Fearless Kitchen

Recipe: Potato Cake

Recipe Source: Wilcox, Kip. Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant. Simon & Schuster, New York, 1990 pp. 555-6

This is another Sunday dinner dish. I wanted something relatively mild, since I suspected that one of our guests was someone who doesn't care for strong flavors. I also wanted something with carbs, because many of our guests are there for a particularly intense workout. This dish fit the bill nicely. I made one significant change in that I used Parnassos cheese in place of Swiss. It has a similar texture to Swiss but a different flavor, one I personally prefer. I also increased the amount of basil I put into this. The result was a popular and delicious side dish.

Potato Cake (serves 8; approx. $1.48/serving)

6 large potatoes, thinly sliced

1 large Spanish onion, thinly sliced

2 bay leaves

¼ cup olive oil

½ pound grated Parnassos cheese

½ teaspoon grated nutmeg

1 pinch kosher salt

40 grinds fresh ground cubeb

½ cup finely chopped basil

Equipment:

• Large roasting pan
• Deep-dish pie plate
• Aluminum foil
• Bowl

1. Preheat your oven to 350 ̊.
2. Combine the potatoes, onions and bay leaves in the roasting pan with the olive oil. Toss to coat, then smooth into a single layer.
3. Cover with aluminum foil and bake 20 minutes.
4. Remove the foil and bake another 15 minutes.
5. Combine the remaining ingredients in a bowl.
6. Lubricate the pie plate, then layer the potatoes with the cheese mixture. The final layer should be cheese.
7. Cover with more aluminum foil and bake 15 minutes.
8. Serve.

Recipe: Basil Palmiers

Recipe Source: Holuigue, Diane.  Savoring Provence.  Oxmoor House, Menlo Park, 2002 p. 36

This is, I promise, the last Easter recipe I have to post.  It's essentially a savory cookie.  My favorite Sesame Street character was always Cookie Monster (and the Count...) so serving cookies just makes sense to me.  I do feel kind of ashamed of having used store-bought puff pastry, but given all the chaos surrounding Easter this year and the short time frame I had to prepare the meal, it just made the most sense.  The only change I made was to double the amount of garlic, and I used kosher salt instead of sea salt.  Since I only used 2/3 of the package of puff pastry for this recipe, I was able to use the remaining 1/3 package for the lamb pockets I made the next day. 

Basil Palmiers (makes approx. 20 cookies; approx. $0.54/cookie)

20 fresh basil leaves

8 cloves garlic, roughly chopped

1/4 cup olive oil, plus more for brushing

1/2 pound puff pastry, thawed if frozen

Equipment:

• Cookie sheet
• Rolling pin
• Pizza cutter
• Food processor (a mini-prep works just fine)

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
2. Combine the garlic and basil in the food processor and process until a paste begins to form.
3. Add the olive oil and process to a smooth paste.
4. On a floured work surface, roll out your pastry into a rectangle about 15x12".
5. Spread the paste over the pastry surface.
6. Figure out where the halfway point on your sheet is.
7. Roll the 2 ends of the pastry sheet inwards to that halfway point.  Don't roll too tightly. 
8. When the rolls meet at the center, press together very lightly and freeze 20 minutes.
9. Lightly lube your baking sheet.
10. Remove the pastry roll from the freezer and cut crosswise into pieces about 3/8" thick.
11. Transfer each pastry piece to the baking sheet.
12. Sprinkle each piece with kosher salt.
13. Bake 15 minutes or until golden. 
14. Cool completely before serving.

Recipe: Provencal Braised Beans

Recipe Source: Holuigue, Diane.  Savoring Provence.  Weldon Owen, Menlo Park, 2002 p. 204

When it was decided that we would be holding a dinner party that would focus on pork and bacon, I had some serious thinking to do.  The fact of the matter is that I really lost my taste for pork when I started dating my husband.  He, of course, had no interest in pork until he discovered Barbeque.  I wanted there to be something on the menu that contained no trace of pork whatsoever.  The truth of the matter is that this was entirely for my own pleasure.  I was able to justify it when I learned that a friend would be joining us who is unable to eat meat for medical reasons.  Furthermore, given the vast quantities of bacon to be consumed, I wanted to offer something with some fiber.  This recipe fit the bill.

