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10 standout cookbook recipes from this year in the kitchen

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BJ Dennis’ Okra & Shrimp Purloo, from the 2021 book ‘Black Food: Stories, Art & Recipes from Across the African Diaspora’

By Leslie Brenner

“If you were to give me one final meal to eat, it would be this,” writes BJ Dennis in the headnote to his recipe for Okra and Shrimp Purloo, collected in Black Food: Stories, Art & Recipes from Across the African Diaspora.

It’s one of the 10 dishes from new or recent cookbooks that I fell in love with this year — so much that I’ll be cooking them again and again in months and years to come.

The dishes span culinary cultures from East Asia to India, from the Middle East to Western and Eastern Europe — and two from the United States. Five include seafood, pork or a combination; three are vegan, one is vegetarian and one is a chocolate dessert. 

Weirdly, none of them involve chicken, lamb or duck — though one duck recipe came close to being included.* Not weirdly, none includes beef. Not that I don’t enjoy beef — I do! But I don’t eat it often. Eight happen to be gluten-free, and so are the two others, if you use gluten-free tamari in place of soy sauce.

The recipes come from books published this year and the two years prior. Here are the 10 standouts, beginning with the one pictured above.

BJ Dennis’ Okra & Shrimp Purloo

Purloo is an iconic rice dish in lowcountry Gullah-Geechee culture; this one from BJ Dennis, a Charleston, South Carolina chef with roots in the Gullah-Geechee community, features shrimp and okra. Okra season ends with the first frost, but you can use frozen okra (which isn’t bad at all) if you’d like to make it before next summer.

The quality of the rice you use is important: Dennis’ recipe calls specifically for Carolina Gold rice — a very special white rice that was nearly lost and was brought back a couple of decades ago. Not to be confused with the supermarket brand Carolina rice, Carolina Gold has beautiful texture and flavor. (Read more about the rice in the recipe’s headnote, and in this fascinating story by Keith Pandolfi in Serious Eats.)

Get the rice (which also makes a great holiday gift), and then make this irresistible purloo.

Betty Liu’s Mom’s Shanghai Red-Braised Pork Belly

If you ever crack open a cookbook and see the words “my favorite recipe in the book,” take heed: anything the author loves that much has an excellent chance of being smashing. That was absolutely the case with this tender and luscious dish from Betty Liu’s My Shanghai. “If there is one dish that represents Shanghai cuisine, this is the one,” she wrote in her headnote. The recipe comes from her mother.

Budmo! Russian Potato Salad

From Budmo!: Recipes from a Ukrainian Kitchen (one of Cooks Without Borders’ Best New Cookbooks of 2022), Anna Voloshyna’s vegetarian version of the classic is creamy and pickle-y — delicious in every season.

Woks of Life Shrimp in Lobster Sauce

The authors of the delightful new book The Woks of Life have a talent for creating outstanding versions of old-school American Chinese restaurant favorites. Their recipe for shrimp in lobster sauce is a fine example: Eminently craveable, it will probably blow other versions you’ve known out of the water. The book is another one of CWB’s Best New Cookbooks of 2022.

Via Carota Insalata di Cavoletti

This Brussels sprouts salad with apples, walnuts, aged cheese and pomegranate seeds made me fall instantly in love with Via Carota: A Celebration of Seasonal Cooking from the Beloved Greenwich Village Restaurant by Jody Williams and Rita Sodi, with Anna Kovel. It’s our first-ever Cooks Without Borders Cookbook of the Year.

Reem Kassis’ Eggplant Salad on Tahini

Reem Kassis’ The Arabesque Table is filled with wonderful recipes, some traditional, others of her own invention. This one — roasted eggplant salad on a cushion of tahini — combines elements of mutabal (roasted eggplant dip with tahini) and bitinjan al rahib (“monk’s eggplant” — roasted eggplant with fresh vegetables). Think of the dreamy result as everything you want in a mezze assortment but all on one plate. The eggplant salad part has pops of salty-meaty umami flavor from sliced green olives and tang from pomegranate molasses; walnuts add complexity and a bit of crunch. The tahini sauce is a creamy, rich foil. Swipe a piece of warm pita through it and you’re transported to everywhere you ever wanted to visit in the Levant.

I could eat the japchae from Hooni Kim’s 2020 book My Korea once a week and die happy. Japchae is a beloved traditional dish made from dangmyeon — stretchy, clear noodles made from sweet potato starch. This one has lots of julienned red and green bell peppers, shiitake mushrooms and spinach, garlic and a lovely touch of sesame oil. The book was published in 2020; we reviewed it in July.

Suzy Karadsheh's Sicilian-Vibe Cod

This roasted cod dish from Suzy Karadsheh’s The Mediterranean Dish has a deliciously Sicilian vibe, thanks to tomatoes, garlic, golden raisins, capers, spices and lemon. Throw it in the oven, open a bottle of Etna wine (white, red or rosé) and you’ve got a drama-free (and much less expensive) trip to Taormina, the Sicilian setting for White Lotus. Karadsheh’s book was one of our Best New Cookbooks of 2022.

Rinku Dutt’s Shrimp with Poppy Seeds (Chingri Posto)

Rich and fragrant, with a generous dose of white poppy seeds and black mustard seeds, this dish from Rinku Dutt’s Kolkata is transportingly delicous. We reviewed the book, one of our 10 Best New Cookbooks of 2022, in October.

Via Carota Torta al Cioccolato

It’s always good to end with chocolate cake, right? This one — another stupendous recipe from Via Carota — may well be the best flourless chocolate cake I’ve ever made. The top of the cake collapses (on purpose) and forms a crackly crust that contracts beautifully with the soft crumb inside, and it’s wonderfully chocolately and rich. ’Nuff said?

RECIPE: Via Carota Torta al Cioccolato

*I’ll definitely make the pici again many times, and will sometimes sauce it with a duck ragù, but probably my own.

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Holiday gift guide: Most exciting cookbooks of 2022 (Part II)

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By Leslie Brenner

[Editor’s note: This is Part II of our two-part Cookbook Gift Guide.]

Part I of our roundup of our favorite and most promising cookbooks published this year included 8 outstanding new titles. Here is the second inspiring batch. We’re working on full reviews of a number of them, and have already cooked from most.

Any one of the books below will thrill an adventuresome cook on your list.

Mezcla: Recipes to Excite

Author Ixta Belfrage had a truly international childhood. She grew up in Tuscany, with a Brazilian mother and a New York-born father whose family relocated to Mexico during the McCarthy era (when his own British-born father was deported). Italian, Brazilian, Mexican, American and English culture — including food culture — were important parts of Belfrage’s life, as she spent a good deal of time as a child with her grandparents in Cuernavaca, Mexico, in her mother’s hometown of Natal, Brazil, and, as a 19-year-old, living in Rio de Janeiro. All of these culinary cultures come to play in her cooking, along with the outsized influence of Yotam Ottolenghi — with his wide palette of flavors. She worked for the chef-author for five years, first at NOPI restaurant, and then in the OTK (Ottolenghi Test Kitchen).

Belfrage’s first solo book celebrates this far-flung mix of influences (mezcla means “mixture” in Spanish), and the result is a collection of highly original recipes expressing a fresh, open cooking style that you might think of as joyous fusion. It’s a style very much in the idiom of Ottolenghi Flavor, which she co-authored. She divides Mexcla into two sections: “Everyday” (quick and easy recipes) and “Entertaining” (more elaborate, weekend-project-type recipes). Sometimes, but not always, the fusion is within a dish, such as Hake Torta Ahogada with Shrimp Miso Bisque. We test-drove one recipe that keeps the flavor profile Italian and preparation minimal: an ingenious vegetarian dish of tagliatelle dressed in an intensely flavorful porcini ragù that cooks in about 10 minutes. Verdict: Want to cook more!

Mezcla: Recipes to Excite by Ixta Belfrage, photographs by Yuki Sugiura, Ten Speed Press, $35.

The Vegan Chinese Kitchen

Hannah Che, creator of the excellent blog The Plant-Based Wok, has published one of the most inspiring and beautiful books to hit the shelves in some time. (Our Cookbook of the Year, Via Carota, is another.) Now based in Portland, Oregon, Che studied in Guangzhou, at the only vegetarian cooking school in China. There she immersed herself in zhai cai, the plant-based cuisine with centuries-old Buddhist roots that emphasizes umami-rich ingredients. If you like flipping through a cookbook filled with photos of dishes that are absolutely gorgeous, you’ll love this — and Che took those photos herself. I’ve marked probably at least three-quarters of the recipes as “want to cook,” and very much enjoyed the first one I tried: Napa Cabbage and Vermicelli Salad.

The Vegan Chinese Kitchen: Recipes and Modern Stories from a Thousand-Year-Old Tradition by Hannah Che, Clarkson Potter, $35.

Dinner in One: Exceptional and Easy One-Pan Meals

In Dinner in One, New York Times cooking columnist and award-winning author Melissa Clark focuses on streamlining: All 100 recipes wrap maximum deliciousness in minimum effort. Her smart introduction explains why home cooking is fundamentally different than restaurant cooking — and consequently most chef recipes — requiring a completely different approach. In her new book, she explains in the intro, “The recipes are simple but not simplistic, with complex, layered flavors that you can achieve with minimal stress.” Mission accomplished: Cooks both experienced and just starting out will love the results. Try this recipe for a sheet-pan chicken “tagine” to see what we mean.

Dinner in One: Exceptional and Easy One-Pan Meals by Melissa Clark, Photographs by Linda Xiao, Clarkson Potter, $29.99.

Masa

Jorge Gaviria’s important, encyclopedic volume is a must-have for Mexican cooking aficionados, including chefs and serious home cooks. We reviewed it last month.

Masa: Techniques, Recipes, and Reflections on a Timeless Staple by Jorge Gaviria, photographs by Graydon Herriott, Chronicle Books, $35.

First Generation: Recipes from My Taiwanese-American Home

Here’s another super-appealing debut from the creator of a popular blog. If there’s someone on your list who loves dumplings and appreciates wonderful writing, choose First Generation. Author Frankie Gaw, the cook behind the delightful Little Fat Boy blog, weaves terrific personal stories into his headnotes. Excellent step-by-step visuals (expertly illustrated and photographed by Gaw) show how to pull noodles, wrap wontons, make braided bao wrappers and more. I haven’t yet cooked from it, but can’t wait to let Gaw teach me how to make Sesame Shaobing, Lau-Kee Congee, Pork Belly Mushroom Corn Soup and more.

First Generation; Recipes from My Taiwanese-American Home by Frankie Gaw, Ten Speed Press, $32.50.

