anyone who loves language and food possibly resist at least a peek? So I downloaded the Kindle sample and was further pulled in. 

The author proposes to follow the life of bread for five days starting from barely cool out of the oven until it is barely edible at the five day mark. This is bread in general not the  life of a single loaf. There are no recipes for making bread!  It is assumed that you have a source of bread whether home baked or store-bought.

So it moves from a bread, butter and jam sandwich (recipes for the butter and jam are provided)  to kvass. In between are other sandwiches, soups, salads, stratas, bread puddings, in other words all those things that can be made from bread as it moves from fresh to stale.

Quantities include a "comical amount of black pepper", "1 enthusiastic  teaspoon English mustard", "between one and 1000 cloves, depending on preference". I'm a sucker for  humour in a cookbook.

Along the way I learned of some new dishes and some new words including banjo egg, salmorejo, Glamorgan sausages, Scotch woodcock, pangrattato. (I know I have run across banjo egg before). 

Despite the humour this is a serious book. There are recipes for cassoulet, mushrooms on toast, grilled mackerel with bagnet verde, savoury bread puddings, a twist on Judy Rodger's  chicken.  I have bookmarked a number of recipes.   
 

I think it would appeal most to those who bake bread frequently and find themselves wishing for ways to use at least some of the excess which seems to me must be an issue for frequent bakers. 
 

there are no photographs. The illustrations are attractive and sometimes amusing line drawings.  For someone who is usually put off by a book which has no photographs, I didn't miss them one bit. 

 

"Oh why not?" thought I.  But purchasing a copy would have been easier with better typography.  I decoded the title as "Every Last Crunch."  This did not avail my search.

 

I would also note that when I bake my usual kilogram boule, I am often still finishing it two weeks later.  For my last baking effort I froze half the loaf before going in the hospital.  I have not felt up to dealing with it.  Or much else.

 

 

[TdeV]

On 1/6/2023 at 7:11 PM, Anna N said:

 

I have a paper copy of this which I read everytime I make cassoulet. Thanks for the recommendation to Susan Spungen (via David Lebovitz)

[Senior Sea Kayaker]

On 1/12/2023 at 9:08 AM, chromedome said:

I'd declared a moratorium on cookbook purchases for a while, but yesterday in Dollarama I found Vivian Howard's This Will Make it Taste Good in hardcover for $4. Any of my fellow Canadians who don't have a copy, or would like another for gifting purposes, might want to check out their nearby Dollarama locations.

 

While running some errands this morning I dropped into local Dollarama and and they had one copy @ $4 so I have another cookbook.

Thanks for the heads up.

 

 

[ElsieD]

Just spent a few minutes poking around Amazon's Kindle Books and came away with three for about $15 total:

 

One Tin Bakes - Sweet and simple tray bakes, pies, bars and buns by Edd Kimber

Everyone Can Bake. - Simple Recipes to Master and Mix by Dominique Ansel

Food 52 Genius Recipes -  100 Recipes That Will Chane the Way You Cook

[johnnyd]

Valentine's Day is my birthday, and my Valentine gave me this masterpiece. I buried my head in it for three hours then made a big batch of Chow Fun, and watched Crazy Rich Asians.

 

 

[eugenep]

55 minutes ago, johnnyd said:

Valentine's Day is my birthday, and my Valentine gave me this masterpiece. I buried my head in it for three hours then made a big batch of Chow Fun, and watched Crazy Rich Asians.

 

 

 

How was the Chow Fun? Did you have to get the noodles freshly made? 

 

I think I put mine in the fridge overnight and it hardened and turned tough or something and had to be used immediately the day it's made. 

 

Was the movie authentic? 

[johnnyd]

1 hour ago, eugenep said:

How was the Chow Fun? Did you have to get the noodles freshly made? 

 

I think I put mine in the fridge overnight and it hardened and turned tough or something and had to be used immediately the day it's made. 

 

Was the movie authentic? 

 

Really good! Tasted like a true classic. We had no bean sprouts, so next time. We used what we had, rice noodles poached for about three minutes. Half went into the fridge for something else later, but the book said the hardening was due to starch that crystalizes. He recommended spreading the fridged noodles on a plate with a mug of hot water and microwaving for a few seconds at a time. I suppose making a nice soup would take care of it too.