I made a few changes, of course.  I didn't have two cans of chickpeas.  What I had was one can of chickpeas and one can of black beans.  That's what I had, so that's what I used.  I reduced the amount of oil (because we REALLY weren't going to need it!) and used canned, fire-roasted tomatoes instead of fresh.  I used savory when the option of thyme or savory was given, and marjoram instead of oregano.  I also increased the amount of red bell pepper used.  I made a few procedural changes as well. 

The result was decent, but I wouldn't say it was spectacular.  It really wasn't that strongly flavored at all, and of course I prefer nice, bold flavors.  Still, it did taste good, and it provided everything I wanted it to so I'd still call it a success. 

Provencal Braised Beans (serves 12 as a side dish; approx. $0.49/serving)

1 15-oz can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1 15-oz can black beans, drained and rinsed

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 onions, sliced

3 canned, fire roasted tomatoes, broken up

5 tablespoons minced garlic

1 tablespoon tomato paste

3 fresh savory sprigs

1 fresh marjoram sprig

1/2 red bell pepper, seeded and cut into matchsticks

Equipment:

• Large, shallow saucepan

1. Heat the olive oil over medium heat in the saucepan. 
2. Add the onions and saute until softened.
3. Add the tomatoes and garlic.  Stir.
4. Add the beans, tomato paste, herbs and bell pepper. 
5. Add salt and pepper to taste as well as 2 cups water. 
6. Bring to a boil, partially cover, reduce heat to low and simmer 15 minutes or until the beans are tender. 
7. Serve. 

Recipe: Cauliflower Toulonnaise

Recipe Source: Holuigue, Diane.  Savoring Provence.  Oxmoor House, Menlo Park, 2002 p. 176

First, let me apologize to regular readers if I've been a little distant lately.  I was summoned back to Syracuse last weekend to visit my grandmother, who is not doing well.  She's been ill for a while and has begun to decline rapidly.  (She is also nearly ninety and has had a good and full life.)  I'm glad that I was able to see her, spend time with her and enjoy her company while she was still lucid and awake.  At any rate, my parents being Luddites without an Internet connection, I wasn't able to be online much and therefore couldn't really go visit my favorite sites. 

My parents have really been burning the candle at both ends since New Year's really.  They've been working - they're both hard-working individuals - and helping to deal with my grandmother's needs.  As a result, they haven't always been paying as much attention to their nutritional needs as I personally would like them to.  For my last night there, I decided that I was going to make them dinner.  It needed to be something that could be reheated quickly after we all got back from the nursing home and something that would not make an ungodly mess in my mother's kitchen.  I decided on a chicken dish (to be posted at a later date) with this cauliflower dish as a side (because they need more vegetables.  And more tomatoes.) 

The original recipe claimed that it served 6; I would say closer to 8, possibly more as a side.  You could serve this as a side dish one night and then heat it up and serve it over pasta or rice as a main course the next day.  It was actually pretty tasty, if I do say so.  I made a few changes.  I decreased the amount of oil.  I used canned tomatoes, because tomatoes are even more out of season in Syracuse than they are in Boston.  I increased the peppers - the original called for 1/2 of each type of pepper, but I didn't want to stick my mother with half a pepper in her fridge.  I increased the garlic (because I get my love of garlic from somewhere...) and I switched marjoram for the thyme originally required.  I also used white wine in place of the water, because I'd bought it for another recipe and wanted to minimize the waste when I left.  I also had to make some procedural changes, as my mother did not have a steamer basket (and guess what she's getting for Mother's Day.) 

Cauliflower Toulonnaise (serves 8; approx. $1.64/serving)

1 head cauliflower, cut into florets

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 yellow onion, chopped

1 red bell pepper, seeded and diced

1 green bell pepper, seeded and diced

3 canned whole tomatoes

6 garlic cloves, crushed

1/4 bunch marjoram, leaves only

"Nu-Salt" and black pepper to taste (feel free to substitute kosher salt here; my mom can't have salt.  I find the stuff offputting, but what are you going to do?)

1/4 cup dry white wine

1 heaping tablespoon tomato paste

Around 3 ounces garlic-stuffed kalamata olives

Equipment:

• Large skillet with lid

1. Heat the oil in the skillet.
2. Add the onion.  Saute until the onion is softened.
3. Add the peppers.   Stir to coat with the pan mixture and saute another 2 - 3 minutes.
4. Add the tomatoes, garlic, majoram, pseudo-salt, pepper and wine.
5. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low.
6. Arrange the cauliflower on top of the pan mixture. 
7. Cook until the cauliflower is tender, 5 - 7 minutes. 
8. Remove from heat.  Add the olives and serve.  You can also store and reheat this later. 