In Diasporican, Illyanna Maisonet reflects, unflinchingly, on the Puerto Rican disapora and why it’s been so difficult for the cooking of Puerto Rico to take off stateside. “The truth is,” she writes, “Puerto Rican cuisine shares a lot in common with the cuisines of Hawai‘i, Guam and the Philippines — all the places that got fucked by Spanish and United States colonialism.” Winner of an IACP award for narrative food writing and former columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle, Maisonet offers a compelling collection of very personal recipes mixed in with traditional ones, many inspired by her grandmother, from whom she learned to cook when she was growing up in Sacramento, California. High on my list of dishes to try is saucy shrimp with chorizo served over funche, the cornmeal-and-coconut milk pudding that historically was eaten by enslaved people working on sugar-cane plantations. Maisonet’s holiday recipes are particularly enticing; I might just make her fabulous-looking, oregano-happy Pernil (long-roasted pork-shoulder roast) this Christmas, and her Thanksgiving Leftovers Pavochon Pasta Bake may become a serious challenger to my Turkey Tetrazzini. This much I know: Next time I see ripe hachiya persimmons, I’ll be making Maisonet’s Persimmon Cookies.

Diasporican: A Puerto Rican Cookbook by Illyanna Maisonet, Ten Speed Press, $32.50.

The Mediterranean Dish

The debut cookbook from Suzy Karadsheh, founder of the hugely popular cooking and lifestyle website The Mediterranean Dish, includes recipes drawn from the Middle East to North Africa and Southern Europe. Born and raised in the Egyptian city of Port Said, Karadsheh began to learn to cook from her mom, who loved to entertain, and after she was married and living in the United States, from her Jordanian mother-in-law. I love reading about how her mom would prepare for an Egyptian azooma (feast), or about making mahshi — stuffed vegetables — which Karadsheh describes as “a sport among Egyptian women, who compete to throw the best mahshi dinner in the neighborhood.” Better to wait for the next tomato season to make her recipe for stuffed bell peppers and tomatoes. In the meantime, her Sicily-inspired saucy baked cod, which uses Roma tomatoes, is delicious any time of year. This one’s a great choice for cooks who are just starting out.

The Mediterranean Dish By Suzy Karadsheh with Susan Puckett, photographs by Caitlin BenseL, Clarkson Potter, $32.50.

Evolutions in Bread

Ten years after the publication of the ground-breaking, IACP and James Beard Award-winning bread-baking bible Flour Water Salt Yeast, Ken Forkish gives us Evolutions in Bread. A focus on artisan pan loaves is what the evolution is all about; it was borne from Forkish’s fondness for the artisan pan loaves that are constantly selling out at his Ken’s Artisan Bakery in Portland, Oregon. But that’s not the only innovation: Forkish also developed a new, simplified, flour-efficient way to establish and maintain your sourdough — which is not required in most of the recipes, but benefits them. Ancient grains such as einkorn, emmer and spelt also figure prominently. If I were to own just one book about bread-baking, this would be it.

Evolutions in Bread: Artisan Pan Breads and Dutch-Oven Loaves at Home by Ken Forkish, photographs by Alan Weiner, Ten Speed Press, $35.

Pasta Grannies: Comfort Cooking

Finally, three years after the first Pasta Grannies cookbook, based on Vicky Bennison’s popular YouTube channel, comes Volume II — Pasta Grannies: Comfort Cooking. The myriad pasta dishes look incredible, from Ernestina’s Cannelloni Verdi Ripieni di Carne (Spinach Cannelloni with Meat Filling from Romagna) to Iginia’s Princisgras (Porcini and Proscuitto Lasagna from Macerata) to Biggina’s Fettucine con Coniglio all’Ischitana (Fettuccine with Braised Rabbit from Ischia). And the other comfort dishes are just as enticing: Enrica’s Torta Verde con Prescinsêua (Cheese and Chard Pie from Genova); Teresa’s Tajedda Salentina (Mussel Bake from Salento); Ida’s Chocolate Bunet (Chocolate Pudding from Piedmont). I love flipping through its pages and seeing the smiling faces of those beautiful nonnas and their irresistible dishes: How refreshing to see older cooks celebrated and appreciated.

Pasta Grannies: Comfort Cooking by Vicky Bennison, Hardie Grant Books, $32.50.

Buy Pasta Grannies: Comfort Cooking at Bookshop

Buy Pasta Grannies: Comfort Cooking at Amazon

Also recommended:

The Wok: Recipes and Technique by Kenji López-Alt, W.W. Norton, $50.

Buy at The Wok at Bookshop.

Buy The Wok at Amazon.

Masala: Recipes from India, the Land of Spices by Anita Jainsinghani, Ten Speed Press, $35.

Buy Masala at Bookshop.

Buy Masala at Amazon.

Ottolonghi Test Kitchen Extra Good Things, Clarkson Potter, $32

Buy OTK Extra Good Things at Bookshop.

Buy OTK Extra Good Things at Amazon.

Korean American: Food That Tastes Like Home by Eric Kim, Clarkson Potter, $32.50.

Buy Korean American at Bookshop.

Buy Korean American at Amazon.

READ Part I of our Holiday Cookbook Gift Guide: “The year’s best cookbooks make the season’s greatest gifts”

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Rich and soulful, beef bourguignon is always in style

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By Leslie Brenner

[Note: Originally published Dec. 19, 2016, this article was updated Dec. 7, 2022.]

For as long as I've been a cook, I've been making boeuf bourguignon – the classic French wine-braised beef stew with mushrooms, lardons and baby onions. There's something so deeply soulful about the dish, which simmers for a couple of hours in the oven, filling the kitchen with an incredible aroma.

Those transporting scents always deliver on their promise: Beef bourguignon, a dish that coaxes maximum deliciousness from humble ingredients, is a dreamy dish to serve to friends – with good red wine and a loaf of crusty French bread for soaking up the fabulous, richly flavored sauce. It's impressive enough for any important celebration – such as Christmas Eve or New Year's Eve – or no occasion at all. Maybe it's just what you want to eat on a cold winter evening with a fire going in the fireplace. It's a dish that never shows off, but always thrills. And while it may look like a lot of steps, it's no more complicated or time-consuming than making chili.

And because you can completely make it ahead – even the day before – it's the ideal (stress-free!) dish to serve at a dinner party, along with boiled or roasted potatoes or buttered noodles.  Precede it with a wintry salad, céleri rémoulade or a super easy-to-make yet luxurious and velvety roasted cauliflower soup swirled with brown butter. 

I must have originally learned to make beef bourguignon from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, but over the years, I've played with the recipe, trying to answer the questions that inevitably nip at a cook's heels: What's the best cut of beef to use? What kind of wine? Should you marinate the beef or not? 

After so many years, and so many versions – abetted by a recent round of reading and more playing – I think I finally have my be-all-and-end-all version. 

Let's start with the red wine. You use a whole bottle, so you'd better use something really good, right? Well, no – happily, it doesn't much matter what you use, as long as it hasn't turned to vinegar. I never spend more than $8 or $9 dollars on the wine for this dish. It doesn’t even have to be French.

For the beef cuts, I had to abandon my beloved Julia, who calls for "lean stewing beef." Mais, non! – what you want is a fattier cut, like beef chuck, which will become super-tender as its collagens break down through its long braise. Lean stewing beef becomes hard and tough. 

From Anne Willan, author of many wonderful cookbooks and head of La Varenne cooking school in Burgundy, I gleaned the idea of using a combination of chuck and beef shank. In her fine recipe in The Country Cooking of France (2007), Willan calls for boneless beef shank. An excellent choice, if you can find the cut. (I used to be able to reliably, but not recently; our recipe includes instructions for whether you have one or not.)

An article on Serious Eats freed me from the notion that marinating the meat was worthwhile, so I scrapped that step — which shortens the process by an entire day. And rather than browning each side of the cubes of beef — which is time-consuming and dries them out — I just brown two sides, and leave them in bigger chunks. It results in a texture that’s softer and more appealing, while still getting plentyof the wonderful, flavor-enhancing caramelization of browning. A lazy person's solution that pays off! 

Ready to cook?

Here's the way it'll go, in a nutshell. Brown the meat, then lightly cook your aromatic vegetables – onion, celery and carrot – which you don't even have to dice (just cut 'em in a few pieces), and a little garlic. Deglaze the pan with red wine, then add back the meat, the rest of the bottle of wine, and some chicken broth (homemade beef broth would be even better if you have it, but I never do). Toss in a bouquet garni (herbs, peppercorns and bay leave tied up in cheesecloth), bring to a simmer, then shove it in a slow oven for almost two hours, nearly unattended (just just want to stir it once or twice). Skim off the fat, discard the aromatic vegetables and bone, strain the sauce and add the meat back in, then add the garnishes you've prepared: lardons, mushrooms and baby onions, and braise another half hour.

There’s actually not much work involved; time does the flavor-building for you. If you want to do most of it a day or two in advance, you can stop and refrigerate it after the two hours in the oven; the day you’re ready to finish and serve it the fat will have solidified and you can lift it right off, add the garnishes and braise it another half hour before sending it out.

Serve it, as the French do, with mashed potatoes (they call it pommes purées), buttered egg noodles or boiled potatoes, plus crusty bread. And this is the moment to pull out that great bottle of red.

Add friends or other good company, and the payoff is nothing short of awesome.

RECIPE: Beef Bourguignon

If you like this, you might enjoy:

READ: Chef Daniel Boulud gives a humble French dish, hachis Parmentier, the royal treatment

READ To make a traditional gratin dauphinois, step away from the cheese

READ: A stellar Quiche Lorraine (custardy, bacon-y, buttery-crusted!) is easier to make than you might think

RECIPE: Café Boulud Short Ribs with Celery Duo

RECIPE: Céleri Rémoulade

RECIPE: Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s Molten Chocolate Cake

ALL COOKS WITHOUT BORDERS FRENCH RECIPES

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The year's best cookbooks make the season's greatest gifts

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By Leslie Brenner

[Editor’s note: This is Part I of our 2-part Cookbook Gift Guide. Here is Part II.

What an exciting season it is for cookbook lovers! Cooks Without Borders has reviewed a number of wonderful titles in recent weeks, including Budmo!, Kolkata and Masa — and we recently named our first-ever Cookbook of the Year: Via Carota.

Our favorite books published in 2022 cover culinary cultures from a wide swath of the world, and include volumes focused on cross-cultural cooking experiences, such as Chinese American, Korean American, pan-Mediterranean, African diasporan and California Puerto Rican.