 

My wife thought of Crazy Rich Asians because I was reading the book aloud while she crafted, then made dinner. She thought of the street-food vendors the kids visit when their plane touches down in Singapore, so we put it on. Probably my favorite scene!

 

Speaking of which, who has been to Urban Hawker NYC at 50th street? Bourdain's old partner for that big street food pier project started working on this after Tony died and it opened 9/22. He flew in street food vendors from Singapore to run it. I'll be there end of March to check it out.

 

https://www.urbanhawker.com/

Edited February 15, 2023 by johnnyd (log)

[lindag]

Just ordered my copy of 'Amy's Breads'. (referenced by @Ann_T

[AAQuesada]

On 2/2/2023 at 10:05 AM, hotsaucerman said:

 

does anyone have the frantzen cookbook? any thoughts/feelings?

 

He has some self published books & yes I have it from Now Serving in LA. It's that new style, similar to the Septime book with pictures of dishes in the front and recipes / formulas towards the back. If you like his food (and I do) you will like it.  This style is definitely for pros or advanced amateurs who don't need a lot of hand holding.

 

 

[hotsaucerman]

On 2/19/2023 at 9:53 PM, AAQuesada said:

He has some self published books & yes I have it from Now Serving in LA. It's that new style, similar to the Septime book with pictures of dishes in the front and recipes / formulas towards the back. If you like his food (and I do) you will like it.  This style is definitely for pros or advanced amateurs who don't need a lot of hand holding.

 

 

thank you for sharing! probably a dumb followup but i'm down in the SW and i wonder if the recipes are accessible ingredient-wise for someone so far from say...the ocean? i feel solid about my technical ability with the recipes but just worry it'll end up being more coffee table book than something i can cook from...

[AAQuesada]

10 hours ago, hotsaucerman said:

and i wonder if the recipes are accessible ingredient-wise for someone so far from say...the ocean?

I'm at the eating cookies in bed portion of the evening lol so I'm check for you in the morning but I don't recall anything too crazy / hard too get like Noma . It's very French / European kiseki if that makes any sense 

[AAQuesada]

There is a non trivial amount of Fish, everything from trout roe, to eel, langoustine, monkfish, kinmedai, Hiramasa, amberjack, king crab, crayfish, lobster, scallop. A lot of cool techniques, imo it's the kind of book you take part of to play around with, sauces, broths techniques. At least that is how I approach it. 

Edited February 22, 2023 by AAQuesada (log)

[hotsaucerman]

4 hours ago, AAQuesada said:

There is a non trivial amount of Fish, everything from trout roe, to eel, langoustine, monkfish, kinmedai, Hiramasa, amberjack, king crab, crayfish, lobster, scallop. A lot of cool techniques, imo it's the kind of book you take part of to play around with, sauces, broths techniques. At least that is how I approach it. 

ahh you've sold me! i love any of these books that inspire me to play around with technique etc. thanks for the reply and info

[Margaret Pilgrim]

Went to this extraoedieqry sale which included literally thousands of new classic cookbooks..    Was literally mind boggling.    I bought 6, original retail over $200 for $22, including one super premium volume.    Goes through Monday if you're in the area.    All genre represented: classic, chef, international regions, food preferences, et al.

 

Ends Monday, Feb 27 4pm

[blue_dolphin]

32 minutes ago, Margaret Pilgrim said:

Went to this extraoedieqry sale which included literally thousands of new classic cookbooks..    Was literally mind boggling.    I bought 6, original retail over $200 for $22, including one super premium volume.    Goes through Monday if you're in the area.    All genre represented: classic, chef, international regions, food preferences, et al.

 

Ends Monday, Feb 27 4pm

Please read the title of this topic and show us the 6 cookbooks. Or at least tell us what you got!

[ElsieD]

1 hour ago, Margaret Pilgrim said:

Went to this extraoedieqry sale which included literally thousands of new classic cookbooks..    Was literally mind boggling.    I bought 6, original retail over $200 for $22, including one super premium volume.    Goes through Monday if you're in the area.    All genre represented: classic, chef, international regions, food preferences, et al.

 

Ends Monday, Feb 27 4pm

Thank God I don't live there.