Smoked Salmon Beignets

Recipe Source: Wright, Clifford A.  Little Foods of the Mediterranean.  Harvard Common Press, 2003, pp. 261-2 and 476.

I've been wanting to make this recipe for a while.  I had initially wanted to make it for our holiday party.  Unfortunately it really needed to be made the day of serving.  We got a bad snowstorm that day, and my husband was unable to help me clean and decorate the house (because he was trying to excavate our driveway.)  So I had to scrap a couple of dishes, and this was one of them.  Unfortunately, I had already bought the ingredients, to include smoked salmon which can be a little on the pricey side.  Fortunately, my friends Ruth and Troy decided to have a New Year's Eve party, so I was able to make this for them. 

This might have been the most complicated recipe I've tried to do in a long time, especially judging by the state of my kitchen afterward.  It was made substantially easier by my discovery of a marinade injector somewhere deep within the recesses of our kitchen.  I don't know where it came from, but it really helped with filling the beignets.  Which brings me to a second point: the use of the term beignets.  I have previously been used to thinking of beignets as fried little bits of dough.  These seem more like savory cream puffs.  That said, I'm using the term beignets because the author used it, and he's pretty knowledgeable about these things.  I doubled the recipe, although I misread the number of eggs. 

The dish was certainly a success, although the arrival of another winter storm meant that there were a lot fewer people to enjoy it.  My husband, who is very fond of smoked salmon, particularly enjoyed the dish. 

Smoked Salmon Beignets (makes 36 puffs; approx. $0.41/each)

2 cups whole milk

1 cup unsalted butter

1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

2 cups all purpose flour

10 eggs

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

6 ounces smoked salmon

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

1 1/2 teaspoons unflavored gelatin

1/2 cup shrimp stock (mine was left over from making gumbo)

2 tablespoons lemon juice

4 tablespoons brandy

1/2 cup heavy cream, whipped to stiff peaks

Equipment:

• Stand mixer with whisk attachment
• Food processor
• Bowls
• Small saucepan
• Baking sheets lined with tin foil
• Marinade injector

1. Put the milk, butter and salt in a large, heavy saucepan and turn the heat to medium-high.
2. Once the butter has melted, add the flour all at once.
3. Stir with a wooden spoon until it creates a dough, pulls away from the saucepan easily, and the butter begins to ooze a little, 1 1/2 - 2 minutes.
4. Transfer to a bowl.
5. Preheat the oven to 400.
6. Beat the eggs into the flour mixture, one at a time, beating vigorously with a fork and making sure each egg is absorbed and the dough is smooth before you add the next one.
7. Sprinkle with nutmeg.
8. Butter a baking sheet and, using a tablespoon, drop large tablespoonfuls of the dough in rows on the sheet 1 1/2 " apart.  Each droplet should be about 1" in diameter for small ones.
9. Bake until golden brown, 22 - 25 min.
10. Do not peek into the oven.
11. In a food processor, puree the salmon, butter, cayenne and nutmeg together until very crumbly.
12. Transfer to a medium bowl and set aside.
13. In a small saucepan, soften the gelatin in the shrimp stock and dissolve over low heat.
14. Let cool.
15. Add to the salmon mixture, along with the lemon juice and cognac.
16. Fold the whipped cream into the salmon mixture until well blended.  Check for salt.
17. Stuff the beignets using the marinade injector and serve or refrigerate up to 4 hours.
18. Serve at room temperature or a little colder.

Recipe: Seven Hour Lamb

Recipe Source: Holuigue, Diane.  Savoring Provence.  Oxmoor House, London, 2002 p. 141

 

This weekend I craved lamb.  I wasn't sure what it was that I wanted to do to the lamb, but I knew my husband very much wanted to use the Big Green Egg.  I found this recipe in the above-mentioned book, and decided to use it as a launching pad.  Most of the changes that I made were procedural, because there weren't many ingredients in the first place.  I probably used a little more garlic than called for, maybe 45 cloves.  I used duck stock because I had homemade duck stock in the freezer and that's for free. 

 

The original recipe called for the lamb to be browned in the pan before being roasted for seven hours.  This is not what I did.  My husband has told me that browning the meat before using the Egg inhibits the smoke from penetrating the meat, so I left that step out.  Instead, I prepared a quick rub consisting of thyme, kosher salt and black pepper.  I rubbed this all over both sides of the lamb and let it sit out while we were preparing the egg.  If you do this in your oven, brown the meat first in the pan before roasting.  To solve the drippings problem, we put a clean drip pan under the meat in the Egg and used those drippings to make the sauce.  I don't think I'm bragging when I say that the resulting dish was absolutely wonderful.  The lamb didn't have that kind of melting texture that a lot of slow-cooked meat gets, but it was amazingly soft and succulent and delicious. 