We’re excited to present the year’s titles that most strongly captured our imagination — those that I’ve cooked from (perhaps reviewed) and already know are great, and others that I’ve pored through and marked myriad recipes that entice. We’ll work on getting as many of these books reviewed as possible in the coming year, and Part II of this roundup is coming soon!

One thing is certain: Among them you’ll find a cookbook gift for every kind of cook on your list.

The Woks of Life

We’re longtime fans of The Woks of Life — the Chinese and Chinese American cooking site from the wonderful Leung family. Sarah Leung, in fact, was our first-ever guest (two springs ago) on our Makers, Shakers and Mavens series, and we’ve been eagerly awaiting this book ever since.

The cookbook is as delightful as the site. We have a review coming soon; in the meantime, help yourself to a sample adapted recipe — a quick stir-fry of edamame, tofu and pickled mustard greens (a delicious, healthy, vegan respite between heavy holiday feasts!).

The Woks of Life: Recipes to Know and Love from a Chinese American Family by Bill, Judy, Sarah and Kaitlin Leung, Clarkson Potter, $35

Tanya Holland’s California Soul

The new book from the host of ‘Tanya’s Kitchen Table’ and the podcast ‘Tanya’s Table’ features 75-plus recipes inspired by the Great Migration of African American families from the South to California. Organized by season, it’s filled with enticing dishes. We’ve tested two so far, with great results: Shaved Brussels Sprouts Salad with Warm Bacon Dressing, and Braised Chicken Thighs with Barbecued White Beans and Scallions. They’re both listed in the “Fall” chapter, but delectable all year long. I really love the barbecue beans with the chicken.

Tanya Holland’s California Soul: Recipes from a Culinary Journey West by Tanya Holland, ten speed press, $35

Gâteau: The Surprising Simplicity of French Cakes

Know anyone who likes cakes but doesn’t want to fuss over them? This book from longtime Wall Street Journal columnist (and James Beard M.F.K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award recipient) Aleksandra Crapanzano is for them. Take a Gâteau Simple aux Noix — Simple Walnut Cake — for instance. Writes Crapanzano in the headnote: “Easily put together in ten minutes with nothing but pantry staples, it is one of those recipes that will save you a hundred times over.” Sold, right?! It took me a few more minutes than 10, but not many — and the cake’s a keeper. Meanwhile, here’s a recipe for a simple and delicious chestnut cake, which is perfect for the season. I’m also excited about a chapter on “Les Cakes Salés” — the savory cakes that are so chic in France these days.

Recipes include not one but six bûches de Noël (yule logs), and one Galette des Rois. Delightfully illustrated by Cassandra Montoriol.

Gâteau: The Surprising Simplicity of French Cakes, by Aleksandra Crapanzo, illustrations by cassandra montoriol, scribner, $30.

Budmo!

Subtitled “Recipes from a Ukrainian Kitchen,” the debut cookbook from San Francisco-based chef, blogger and cooking instructor Anna Voloshyna is a winner. We reviewed it in October.

BUDMO!: RECIPES FROM A UKRAINIAN KITCHEN, BY ANNA VOLOSHYNA. RIZZOLI, $39.95.

Mi Cocina: Recipes and Rapture from My Kitchen in Mexico

Here’s another one I haven’t yet cooked from but can’t wait to dive into. Seeking to explore his Mexican roots, Austin, Texas-born author Rick Martínez flew to Mexico City in 2019, bought a car and ate his way through the country — visiting all 32 states and 156 cities. He asked every cook he met which of their own dishes they like best; his interpretation of 100 of them comprise the book. Martínez found himself along the way, and wound up buying a house in Mazatlán, which is where he now lives. All the food looks wonderful, and the writing is terrific. He’s host of the YouTube series Purébalo and the Food52 video series Sweet Heat, and co-hosts the Borderline Salty podcast.

Mi Cocina: Recipes and Rapture from My Kitchen in Mexico, by Rick Martínez, Photographs by Ren Fuller, Clarkson Potter, $35.

Via Carota

This book is so deliciously inspiring, we named it Cooks Without Borders 2022 Cookbook of the Year.

VIA CAROTA: A CELEBRATION OF SEASONAL COOKING FROM THE BELOVED GREENWICH VILLAGE RESTAURANT, BY JODY WILLIAMS AND RITA SODI WITH ANNA KOVEL, PHOTOGRAPHS BY GENTLY & HYERS, ALFRED A. KNOPF, $40.

My America: Recipes from a Young Black Chef

“When a dish tells a story, it has a soul,” writes Kwame Onwuachi in the dedication (to his mother) of his second book; his first was the acclaimed memoir Notes from a Young Black Chef. The dishes in My America — inspired by the African diaspora and Onwauachi’s slice of it — look not just soulful, but insanely delicious. Raised in New York City, Onwauachi has lived in Nigeria, Louisiana and Washington, D.C. The San Francisco Chronicle called him “the most important chef in America,” he was a Food & Wine Best New Chef and a James Beard Rising Star Chef of the Year. I’m dreaming of being snowed in with a full pantry to start exploring this one.

My America: Recipes from a Young Black Chef, by Kwame Onwuachi with Joshua David Stein, photographs by Clay Williams, Knopf, $35.

Kolkata: Recipes from the Heart of Bengal

Send Indian food-loving cooks on your list on a delicious journey to Kolkata — the city that was known under colonial rule as Calcutta — with Rinku Dutt’s enchanting debut book. We reviewed it in October.

KOLKATA: RECIPES FROM THE HEART OF BENGAL, BY RINKU DUTT, PHOTOGRAPHS BY STEVEN JOYCE; 2022, SMITH STREET BOOKS, $35.

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'Via Carota' is Cooks Without Borders’ Cookbook of the Year

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By Leslie Brenner

Via Carota: A Celebration of Seasonal Cooking from the Beloved Greenwich Village Restaurant, by Jody Williams and Rita Sodi with Anna Kovel, photographs by Gently & Hyers, Alfred A. Knopf, $40.

For those of us who love to devour new cookbooks, it has been a truly outstanding year. Exciting titles published this fall include Masa, Budmo! and Kolkata, and we have reviews of many more exceptional volumes planned for the coming weeks.

Now, after poring through dozens of titles over the course of the year and cooking from loads of them, a clear favorite has emerged: Via Carota: A Celebration of Seasonal Cooking from the Beloved Greenwich Village Restaurant.

If you’re not familiar with Via Carota, it’s the New York City restaurant Jody Miller and Rita Sodi opened in 2014 — the one the New Yorker called, four years later, “New York’s most perfect restaurant.” People who don’t live in New York, or who don’t follow such things but love to cook, might know Via Carota by its famous green salad — you know, the one The New York Times Magazine called “The Best Green Salad in the World.”

Yep, there’s just something magical and irresistible about the place, its food and its vibe — hence the generous side order of superlatives.

Yet Via Carota is anything but snazzy or flashy; in other words, not the type of place that would seem to inspire hyperbole. It’s laid-back, casual and quietly delicious — self-assured in its seasonal, produce-driven, understated way.

We’ll need to wait till spring to try the first recipe in ‘Via Carota’: Bacelli e Pecorino.

That appealing aesthetic is expressed brilliantly in Miller and Sodi’s book (the partners are co-chefs and co-owners). Flip through its pages and it is impossible not to get drawn in by its lovely images and glorious-sounding dishes. They’re beautifully photographed (by Gentl & Hyers), but as much as anything, it’s their simplicity and harmony that make it all so enticing.

It’s all right there in the first recipe: Baccelli e Pecorino — Young Favas, Radishes, and Fresh Pecorino. The lead-off for the “Spring” chapter, it’s an effortless toss of sliced spring onions, fresh favas, basil, mint, radish slices and crumbled pecorino Romano, dressed with lemon juice and olive oil. Think you don’t need a recipe for that? Maybe you don’t. But Williams and Sodi’s attention to detail and proportions are what make these simple dishes great, so I’ll follow it to the letter the first time I make it, come spring.

The book has a way of making you slow down and take pleasure in the process of creating beautiful, delicious food. Sodi grew up near Florence, in Barberino di Mugello, and Williams learned to cook working at a celebrated cafe in Emilia-Romagna. They met in the West Village, where Sodi had her restaurant I Sodi, and Williams had a French place, Buvette; they loved spending time together at Sodi’s home in a restored 17th-century stone villa on Via del Carota. They both were so busy running their respective New York restaurants (and Williams had just opened a second Buvette, in Paris) that they had less time to spend in Italy, Sodi sold the villa, and they leased a space on Grove Street to open something together, not knowing what it would be.

“We did not know what to expect of our collaboration,” writes Sodi in the introduction. “We had no name or specific plans — we only had our time in Italy. We knew we wanted to recreate our experience there, the place we loved most with the food we relished most. If we were lucky, it could be a place full of life where people would feel welcome and nourished.”

Of course it became Via Carota. And of course the famous Insalata Verde — which nearly every table orders — is in the book, along with advice about “taking good care of your leaves,” and permission to eat the salad with your hands.

Via Carota’s pages are jammed with enticing recipes. Stracci — big, floppy squares of handmade pasta dressed in a Pesto di Fave (fava pesto). Garlic Scapes with Lima Beans. Braised Lamb Shoulder with Lemon Zest, green olives and capers. Lasagna Cacio e Pepe. Smashed Figs with Sesame and Honey, which also has a little aged balsamic vinegar. Here’s all there is to that one: “Slice the figs in half or tear them with your hands. Arrange them on plates and smash the interiors lightly with a fork. Drizzle with honey and balsamic vinegar. Lightly toast the sesame seeds in a dry skillet over medium heat, shaking the pan until they’re aromatic, about 2 minutes. Sprinkle the seeds over the figs.” How inspiring is that?

After plastering the book with Post-its marking my need-to-makes, I dove in and made one just right for the current season: Insalata di Cavoletti — Brussels Sprouts Salad with Walnuts and Apples.

Williams and Sodi have you massage the Brussels sprouts leaves with Via Carota Vinagrette (secret ingredient: water). Then add apple matchsticks, toasted walnuts, crumbled aged cheese and orange zest, and toss again. Let the salad “settle” for 10 minutes (how nice to have one that doesn’t have to get right to the table!), then top with more apple matchsticks and pomegranate seeds. Sure, it’s a bit time-consuming removing the leaves from the Brussels Sprouts, but the salad is so good, I’ll do it again a hundred times.