 

Seven Hour Lamb (Serves 6; approx. $6.95/serving)

1 boneless leg of lamb, about 5 lb.

1 tablespoon dried thyme

1 tablespoon black pepper

2 tablespoons kosher salt

2 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon olive oil

3 tablespoons brandy

45 garlic cloves, peeled

2/3 cup dry red wine

2/3 cup duck stock (you can substitute chicken stock here)

2 tablespoons dried rosemary

Equipment:

• Big Green Egg (optional; you can also make this indoors, but it won't be nearly as good)
• Small saucepan
• Long match
• Small strainer
• Drip pan

1. Mix the thyme, pepper and kosher salt together in a bowl.  Rub all over the lamb. 
2. Set up the Big Green Egg for indirect cooking with a clean drip pan.  We added a couple chunks of hickory wood to increase the smoky flavor.  Heat the Egg up to 225 degrees.  If you must cook this indoors, preheat the oven to 250 degrees and brown the meat in the pan you'll use to roast it. 
3. Roast the lamb for about 7 hours. 
4. Take the lamb from the Egg and let it rest, tented under foil.  (Indoor cooking: Remove the lamb from the pan and transfer to a cutting board.  Tent with foil and allow it to rest.)
5. Make the sauce.  Melt the butter with the oil in the saucepan.
6. Add the pan drippings from the drip pan.  If you're cooking indoors, you can do all of this right in the pan you used for roasting.
7. Add the brandy.  TURN OFF THE HEAT and, using the long match, ignite the brandy. 
8. When the flames subside, return the pan to a medium-low heat and add the garlic, stock, wine and rosemary. 
9. Bring to a boil slowly and boil until the garlic is soft. 
10. Strain the sauce into a small bowl, pushing on the garlic with the back of a wooden spoon to ensure that you get all that garlicky goodness.  Vampires will not be a problem for you or your guests tonight! 
11. Carve the meat and serve, with the sauce passed alongside. 

Technorati Tags: Big Green Egg recipe,lamb,roasted food,sauces,garlic,Provencal food,recipe

Recipe: St. Remy Tuna (well, sort of)

Recipe Source: Doeser, Linda.  Fish & Shellfish: Superb Ways with Seafood.  Anness Publishing Ltd., London, 2003 p. 148

 

This is an amazingly easy recipe to throw together.  I make it fairly frequently, because it's very healthy and very quick to cook.  I typically make several changes to the original.  First, I use frozen tuna steaks.  Second, I use minced jarred garlic.  Third, I used canned diced tomatoes.  Fourth, instead of dried herbes de Provence, I used a mix of thyme, oregano and nigella.  As a result, it comes together quickly and tastes wonderful.  On this most recent pass, I also added about half a jar of marinated artichoke hearts that I rescued from the trash pile at camp this year.  This gave the recipe a little variation and added more vegetables to boot. 

 

Not Really St. Remy Tuna (serves 2; approx. cost per serving not available)

2 frozen tuna steaks, thawed

2 tablespoons olive oil

6 tablespoons minced jarred garlic

1/4 cup white wine

1 14 oz can diced tomatoes

1/2 jar marinated artichoke hearts, probably about 2/3 cup

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 teaspoon dried thyme

1/2 teaspoon nigella seeds

Kosher salt and black pepper to taste

Equipment:

• Large skillet

1. Season the tuna steaks with salt and pepper.
2. Heat the oil over high heat in the skillet.
3. Add the tuna steaks and press down gently, then reduce the heat to medium.  Cook 6 - 8 minutes, turning once. 
4. Transfer the steaks to a serving platter and cover to keep warm.  If your oven has a warming drawer, this would be the time to use it. 
5. Add the garlic to the pan and cook around 20 seconds. 
6. Pour in the wine and cook until it reduces by about half. 
7. Add the tomatoes, artichoke hearts and herbs.  Cook 2 - 3 minutes until bubbling.
8. Pour the mixture over the tuna steaks and serve. 