RECIPE: Via Carota Insalata di Cavoletti (Brussels Sprouts Salad)

Laced throughout Via Carota are interesting side notes about ingredients, scenes from the authors’ Italian days and nuggets of kitchen wisdom. For instance, I never quite know how to handle spring onions (not scallions, but the ones with the enlarged white bulbs). Williams and Sodi have you soak slices of them in water for a minute or two, to take away their edge — same thing they do with minced shallot, in their vinaigrette. (Water is an important ingredient at Via Carota — a couple teaspoons of it balance the vinaigrette.) A quick two-paragraph footnote offers a career’s-worth of actionable info about the joys of pecorino cheese, followed by the best thing I’ve ever read about how to choose, cook and peel favas. Later, we’re advised to collect Pecorino Romano or parmigiano rinds and make stock with them — which we can use to make a peppery besciamella (bechamel) with the flavors of cacio e pepe.

This book will make just about anyone a better cook; it’s the opposite of the kind of chef books that blithely assume we home cooks have access to 9,000 special ingredients and a walk-in full of advance preps.

Heartwarming in Cold Weather

Lenticchie con Cavolo Nero — Braised Lentils and Kale — is about as demanding as it gets in that regard. It calls for either black Umbrian or French green lentils, Tuscan kale (also known as lacinato or dinosaur kale) and either pancetta or guanciale, plus onion, carrot, garlic and sage. It’s a breeze to put together, and soul-satisfying this time of year. It’s in the “Autumn” chapter, but I’ll be making it all through the winter. I just bought a hunk of pancetta, sliced it and froze it; I always keep lentils and aromatics on hand, so kale will be the only necessary purchase whenever I want to simmer up a pot.

Naturally I had to try one of the handmade pastas in the book, so I went for a shape I’d never made: pici, which are hand-rolled thick spaghetti. Made from semolina and 00 flour, with no eggs, pici are traditional in the Tuscan province of Siena, where they’re commonly served with ragù of duck or boar, or with mushrooms.

The pasta dough came together easily, and Williams and Sodi’s instructions for rolling them with your fingers and palms into long, uneven snakes (like Play-Doh!) were simple to follow. In fact I was surprised at how easy they were to achieve, and it didn’t take as long as I’d expected. Making them was delightfully contemplative. It invited taking pleasure in the process; it would also be a lot of fun to do with kids of just about any age.

And they were insanely good, with fabulous texture. Delicious with the extremely rich duck ragù.

Pici — Hand-Rolled Thick Spaghetti — ready to be cooked. They’re meant to be imperfect.

RECIPE: Via Carota Pici all’Anatra (Hand-Rolled Spaghetti with Duck Ragù)

A few wee glitches

Wonderful as it is — and I highly recommend buying a copy not just for yourself, but for every Italophile cook on your holiday list — the perfect restaurant’s cookbook isn’t perfect. There was too much ragù, for instance, for the 14 ounces of pici the pasta recipe yields. (We adjusted, so our adapted recipe makes more pasta — perfect for the amount of sauce.) And a recipe for a gorgeous Crosta di Mandorle — Almond Tart — has you roll out a 10-inch circle of dough that is not large enough to go up the 1-inch sides of the 9-inch tart pan it calls for. I rolled it out as thin as I could, but it fell apart, and I wound up pressing it into the pan, without a millimeter to spare. I baked it till the almonds were golden-brown, as instructed, but the filling wasn’t quite cooked through — which I didn’t learn till I served it.

But the wee glitches were far outnumber by the wild successes — like this Torta al Cioccolata, which might well be the best flourless chocolate cake I’ve ever made. It’s puffed when it comes out of the oven, and then it collapses (it’s supposed to), and the top forms a kind of crackly crust that contrasts wonderfully with the soft interior.

RECIPE: Torta al Cioccolata

For people who love to spend time playing with gorgeous produce, communing with pasta dough or meditatively simmering, Via Carota is a true gift — one that’s sure to inspire endless pleasurable time in kitchen and at table. As my grandma — who taught me to bake and to love literature — used to tell me, I envy you the pleasure of reading it for the first time.

We’re excited to dub it Cooks Without Borders’ first-ever Cookbook of the Year.

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Greatest vegetable rehabilitation ever: Brussels sprouts' 23-year rise to culinary power

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By Leslie Brenner

[Updated Dec. 22, 2022]

“Brussels sprouts are never going to win any popularity contests.”

That was the dire prediction, printed in The Los Angeles Times in 1999, of its then-Food Editor, Russ Parsons. If you happen to be a Gen Zer, it may shock you to learn that Brussels sprouts were not always the most glamorous members of the vegetable kingdom. Parsons continued:

“They’re the weak member of the vegetable pack, the one everyone likes to pick on. Brussels sprouts are weird-looking, like miniature cabbages. Maybe that’s why they’re usually shoved away in some dark corner of the produce market. Unlike broccoli, which is also weird-looking but seems to be in your face every time you turn around, they’ll never gain acceptance merely through familiarity.”

Two decades later, Brussels sprouts — those ping-pong-ball-sized upstarts of the Brassica oleracea family — are the darlings of, well, just about every omnivore in America. They’re so popular and menu-ubiquitous that no one under a certain age would probably even wonder whether they were ever not a thing.

What’s the explanation for the once lowly vegetable’s meteoric rise?

Most brassica-watchers would point to David Chang, the chef who founded the Momofuku empire that began in New York City in 2004 with the opening of the first Momofuku Noodle Bar. On its menu were Brussels sprouts that Chang pan-roasted with bacon then tossed with puréed kimchi. “Every single table ordered them,” he told GQ magazine in 2009. “It was ridiculous.”

“Cook the shit out of them; just don’t turn them to charcoal.”

He also told the magazine the secret to making them not just palatable, but crave-able: “Cook the shit out of them; just don’t turn them to charcoal.”

Brussels sprouts also made a splash, in a different form, a few years later at his second place, Momofuku Saam Bar. There they were fried and tossed with pickled Thai and Korean chiles, fish sauce, garlic and mint, and topped with fried Rice Krispies. Recipes for both were included in Chang and Peter Meehan’s Momofuku: A Cookbook, published in 2009.

Three years later, Brussels sprouts’ rise to culinary glory was achieved; in fact, it looked like a revolution. “Brussels sprouts’ transformation from maligned cafeteria gross-out fare to foodie luminary is complete,” is the way a Slate article by L.V. Anderson put it in 2012. “Trendy New York restaurants gussy them up with pig fat and sell them by the tiny $8 plateful; David Chang’s Brussels sprouts at New York’s Momofuku were so popular he had to take them off the menu for his cooks’ well-being.”

I remember the moment well: I had moved from Los Angeles, where we’d been enjoying Brussels sprouts for years, to Dallas, where they were just then hitting every restaurant in town — usually roasted with a dose of sugar and a good deal of bacon.

Though Chang certainly did more than anyone to popularize the B-sprout, by no means was he the first to fall in love with them.

From Brussels and Burgundy to Birds Eye and bistros: a quickie B-sprout history

According to the late British cookbook author and food historian Jane Grigson, who wrote more than anything else I could turn up about the history of Brussels sprouts, the vegetable’s past is somewhat mysterious. “It seems they were being grown around Brussels in the Middle Ages; market regulations of 1213 mention them,” she wrote in Jane Grigson’s Vegetable Book, published in 1978. She continued:

“They were ordered for two wedding feasts of the Burgundian court at Lille in the 15th century . . . . Then silence. They do not seem to have caught on in Burgundy . . . Nor did they appear in French and English gardens until the end of the 18th century.”

Across the pond in America, Thomas Jefferson planted them in his garden at Monticello in 1812.

In the intervening century and a half, not much to report. When I was growing up in the 1960s and 70s in Southern California, Brussels sprouts made frequent appearances on our dinner table, having been pulled from a Birds Eye box in the freezer and boiled whole. Most people I knew did not enjoy them; I was an outlier, who loved their little tiny-cabbage-ness.

My husband Thierry tells me they were not so reviled and stigmatized when he was a child in France. Perhaps they were treated with more care there. A spin through Julia Child’s 1961 classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume I, offers no fewer than eight recipes: braised in butter; braised with chestnuts; browned with cheese; chopped, with cream; creamed; custard mold; and gratinéed with cheese sauce. Volume II, published nine years later, didn’t include a single B-sprout recipe.

They certainly were popular in England. “The great success of Brussels sprouts in this country has been in modern times,” wrote Grigson. “We serve them now with beef, game, poultry, and especially with the Christmas turkey, when they are often embellished with chestnuts. She went on to offer nine ways to cook them.

Could they have been a thing early on at Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse, which opened in Berkeley, California, in 1971? They make no appearance in the Chez Panisse Menu Cookbook, published in 1982 (the Washington Post, incidentally, has called it one of the earliest restaurant cookbooks). There is, however, a fabulous recipe in the book that followed eight years later — Chez Panisse Cooking. In fact it’s the recipe that made me fall hard for the vegetable: Brussels Sprouts Leaves Cooked with Bacon and Mirepoix. Yes, bacon!

Brussels Sprouts Cooked with Bacon and Mirepoix, prepared from a recipe in ‘Chez Panisse Cooking’

That recipe has been a fixture on my Thanksgiving table every year since.

The bacon in the light and elegant Chez Panisse dish comes in the form of pancetta, which gets diced and sweated with the mirepoix (diced carrot, onion and celery) before adding Brussels sprouts leaves which get sort of steamed; a hit of white wine vinegar at the end gives beautiful balance.

A pre-Chang boost

Russ Parsons — the California cook who doubted their popularity potential — was actually an influential Brussels sprouts cheerleader a few years before Momofuku’s Chang started charring them and umamifying the bejeezus out of them. Parsons gave his legions of L.A. readers a full chemical explanation for why the hapless veg fell into such disrepute: People overcooked them, producing hydrogen sulfide — a sulfurous stink, and they turned a sickly color thanks to a transformation of their chlorophyll. “To get around it,” he suggested, “try treating Brussels sprouts with the respect they deserve. It takes a little more care in preparation and a little more attention to detail, but the payoff will be amazing. . . . "

Following instructions on how to prep and steam or blanch them, he added:

“What you do with them after that is up to you, of course. They’re delicious simply dressed with olive oil and a little chopped garlic. But they also are assertive enough to hold their own in the company of more emphatic flavors. I really like to pair Brussels sprouts with smoky things like bacon. And when you’re using bacon, it’s usually a good idea to add something sharp, like vinegar, to cut the fat.

Look at it as making a he-man out of a scorned vegetable. Call it the Brussels sprout make-over.”

Bacon and acid: That’s the Momofuku B-sprout blueprint right there. The fact that Chang pushed everything so far — the char, the bacon, the exuberant flavors of chiles and fish sauce — made his two dishes prime for borrowing by chefs all around the country. And there you have it: the cementing of Brussels Sprouts primacy.

Ottolenghi: a bit late to the sprout

Surprisingly, London’s superstar vegetable-loving chef and world-dominating cookbook author Yotam Ottolenghi was somewhat late to the Brussels sprout game, which is odd considering the brassica’s longtime popularity in Britain. There’s not a single B-sprout recipe in Ottolenghi’s first, second or third books (published in 2008, 2010 and 2012). Finally, in Plenty More (2014), he offers instructions for Brussels Sprouts Risotto; Brussels Sprouts with Caramelized Garlic and Lemon Peel; and Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Pomelo and Star Anise.

I went wild for the Brussels Sprouts with Browned Butter and Black Garlic in his 2018 book Ottolenghi Simple, largely thanks to the black garlic’s serious umami and the creamy earthiness of tahini, all balanced by zingy lemon and herbs. So have our readers: Our adaptation was Cooks Without Borders’ fourth-most clicked on recipe in the last year.

Insalata di Cavotelli (Brussels sprouts salad) prepared from a recipe in the new cookbook from Via Carota

Now trending: B-sprouts salads

This season, Brussels sprouts are trending raw: They’re featured in two of this fall’s most exciting new cookbooks. The first, shown above, is from Via Carota — the new volume from Jody Williams and Rita Sodi’s beloved New York City restaurant, which is Cooks Without Borders first-ever Cookbook of the Year. Tossed with Via Carota’s signature dressing, plus julienned apple, pomegranate seeds and crumbly aged cheese, it’s spectacular.

The second is from Tanya Holland’s California Soul, in which the star of “Tanya’s Kitchen Table” on the Oprah Winfrey Network presents a recipe for Shaved Brussels Sprouts Salad with Warm Bacon Dressing. (I know, right?!) It’s one of our Best New Cookbooks of 2022.

And finally, here is a super-easy roasted number studded with pancetta. No thin-slicing or leaf removal necessary!

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Thanksgiving finger foods: 10 recipes for light and lovely pre-feast nibbles

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By Leslie Brenner

Let’s face it: You kind of have to have them, even if you know you shouldn’t eat them.

They’re the nibbles that inevitably kick off a Thanksgiving feast. Best to keep them light and fresh.

When I was growing up, my mom — whose late November birthday meant she ruled the holiday — believed no such thing. Every year she started the festivities with a platter heaped high with her famous chopped liver. Yep — the craziest thing you could possibly lead with, as it’s so rich and heavy. And yet we could never resist, helping ourselves to saltine after saltine heaped with the treat.

It’s the only part of our family tradition that I don’t follow when I host. Instead, I go full-on fresh with crudités — a huge platter of endive leaves, celery, carrot sticks, radishes, cauliflower florets and the like, usually with Red Pepper-Harissa Dip. From the crudités that don’t get eaten, I fashion a relish tray — always a Thanksgiving table fixture in our family. (For that I add giant black ceregnola olives and scallions with ice-water-curled greens, in honor of my mom, who had a special tool to fringe their ends.)

Please help yourself to my dip recipe — along with all the other light nibbles that follow. Although you want your crudités pretty freshly cut, the dip and everything else can be made well ahead.

Red Pepper-Harissa Dip

Smoked Trout ‘Rillettes’

Smoked Trout ‘Rillettes’ make a fine nibble as well — especially served with endive leaves to scoop it onto. It’s super easy to put together — just smash up a smoked trout fillet with a fork or your fingers, stir in crème fraîche or sour cream, season with grated lemon zest and fresh herbs, if you like, and there you go. It’s also really good smeared onto rounds of toasted baguette (but that’s for another day — too filling on T-Day!).

Pickled Veg: Choose Your Favor Profile

Pickled vegetables also work well — they’re great for waking up the palate and even making celebrants more hungry. You could skew them Italian-American, by making a bright and herbal giardiniera (we love the one shown marinating in the center above, from Alex Guarnaschelli’s book Cook With Me). Or put out some Mexican zanahorias escabeches, which we call Taquería Carrots. Or some Levantine quick pickles with turmeric and fenugreek, made with cauliflower and carrots.

Or hey — how about Spicy Pickled Okra? The recipe we adapted from Sweet Home Cafe Cookbook may be the best we ever tasted: crispy and tangy, snappy and spicy. In other words, perfect for this occasion. (Sweet Home Cafe is the restaurant in the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.) Okra is in season until the first frost, so Thanksgiving usually comes in just under the wire — a season’s last chance to celebrate it.

Chilled Shrimp — Pickled or Not

Nothing says “special occasion” like a display of chilled shrimp, and nothing’s more American. We love the pickled shrimp shown above, from Toni Tipton-Martin’s award-winning cookbook, Jubilee.

Alternatively, boil up some shrimp — the best you can find, preferable wild-caught from the Gulf — the day before the holiday. Of course you could serve them with cocktail sauce for dipping. Even more fun is Remoulade Sauce, the mustardy, mayo-y sauce from Louisiana, tangy with cornichons and capers. Making it a day ahead gives the flavors a chance to meld.

Mikie’s Marinated Olives

If you can get a nice assortment of olives, my friend Michalene’s marinade is a beautiful way to jazz them up. The combination of orange rind, fennel seeds, garlic, thyme and bay leaf really sings this time of year.

‘Wine Style’ Marinated Mushrooms

And finally, I love these marinated mushrooms from Wine Style, Kate Leahy’s wonderful guide to laid-back entertaining. You can make them a day or two in advance, store them covered in the fridge, and bring them to room-temperature before putting them out on the big day.

RECIPE: ‘Wine Style’ Marinated Mushrooms

Happy cooking, and best wishes for a marvelousThanksgiving!

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Easy, fabulous and just a little boozy: Say 'bonjour' to Apple Calvados Cake

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By Leslie Brenner

If you’ve got a few apples, a springform pan and a splash of brown liquor, have we got a cake for you.

Easygoing and pretty much foolproof, this spirited apple cake is majestic enough to impress celebrants around a dinner table, casual enough to nibble with a cup of coffee on a rainy afternoon, and laid-back-festive enough to feature at brunch.

One very much like it first grabbed my attention when Dorie Greenspan published her wonderful book Around My French Table more than a decade ago. In it, I found a dessert called Marie-Hélène’s Apple Cake, which Greenspan described as “more apple than cake.” Ah, oui!

Over the years, I’ve played with it — first swapping out half of the all-purpose flour for whole wheat flour, and then getting rid of both and using spelt flour instead, for maximum ancient-grain goodness. Then I switched Greenspan’s dark rum for Calvados — France’s famous apple brandy. Wowie kazowie! That double-apple thing is spectacular. Apple jack works just as well.

Don’t have apple brandy? And kind of brandy — Cognac, Armagnac, Spanish Brandy de Jerez, whatever you’ve got will be great. Or use whiskey, such as bourbon or rye.

It’s all good. So is the apple situation: Grab four apples, whatever kind you happen to have, including mix-and-match. Cut them into big chunks, and fold them into a quickly whisked batter that doesn’t even require you to plug in a mixer.

Baked up, the apples melt into softness, gently cloaked in cake. It’s so nice that all through fall and into winter, I try always to have apples on hand in case the mood strikes. Thank you, Dorie — and Marie-Hélène, whoever you are.

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'Masa' is a must-have cookbook for Mexican cooking aficionados and aspirants

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By Leslie Brenner

Masa: Techniques, Recipes, and Reflections on a Timeless Staple, by Jorge Gaviria; photographs by Graydon Herriott, Chronicle Books, $35.

For those of us who are passionate about Mexican cooking — whether we are practicing it ourselves or enjoying the creations of chefs and other cooks — the ground has shifted in a very exciting way in the last couple of years. The appearance of heirloom corn, in the form of dried heirloom maíz (field corn kernels) for chefs, and heirloom masa harina (just-add-water masa dough flour) for home cooks, has changed everything.

The seismic shift was fomented and forged in large part by a behind-the-scenes hero: Jorge Gaviria. Now the Miami-born chef and entrepreneur has written a book about it all — Masa: Techniques, Recipes, and Reflections on a Timeless Staple. Though the book is primarily directed at chefs, there’s also plenty in it that will captivate home cooks who are serious about Mexican cooking.

WATCH: “Masa and Heirloom Corn Culture with Olivia Lopez and Jorge Gaviria”

READ: “Next-wave masa: A forward-looking purveyor and passionate chefs bring heirloom corn from Mexico to their table and yours”

Masa is an important, encyclopedic work that provides a fascinating, complete history of masa, from its Mesoamerican roots all the way up to the present — what Gaviria refers to as the “third wave masa movement.” It’s a great foundation for understanding the basis and evolution of Mexican cooking.

Gaviria’s obsession with masa began in 2013, when he became entranced with the heirloom seed movement during an apprenticeship at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, Dan Barber’s famed upstate New York restaurant. That led him to focus on heirloom corn and travel to Oaxaca. Building on Sin Maíz No Hay País (Without Corn There Is No Country, a grass-roots corn culture movement that had been established in Mexico six years earlier), Gaviria went on to create Masienda— a Los Angeles-based company devoted to heirloom maíz from Mexico. Masienda imports the dried heirloom kernels from small farms in Mexico and sells them to the chefs around the U.S. who nixtamalize it (simmering it with culinary lime) then grind them to make masa.

The resulting heirloom-corn masa is far more flavorful and aromatic — and much better for Indigenous farming communities and the earth — than masa made from the genetically modified commodity corn that during the previous century was the only game around. Fans of groundbreaking Mexican restaurants such as Enrique Olvera’s Cosme in New York and Carlos Salgado’s Taco María in Southern California (among others) have been treated to dishes fashioned from heirloom masa in the years since.

Tetelas made from blue, yellow and red heirloom masa harina

In 2019, Gaviria created and began marketing a game-changing piece of equipment: the Molinito. A miniature version of the mammoth industrial molinos (mills) used to grind masa in restaurants (and the freestanding masa shop/tortillerías all around Mexico), the Molinito suddenly made grinding masa much more accessible to independent start-up chefs and food entrepreneurs stateside without deep pockets or huge kitchens. That helped spark a nationwide heirloom masa movement of pop-ups and small kitchens that includes Brooklyn’s For All Things Good, the California Bay Area’s Bolito, Nashville’s Alebrije, Las Vegas’ Masazul, Houston’s Tatemó and Austin’s Nixta Taquería — whose chef Edgar Rico earned the James Beard Award this year for Emerging Chef. And of course Dallas’ Molino Olōyō, whose chef and co-owner Olivia Lopez is Cooks Without Borders’ Mexican Cuisine Expert.