Technorati Tags: French food,Provencal food,tuna,fish,seafood,tomatoes,recipes,easy recipes,quick recipes

Recipe: Roasted Fennel

Recipe Source: Holuigue, Diane.  Savoring Provence.  Oxmoor House, Menlo Park,  2002 p. 192

This recipe came about as the result of a screw-up.  It was supposed to be a fennel and cucumber salad.  Actually, that was the name of the dish: Cucumber and Fennel Salad, only in French.  Unfortunately, while I thought I had purchased enough cucumbers to get me through that week, I appear to only have purchased enough to get me through my in-laws' visit.  While I could have bailed on the dish entirely, that wouldn't have been much fun and we would have wound up with vaguely ouzo-scented slime in the crisper drawer.  Instead, I decided to go ahead and mix this up without the cucumbers. 

I made a couple of other changes besides omitting the cucumbers.  I halved the amount of olive oil, and I used a full head of garlic rather than the six cloves called for in the original.  I did both of these things mostly from habit, although I think that the additional garlic really helped the dish.  I also omitted the parsley; I didn't think that the flavor would add much value, although the green specks would have added something visually.  I think that one of the things I liked best about this dish was the fact that most of the work could be done ahead of time.  Roasting the garlic at the same time as the fennel did prove to be a little problematic, but popping it into the microwave for 30 seconds solved the problem once the time came to serve the dish.  We served it with a somewhat oily dish, or at least a dish that was oilier than we would ordinarily eat, and the fennel really helped keep our stomachs on an even keel. 

Roasted Fennel (serves 4; approx. $1.52/serving)

2 large, round fennel bulbs

6 tablespoons olive oil

1 head garlic, cloves separated but unpeeled

1 tablespoon capers

4 tablespoons lemon juice

Kosher salt and pepper to taste

Equipment:

• Potato masher
• Small bowl
• Baking sheets

1. Trim the fennel bulbs by removing the stalks and fronds.  Reserve them for another use (foreshadowing much?).  Trim the base of the core; I can't think of a valid use for this part besides compost. 
2. Preheat an oven to 375 degrees. 
3. Slice the bulbs into thin slices, about 1/8" thick. 
4. Arrange the slices in a single layer on the baking sheet. 
5. Top the fennel slices with the garlic cloves.
6. Drizzle the olive oil over the vegetables and cook about 20 minutes. 
7. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.  Transfer the fennel to a serving vessel.
8. When the garlic is cool enough to handle, squeeze the cloves into a small bowl.  (Alternatively, if you allow the garlic to cool completely, you can microwave the cloves on high for about 30 seconds to loosen the skins and soften the cloves.  Peel into the bowl.)
9. Add the lemon juice to the bowl and mash with the potato masher.  You could probably do this in the food processor, but you won't get those nice big chunks of garlic. 
10. Drizzle the mix over the fennel.
11. Add the capers, salt and pepper and toss to mix. 
12. Serve.

Technorati Tags: Fennel,easy recipes,make-ahead recipes,vegetarian recipes,vegan recipes,salad,side dishes

Recipe: Ratatouille

Recipe Source: Weir, Joanne.  From Tapas to Meze.  10 Speed Press, Berkeley, 2004 p. 77

Recently, my husband needed to entertain some guests while I was going to be out of town.  I wanted to prepare some vegetable side dishes for the event, but since I wasn't going to be here they needed to be things that could be made ahead.  Since I wasn't going to be around to answer questions - I was at a family event and wasn't going to be able to answer the phone - it needed to be something with minimal preparation steps on the day of serving.  We're talking things I can write with a Sharpie on the white part of the Zip-loc bag.  I found this ratatouille recipe and decided to give it a try, since it could be served at warm temperature. 

Of course, I had to taste it myself first.  I cut the zucchini into the specified size in the recipe, but they still seemed a little underdone to me.  I guess they added a textural contrast to the finished dish that worked decently.  Other than that, though, I was reasonably satisfied with the results.  I did make a few changes, but they were really very minor.  I used minced jarred garlic in place of fresh, simply for convenience.  I used more fresh thyme than originally called for.  I think that's about it, really. 