For home cooks, Gaviria and Masienda also introduced an exciting innovation: masa harina made from the new/old heirloom-corn masa. In the past, the only widely available masa harina was made from that awful GMO commodity corn, whether the Maseca brand (developed and first marketed in 1949 in Nuevo Leon, Mexico) or other brands that came later.

Red, white and blue heirloom-corn masa harina from Masienda

How the book works

The first third of Masa consists mostly of a lengthy section, primarily directed to chefs, explaining how to make nixtamal, how to operate and maintain a molino or Molinito and how to grind masa.

Next comes “Contextualizing Masa.” Here we learn how to press and cook a tortilla, the starting point for many of the shapes that follow. Gaviria explains how to get “puff” — the sought-after effect when a perfectly made tortilla fills with air after being flipped on the comal (griddle). “The puff is to tortilla making what the crumb is to bread baking,” writes Gaviria.

A tortilla made using blue and yellow heirloom masa harina puffs on the comal.

A compendium of masa shapes

The heart of the book is a valuable guide to making 28 masa “shapes” — alphabetized from arepas to chochoyotes, memelas, quesadillas, tamales, tetelas and tlayudos. The shapes originate not only from Mexico; they also come from Central America, South America and even the United States (puffy taco!). For all of them, you can use masa made from masa harina (as well as fresh masa made from nixtamal).

Home cooks will need to be self-directed, figuring out fillings and toppings on their own; recipes for those aren’t included in the book. The 3-page entry on Tlacoyo, for instance, describes “A football-shaped or oval masa pocked, commonly filled with puréed beans, favas, or other pulses and topped with cheese, crema, salsa, and/or onions with cilantro . . . “ (You can find complete recipes, along with salsas and fillings, in Cooks Without Borders Mexican Cuisine Guide, and in other cookbooks.)

What we are given are tlacoyo’s roots (Mexico — Estado de México, Hidalgo, Pueblo); the format (“stuffer and topper”) and cooking method (“comal or fried”). Next comes practical information about mixing fat into the masa if you intend to freeze the tlacoyos, and then written instructions on shaping, filling and cooking the tlacoyo. Step-by-step photos (by Graydon Herriott) are excellent visual aids.

Ten chef recipes

The final short section, “Modern Masa Explorations,” is where you find the book’s only conventionally formatted (headnote, ingredient list, detailed instructions) recipes — 10 cross-cultural recipes from chefs. Among them are Blue Masa Sourdough Bread from Philippine-born Karlo Evaristo; Lamb Birria with Masa Gnocchi from Gerardo Gonzalez (Lalo, New York City); Shrimp and Masa Grits from Sean Brock (McCrady’s, Charleston, SC); and Masa Samosas from Saw Naing (Tallula’s, Santa Monica, CA).

The one I tested — White Chocolate Chip Cookies — came from Jess Stephens, who worked in the pastry program at Empellón in New York City.

Buttery and irresistible, with a bit of masa harina incorporated into the dough, they begin with white chocolate chips that are caramelized and melted in the oven, then hardened and broken into chunks — resulting in a flavor is so much more interesting than plain white chocolate.

Gaviria tells me he has begun work on developing a second book, one geared more directly for home cooks — which is great news.

Until then, his outstanding debut effort — which I highly recommend — gives us plenty to chew on.

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Sweet potatoes are here! Don't wait till Thanksgiving to celebrate one of earth's perfect foods

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By Leslie Brenner

There’s nothing like a sweet potato, hot from the oven, simply roasted till it’s super tender and caramelized syrup oozes out of its orangey-purple skin. Slice it open, push the ends together to reveal the gorgeous, meltingly soft flesh, and send in your spoon. What a treat, that custardy bite: It’s luscious and rich, autumnal sweet chased by an earthy, mineral tang.

How many other plant-foods can you think of that are delicious and satisfying enough to be an entire meal with no added ingredients? Beans and lentils could almost be that, but impossible to enjoy them without salt. A perfectly roasted sweet potato needs no such seasoning.

Naturally, sweet potatoes are also spectacular dressed up — as in the gratin with sage-butter and thyme I love to serve for Thanksgiving.

But I’m not waiting till the holiday to indulge in sweet potatoes: This weekend I’ll roast a few of them, dress them up (or not). and swoon. From now till my favorite food holiday, there are all kinds of ways to enjoy them.

Slather with miso butter and layer on sliced scallions and furikake (Japanese seasoning mix), for something transportingly delicious. One of my very favorite autumn dishes, it makes a dreamy (meatless) dinner, either on its own, preceded by a salad or followed by a soup, or some braised lentils, creamy white beans or soupy mayocoba beans.

Miso butter, if you’re not familiar with it, is a brilliant invention: Just combine softened unsalted butter and miso in equal amounts. (White miso is ideal, but any kind will be good.) Slit open the sweet potato, and slather it on. It’s delicious just like that, or you could grind on some black pepper. Or dress it up as in this photo (and recipe).

A sparkling autumn salad

Sweet potatoes are also marvelous in a fall salad, playing off another favorite autumn ingredient: pomegranate. The gem-like, tangy juicy seeds commune gorgeously with the creamy richness of the sweet potato; baby kale provides the perfect deep-flavored, earthy base and and toasted pecans add crunch. Again, great with just a soup to precede or follow it. (Roasted black bean!)

Slice and layer in a gratin

When Thanksgiving rolls around, I always make one of two sweet-potato gratins. The first was dreamed up by food writer Regina Schrambling, a frequent collaborator when I was Food Editor at The Los Angeles Times many years ago. Unlike those candied gratins so popular at holiday time, this one is savory — enriched with cream and butter and heightened with lots of fresh thyme.

The second savory gratin turns Regina’s version on its side — stacking the slices upright in the baking dish — and adds the classic Italian combination of brown butter and sage. It’s kind of outrageous.

RECIPE: Sweet Potato Gratin with Sage-Butter

Choose your sweet potato

Wondering what type of sweet potato to start with?

For any of these dishes (and any other I might think of), I always choose the garnet variety: Garnet sweet potatoes are exceedingly moist and sweet, not as starchy as some other varieties, and their flesh stays a saturated orange color when cooked. You’ll recognize them by their dark, purply skins. In fact, I love this variety so much I never buy any other.

Can’t commit to one of these iterations? Just go ahead and roast one plain. No recipe necessary — scrub the skin (you’ll definitely want to eat it), poke the tines of a fork in it in seven or eight places to create vents, so it doesn’t steam inside, lay it on a small baking dish or quarter-sheet pan lined with parchment and roast at 400 degrees till it’s very soft and oozing dark syrup. How long depends on the thickness of the sweet potato; a medium-sized one that’s more long and slim than fat and squat might take 45 or 50 minutes; thicker ones can take more than an hour.

Eat it piping hot, with nothing on it. Incredible how good it is, right?

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Cookbooks We Love: 'Budmo!' deliciously captures the spirit of Ukraine (we laughed! we cried!)

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By Leslie Brenner

Budmo!: Recipes from a Ukrainian Kitchen, by Anna Voloshyna. Rizzoli, $39.95.

Here’s one to judge by its irresistible cover: Budmo!, a Ukrainian cookbook from San Francisco-based chef, blogger and cooking instructor Anna Voloshyna. With its borscht-pink rose motif, enticing assorted zakusky (cold apps) and built-in exclamation point, it promises — and delivers — an exuberant, delicious good time.

Why We Love It

Budmo! means “let us be!” — the Ukrainian equivalent of “cheers!” At this moment in history, that beet-pink exhortation speaks volumes. So much more than just a toast, it’s the spirit of Ukraine existentially defending itself against Russia. No way will we let you beat us; we’re Ukraine! Look at our fabulous, irrepressible, irresistible culture! Our food! Our drink! Our resolve! Budmo! Let us be!

Author Voloshyna was born and raised in a small town called Snihurivka in the southern part of the country, 120 miles from Odessa. Her introduction is a terrific mini-tour of “the breadbasket of Europe,” as the country is known. Its various regions are their own distinctive micro-cultures, from Western Ukraine (the Carpathian Mountain region that borders with Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Moldova) with its sheep’s milk cheese and Hutsul polenta, to the meat-potato-and-cabbage lands of central Ukraine, to the sour cream, dill and herring of Odessa.

Yet there’s plenty of overlap, and anyone of Eastern European ancestry will likely recognize touchstones.

My family has Ashkenazi Jewish roots in Western Ukraine on my dad’s side and Odessa on my mom’s side, and when I came upon Voloshyna’s recipes for chicken noodle soup, cold beet borscht, eggplant “caviar” and “Famous Odessa Forshmak” — a herring mousse served on toasted rye bread — I was quite literally brought to tears. I never knew exactly why my family ate these kinds of things when I was a child, and turning the pages of Budmo! for the first time was like a culinary coming home.

How About Those Recipes?

Never one to resist a Russian Potato Salad, I dove in with Voloshyna’s vegetarian version, an herbal, pickle-y regional spin. So good! Its elevated pickle level makes it highly crave-able.

I also had to try Georgian eggplant rolls, studded with pomegranate seeds, which are now in season. Filled with a paste made from walnuts and herbs and drizzled with pomegranate molasses, they were wonderful — and fun to make.

RECIPE: Anna Voloshyna’s Georgian Eggplant Rolls

Conveniently, both of the above recipes can be prepared in advance, making them ideal to bring to a potluck or serve at a holiday party.

Feasting Ukrainian-Style: Zakuska!

Or do as the Ukrainians do, and serve them as a zakuska. “All kinds of salads, spreads, cold cuts, cured meats, and fish are called a ‘zakuska,’ which simply means ‘appetizer,’” Voloshyna writes in a chapter devoted to them.

“Zakuska arrive at the beginning of the meal to arouse appetites and accompany first toasts. Some zakuska, especially various cold cuts and briny pickles, stay on the table throughout the whole meal for following every shot. Those small, flavorful bits are perfect for mellowing out fiery horilka (vodka) or other hard liquors. Don’t forget to say ‘Budmo!’ right before you drink your first shot.”

I adored another appetizer, that Famous Odessa Forshmak pickled herring spread — a herring-lover’s treat, for sure, fabulous with dark rye. Suddenly, those little jars of pickled herring perpetually in our fridge when I was a kid made sense: our roots in Odessa! But Southern Ukraine isn’t the only herring-loving place in the world; in France, marinated herring with boiled potatoes is a bistro classic, and in Sweden pickled herrings in myriad forms can be found on smorgasbord spreads. In Japan, herring roe (kazunoko) is a prized delicacy, and the forshmak’s assertive flavor would likely be appreciated by aficionados of hikarimono — the category of sushi known as “shiny silver fish,” which are often marinated.

Also, I love the name of the dish — say it out loud and you can’t help but feel Ukrainian: Famous Odessa Forshmak!

RECIPE: Famous Odessa Forshmak

Of course Budmo! is about much more than zakuska. There are wonderful-looking soups, including three borschts — a beautiful cold beet version for summer; a warm, mushroomy vegetarian one for winter and a green sorrel borscht for spring. There’s a chicken soup that looks like it might rival my mom’s, with the added advantage of hand-cut noodles. I also have my eye on a hearty chicken and vegetable soup with buckwheat dumplings that look suspiciously like matzoh balls.

There are enticing rye pelmeni filled with beef and pork and sauced with brown butter, spices and herbs; a recipe for crispy potato kremzykly (kremzykly is the Ukrainian word for latkes), and a really cool-looking set of garlicky yeasted rolls baked in a cast-iron skillet, called Garlic Pampushky. (A better name even than forshmak?!)

A Warming, Transporting Stew

The book’s homey, rustic main courses made long for the Ukranian grandparents I never knew. (My parents were both orphans, raised by aunts and uncles, with no great cooks among them that I found. For the record, my beloved great-aunt who raised my mom was a wonderful baker, not so hot as a cook.)

Don’t look for Chicken Kyiv (or even Chicken Kiev). Instead there’s a garlicky Georgian chicken in a pot; voluptuous cabbage rolls stuffed with barley and mushrooms; Voloshyna’s grandma’s roasted duck; pork shank braised with sauerkraut and beer; and one that I tried but wouldn’t make again — bell peppers filled with ground pork and rice (the recipe worked fine, but the dish was dull).

I did love a Crimean Beef Stew with Chickpeas. Voloshyna writes in the headnote that she had tried the dish many years ago in a small Tatar restaurant in Crimea, but after Russia annexed the country she was unable to return for the recipe, so she re-created the dish from memory. First it’ll fill your kitchen with enchanting aromas; and then it’s soul-satisfying to eat. It’s excellent served with buttery rice and topped with pickled red onions, as Voloshyna suggests, but honestly just as good without the pickled onions if you’d rather skip them.

RECIPE: ‘Budmo’ Crimean Beef Stew

In terms of sweets, there are baked apples filled with Tvorog cheese (you can sub French fromage blanc) plus raisins, pine nuts and cinnamon; vyshyvanka, or baked bars filled with plum or black-currant jam. Most exciting to me is a many-layered, dreamy-looking “Glorious Honey Cake,” the signature dessert at Voloshyna’s pop-ups.

I do need to note that inexperienced cooks may hit some snags with the recipes in Budmo!. Yields were sometimes wacky; if cooked exactly as printed, the forshmak and Russian potato salad recipes would each have served a small army, so I halved the ingredients for each in our adaptations. Instructions were sometimes unclear, as with the Georgian Eggplant Rolls, which, had I exactly followed the instructions would have made eight gigantic knife-and-fork rolls rather than a passel of hors d’oeuvre-sized ones as shown in the book’s photo. (Again, our adaptation corrects that.) And ingredients could be more precise: What does a “medium potato” weigh, and is it red, Idaho or Yukon gold? Perhaps One the book was rushed to press due to its newsworthiness, and didn’t benefit from as careful an edit as it deserved.

Still, the recipes themselves are solid and absolutely worthwhile, so hopefully Voloshyna will sell a jillion copies, and she can do a bit more hand-holding and recipe-zhuzzhing in a future edition.

I do hope that will be in the stars, because all in all, Budmo! is a wonderful book, delightfully animated by Voloshyna’s engaging voice and charming stories, and brought to life by her vivacious photos. Yes — save for the shots of herself cooking (nicely shot by Maria Boguslav), the author is also responsible for the appealing photography.

Clearly it was all a labor of love — from apples to zakusky.

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Celebrate World Butter Chicken Day with a sumptuous, authoritative version

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By Leslie Brenner

October 20 is one of our favorite food holidays of the year: World Butter Chicken Day.

Murgh Makhani, also known as “Butter Chicken,” is arguably the world’s most beloved Indian dish. It’s certainly one of our favorite dishes at Cooks Without Borders, and our recipe — developed and tweaked over a number of years — has a special story. It also has a stamp of approval from Monish Gujral, the Delhi-based chef and restaurateur whose grandfather created the dish 102 years ago.

What — an actual person created Butter Chicken?

That’s right. “Butter chicken was invented by Kundan Lal Gujral at Moti Mahal, which was established in 1920,” explains Monish Gujral, who today presides over what has become the Moti Mahal empire of some 250 restaurants around the world.

The first World Butter Chicken Day, in 2020, celebrated the centenary of the restaurant that birthed the dish.

Curious as it may sound, the idea for the food holiday came from Cooks Without Borders; we wrote about it that inaugural year in an article for The Dallas Morning News. Pranjali Bhonde wrote about it last year for Whetstone.

Read: “Celebrate World Butter Chicken Day with the real thing — made quicker, easier and lip-smackingly delicious”

Our Monish Gujral-approved version of the dish is a glorious way to celebrate — tonight, this weekend or anytime the craving strikes.

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Cookbooks We Love: The flavors of India's cultural capital shine in 'Kolkata'

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By Leslie Brenner

Kolkata: Recipes from the Heart of Bengal, by Rinku Dutt, photographs by Steven Joyce; 2022, Smith Street Books, $35.

We’ve fallen in love with ‘Kolkata’ — the debut cookbook from London food-truck proprietor Rinku Dutt — set to be published this week, on Tuesday, October 18.

Backgrounder

Author Dutt was born and raised in London, but her family is from Kolkata (the Indian city that was known under colonial rule as Calcutta), and has always maintained close ties. In the heart of West Bengal, Kolkata is considered the cultural capital of the country; it’s nicknamed “The City of Joy.” It was there that her great-grandfather founded a restaurant, Central Hotel, whose named changed after Independence to Amber. (It’s still open!) Dutt began her career in banking, and was also a classical Indian dancer. She later spent three years living in Kolkata, working in the fashion industry, diving deep into the food culture and falling even more in love with the city than she already was.

Returning to London in 2014, she founded the Bengali food truck and pop-up restaurant Raastawala with her father and brother, and contributed Indian recipes to several of the Leon cookbooks.

Why We Love ‘Kolkata’

Dutt paints a captivating picture of the city and its culture (aided by Steven Joyce’s evocative photographs), offering such a strong sense of it that invokes a sudden longing to get there. “The architecture may be damp and deteriorating,” she writes, “but it is all so vibrant with colour. The bells ringing in the temples, incense sticks burning, smelling the aromas of food being cooked in the houses as you walk by, the balconies, the crumbling paint, the rickshaws, autos and yellow taxis . . .”

Happily for those who mean to get there, Dutt provides (buried near the end of the book) a compelling list of restaurants to visit.

Meanwhile, Dutt does a wonderful job explaining how people within the culture eat — something that too few cookbooks achieve:

“Unlike many cuisines where a meal may be comprised of one or a few courses, in Bengali cuisine, all (and often that means many) dishes are served together, but their are eaten in very specific combinations, one after the other. A classic order (and one that we use at our family table when entertaining and when in Kolkata) starts the meal with rice, followed by a bitter (shukto or shaak) palate cleanser, then a dal (a lentil dish) with a bhaja (battered fried vegetables), then a vegetable dish, a fish dish and next a meat dish, with a chutney and a salad on the side.”

She adds that an everyday meal in most Bengali households consists of “rice, dal, a vegetable and either a meat or fish dish.” That’s a useful blueprint for how to use the book — for weeknight dinners, or for more elaborate entertaining.

Masoor Dal (Red Lentil Dal) from ‘Kolkata’

Dutt’s recipes, many gleaned from her grandmother and other family, are wonderful — particularly in the way they layer spices — and they’re simple enough to be do-able for home cooks. Many are prepared using a karai (or kadhai, an Indian pan with steep, sloped sides) or a wok. We tested them using a wok; a deep skillet with sloped sides would work just as well for those we tested.

A Delicious Place to Start

Kolkata is on the Hooghly River, just inland from the Bay of Bengal, and Dutt describes a food culture that reveres seafood, so we dove in with Shrimp with Poppy Seeds — Chingri Posto. A dish the author learned from her mother, who had fond memories of her own mother making it, it’s easy, memorable and delicious.

This Cauliflower Dry-Fry — Phulkopi Bhaja — is also excellent, and easily achieved, cloaked with nigella seeds, turmeric, a bit of dried red chile and chopped cilantro. Our only complaint was there was too little of it; we doubled Dutt’s ingredients in our adaptation to make enough to serve 4 to 6. (It seems more worth the effort to make a whole cauliflower head’s worth; if there are leftovers, they’re still delicious.)

RECIPE: ‘Kolkata’ Cauliflower Dry-Fry (Phulkopi Bhaja)

And here’s a heart-warming Red-Lentil Dal (Masoor Dal, shown abobve) we’ll be making on a regular basis.

You’ve Gotta Try This

This sumptuous dish gets a one-two-coriander punch, as chicken thighs are marinated in a thick paste involving lots of fresh cilantro (coriander) leaves and stems, and then ground coriander seeds are added as the dish cooks. Cumin, cloves, cinnamon, peppercorns and chiles add layered complexity. Once marinated (ideally overnight), it’s a snap to pull together.

RECIPE: Rinku Dutt’s Coriander Chicken

Still Wanna Make

So many things! I’ll want to concoct some Tomato and Prune Chutney to go with the Coriander Chicken next time I make that. There’s a “Rich and Thick” Lamb Curry (Kosha Mansho), “served up at most weddings and family gatherings” — high on the list. Lentil Cakes in Gravy looks magnificent, as do Onion Fritters (Piyaji). Eggplant and Spinach Dry-Fry will likely be on our table soon; ditto Ron’s Chicken Biryani (the author’s dad’s recipe). In the seafood department, Jumbo Shrimp in a Thick Coconut Gravy looks incredible, and so does Banana-Leaf Steamed Mustard Fish.

Speaking of which, considering that Kolkata is such a seafood town, I do wish there were more seafood recipes. Several of them call for salmon or tuna, as cooks outside of Bengal wouldn’t have access to the fishes used there; I found myself wishing Dutt stretched a bit to suggest less-Western solutions.