Ratatouille (serves 8; approx. $2.94/serving)

1 eggplant, approx. 1.5 - 2 lb

Kosher salt and black pepper to taste

3 red bell peppers

4 small zucchini

2 medium yellow onions

6 tablespoons minced jarred garlic

5 tomatoes

2 bay leaves

1/4 bunch chopped fresh parsley

1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

20 fresh basil leaves, chiffonade

Equipment:

• Colander
• 2 large pots
• Slotted spoon

1. Trim the eggplant and cut it into 1 inch pieces.
2. Place the eggplant chunks into the colander and salt liberally.  Don't be tempted to skimp on the salt for health; you're going to rinse the salt away later but you need to get the eggplants to the right flavor and texture.  Set aside to drain at least 30 minutes.
3. Bring a large pot of water to a boil.
4. When your water is boiling, cut a shallow "X" in the bottom of each tomato and drop it into the water.  Only cook them for about a minute, until you see the skin starting to peel back.  Remove them from the boiling water.  When the tomatoes are cool to the touch, peel them, seed them and chop them up.  I don't recommend skipping this step and substituting canned diced tomatoes; the tomatoes are going to be stewed later on and you don't want them to disintegrate completely.
5. Seed the peppers and cut them into one-inch strips.
6. Rinse off the eggplant, making sure to remove any excess salt. 
7. Trim the zucchini and cut it into 3/4" slices.
8. Cut the yellow onions into 8 wedges.
9. Heat 2 tablespoons oil in the second large pan - I used a large wok. 
10. Add the eggplant and brown on all sides.  Remove the eggplant with a slotted spoon and set aside.
11. Add another tablespoon of oil to the pan and add the peppers.  Cook a few moments, until they start to wilt. 
12. Remove the pepper strips to the bowl with your eggplant.  Add the zucchini and cook until lightly browned. 
13. Remove the zucchini and add it to the other vegetables. 
14. Add the remaining oil, the onions and garlic.  Cook until the onion is soft. 
15. Add the tomatoes, bay leaves, parsley, thyme, more kosher salt and pepper.  Simmer slowly for 20 minutes.
16. Add the reserved vegetables and cook another 15 minutes. 
17. Splash with the vinegar and add the basil. 
18. Serve immediately, or store at room temperature up to 1 day. 

Technorati Tags: Joanne Weir recipes,ratatouille,recipes,vegetarian recipes,vegan recipes,vegetables,eggplant,zucchini,bell peppers,tomatoes

Book Review: Simply Mediterranean Cooking

Ayanoglu, Byron.  Simply Mediterranean Cooking.  Robert Rose Inc., Toronto, 1998

While I've always been a pretty adventurous eater, I've always had a certain natural preference for the food I grew up eating.  My mother's family is Neapolitan, and so the flavors of the southern part of Italy make up my idea of real "good" food.  Life cannot exist without tomatoes.  Garlic is the foundation of everything, and adding more garlic makes everything healthier.  Oregano, basil, thyme - these three, in order of importance, were the basic herbs of my life.  I never even knowingly ate cilantro until I moved to Boston.  Of course, it wasn't until I started dating (and eventually married) a gentleman of Greek extraction that I began to understand that those flavors and truths are not limited to a city on the western coast of Italy, but apply all over the Mediterranean.  While there will always be regional differences based on history and religion (pork and pork products, for example, are essential in Spain and Italy, but obviously this is not the case in Egypt or Morocco) the fundamental flavors are very similar throughout the region.  Byron Ayanoglu recognizes this fact and illustrates it very clearly in this book. 

The author's writing style is warm and welcoming.  He sets the reader at ease almost immediately, pointing out how very forgiving food from this part of the world can be.  He has lived in several different places, from Istanbul to India and Mexico, although at the time of this writing he was living in Montreal.  This gives him a certain facility with ingredients that are available in different parts of the world (there is a cute anecdote about having to find olive oil in Indian pharmacies).  He also gives both types of measurements for his recipes, reducing dependence on a harried cook's conversion skills.  The recipes are often given in quantities for two to four people, which is helpful for me since I'm usually cooking for far fewer people than the average cookbook recipe.  The recipes are written very clearly, and as I flip through the book again I can almost see these delightful dishes on the plate. 

Unfortunately, that "almost" is all that I can see, at least until I cook a given dish for myself.  The illustrations in this book are frankly sparse, which is a turnoff for some people.  Also, Ayanoglu doesn't offer a provenance for every dish.  He does state in some recipes that "this comes from Istanbul," or "this is common in Naples."  It's easy to guess the origin of some other dishes: a tagine is unlikely to be a dish from Naples.  However, if you're looking to prepare an authentic Greek (or Italian, or Turkish, or North African) meal, you shouldn't rely on this book as your only resource.  That said, I really enjoy this book.

Technorati Tags: Book review,Mediterranean,Italian food,Greek food,Turkish food,North African food,Middle Eastern food,Spanish food,Byron Ayanoglu