One more wish — in case the author has a second book in mind (which I hope she does!): a bit more help with ingredients, techniques and equipment. I know readers often skip over such “basics” chapters, but I felt this book could have used a brief one, answering questions like what’s the difference between white and black (aka blue) poppy seeds, something about various lentils, whether it’s worth buying karai if you don’t already own one, what type of potatoes are favored for these dishes, a bit about the dry-frying technique used a number of times, and so forth.

That’s small stuff, though. This debut cookbook is one we highly recommend. Grab a couple: one for yourself, and one for an Indian-food-loving friend. And it’s so pretty, it’ll make a fine holiday gift.

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Katsuobushi (bonito flakes) will put a spring in your step and umami on your plate

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Topped with bonito flakes, the Century Egg and House Tofu at Fat Mao in Vancouver (shown above) inspired our recipe for Silken Tofu with Mushrooms and Bonito Flakes.

By Leslie Brenner

Put yourself in possession of a bag of bonito flakes — or katsuobushi, as it’s called in Japanese — and your cooking life may never be the same. Shaggy, delicate and seemingly lighter than air, the ingredient is at once essential and superfluous, ephemeral and timeless. Paradoxical! Shaved bonito looks like sawdust, but it’s way more delicious.

The reason it’s so life-changing, if you’re a certain kind of cook, is that understanding how to use bonito flakes opens up a world of easy and outstanding Japanese dishes, as well as the ability — in the wave of a hand — to drop a mood-altering, umamiful flourish on a fun assortment of other dishes.

Let’s start with the traditional Japanese part of the katsuobushi equation. (Japanese cooks must be chuckling by now, for Japanese cooking simply cannot exist without the stuff.) Bonito flakes are a key component of dashi, the cuisine’s foundational stock. Packed with powerful yet easy-to-control umami, that dashi gives soups and dishes depth and breadth, a soft roundness that makes everything inviting.

Dashi could not be easier or quicker to make: Just steep a piece of kombu briefly in steaming water, drop in a flurry of bonito flakes, wait two minutes, then strain the liquid — dashi achieved. It’s the essential ingredient for miso soup. Just whisk in some miso, drop in tofu and other garnishes (scallions, carrots, onion, spinach, turnips), and it’s done. And delicious. With that dashi in your fridge or freezer, you can make miso soup in a flash, whenever the mood strikes.

Miso soup is made with dashi — of which bonito flakes are an essential ingredient.

RECIPE: Dashi

RECIPE: Miso Soup

Dashi is so essential that it’s the first recipe in many Japanese cookbooks, including star chef Masahuru Morimoto’s excellent Mastering the Art of Japanese Cooking.

The broth may be used to dress spinach, kale or other vegetables (a dish known as ohitashi), make a fabulous dipping sauce for soba, create nimono — Japanese-style simmered dishes, or the heart-warming egg, chicken and rice meal-in-a-bowl called oyoka don. Or pour hot dashi (instead of green tea) over a bowl of garnished rice, for a deluxe version of the homey leftovers-moment called ochazuke.

For anyone eager to dive into Japanese cooking, writes Morimoto, “making dashi should be your first order of business. Your cooking will never be the same.”

Katsuobushi, straight up

Making dashi isn’t the only thing you can do with katsuobushi — you can also use it straight out of the bag. Grab a handful of flakes and drop them on top of okonomiyaki — a savory, saucy pancake stuffed with seafood and vegetables. Watch it dance! The bonito flakes are so light that the heat from the pancake stirs it to catch air currents and wave around on the plate.

Our recipe is adapted from one in Sonoko Sakai’s inspiring book, Japanese Home Cooking.

RECIPE: Okonomiyaki

Shizuo Tsuji’s seminal 1980 book Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art offers a recipe for an ohitashi (those dashi-marinated greens) garnished with katsuobushi. It’s super easy, delicious, fun and dramatic.

RECIPE: Spinach with Dashi and Bonito Flakes

OK, wait — what is katsuobushi exactly?

Yes, let’s back up a moment to talk about the ingredient. Although it’s commonly referred to as bonito flakes or shaved bonito, katsuobushi can be made of either bonito or skipjack tuna; the fish is dried, smoked, sometimes fermented and then shaved. “In the old days,” writes Morimoto, “all cooks bought the fish in blocks that resembled petrified wood and shaved them by hand into fine, feather-like flakes. (Today, most buy preshaved katsuobushi, one modern convenience I can get behind.)”

Some experts write that katsuobushi should be refrigerated once it’s opened, and not kept more than a few days; Morimoto says it lasts “virtually forever” in your pantry. I used to keep — sealed in an airtight container — it in the pantry after opening it, but noticed that after six months or so it dried out. You want the flakes to be soft, not brittle, so I recommend storing it (sealed) in the fridge once it’s open.

You can usually find bags of katsuobushi in Asian supermarkets, usually in cellophane bags with red and white or red and black graphics. Sometimes you can even find them in well stocked generic supermarkets (they have them at the Whole Foods in my neighborhood). You can also find it online (including in the Cooks Without Borders Cookshop). The brands you find most often in Pan-Asian supermarkets and on Amazon are mostly similar in quality, but if you go to an excellent dedicated Japanese supermarket, such as Mitsuwa Marketplace, you can often spend a few more dollars and find katsuobushi of a higher quality (such as the one shown above). To me it’s worth it, especially if you’re using it as a garnish.

Do try these at home

My favorite dish on a recent trip to Vancouver, Canada was at a super-cool, laid-back spot called Fat Mao — Century Egg with House Tofu. (It’s pictured at the top of this story.) The dish consisted of that a thick layer of fabulously creamy house-made tofu topped with cilantro leaves, scallions, crispy fried shallots, a delicious “black garlic sauce,” quartered century eggs and a flurry of katsuobushi. Century eggs, in case you’re not familiar with them, are a Chinese delicacy made by preserving eggs in an an alkaline solution and ash — which renders the yolks intensely flavorful (funky! stinky!) and the whites gelatinous.

I sought to create a dish at home that conveyed a similar vibe, but that didn’t require making or procuring century eggs; I wanted something easy and relatively quick for instant gratification. In place of the century eggs, I found that dry-steamed crimini mushrooms tossed in a sauce made with black garlic was a weirdly excellent analog, providing a chewy-tender texture and loads of umami. Of course the organic silken tofu I picked up at the supermarket didn’t hold a candle to Fat Mao’s house-made tofu, but altogether I think the dish works really well.

Finally, there’s chef José Andrés’s Dancing Eggplant — from his 2019 cookbook Vegetables Unleashed. Quick to make — by zapping Japanese eggplants in the microwave till tender, slathering them with a sweet, salty glaze, then topped with katsuobushi. And yep, it gets its name from the fact that the bonito flakes wave around like they’re dancing on of the eggplant.

6 Essential (and riffable!) soups to take you through fall and beyond

Joan’s Chicken Soup

By Leslie Brenner

Goodbye, gazpacho. Hello, chicken soup, pozole rojo, and vegan lentil-kale.

That’s my soup forecast, and I’m sticking to it. (Though there is a case to be made for a last-tomato-hurrah batch of Gazpacho Sevillano).

The six soups rounded up here are all elemental and delicious — those I return to year after year. They’re also endlessly riffable and adaptable; many can be spun vegan or vegetarian, if they aren’t already.

Good Old-Fashioned Jewish Chicken Soup

I’m leading off with the mother of all chicken soups — in other words, my mother’s chicken soup. With zero bias I can state that it’s absolutely the best in the world. (And no, this one cannot be spun vegan. But you knew that.)

There are so many ailments going around just now — sore throats, colds and lots of Covid. In fact, yesterday I came down with it for the first time. Fortunately, as I’m vaxxed and double-boosted, it’s a mild case. I’m sequestered upstairs, and my husband downstairs; I sent him out to buy ingredients and made myself a batch of my favorite cure-all. (In this Washington Post story, a doctor recommends chicken soup for mild Covid and other cold-like ailments.)

RECIPE: Joan’s Chicken Soup

Of course chicken soup is a universal remedy and comfort food, with beloved versions from Mexico and Brazil to China, Vietnam and Thailand, to India, Iran and Ethiopia, and many more. There’s even a wonderful cookbook collecting them: Jenn Louis’ Chicken Soup Manifesto.

Here’s our roundup of fabulous chicken soups from around the world.

Made-To-Order Miso Soup

Although my mom nearly always insisted on a chicken soup remedy anytime anyone sneezed, she also swore by a second remedy — miso soup and hot sake.

If you get in the habit of keeping dashi (quickly made Japanese stock) on hand, you can have miso soup on the table in about 10 minutes. Not kidding! Our recipe is a very basic one: Heat some classic dashi made with bonito flakes, whisk in white miso, garnish with tofu, scallions and rehydrated wakame (seaweed). That’s all there is to it, and it’s so good.

Want to make it vegan? Swap that dashi for a quick, easy-to-make kombu dashi, by simmering a piece of kombu (about four inches square) in a quart of filtered water for about ten minutes. Remove the kombu and you have vegan dashi.

Either way, you can riff your heart away — leave out the wakami, use red miso instead of white, simmer sliced carrots and/or onions, or diced daikon or turnips in the dashi before whisking in the miso, or drop in a handful of baby spinach (which will cook almost instantly).

Pozole Rojo: Keep it Simple, or Totally Geek Out

Pozoles come in all the main colors of the Mexican flag: green, white and red. All can be wonderful. My personal favorite is pozole rojo — whether it’s a relatively simple (though long-cooking) one based on a can of hominy, or a deep-dive version that’s a 6 to 8-hour project.

Why would anyone want to spend 8 hours making pozole? Because it’s a great way to dip your toes Into what it’s like to make your own nixtamal — that’s corn treatead with an alkaline solution to make it suitable to grind into masa for tortillas and other shapes. Only with pozole, you don’t grind it; you leave the kernels whole. Use heirloom corn from Mexico, and you’ll have a pozole like none you’ve ever tasted — it’s spectacular. Who doesn’t love a cooking project with a glorious reward at the end?

Our simpler version — also delicious — is adapted from Mely Martínez’s Mexico in my Kitchen.

Either way you choose, you can riff away on the garnishes.

Split Pea Soup: Easy, Classic Comfort

Here’s a soup I’ve been making my entire adult life (a long time!). It’s so good and easy in its unadulterated form, I like to keep it classic, and I try to always keep a pound or two of split peas on hand in case the craving strikes (it’s my husband’s favorite soup).

The only modifications I sometimes make is with the meat. I like split pea soup best with ham hock, but if I have some smoked sausage, or a smoked turkey leg, a slab of ham or a ham bone on hand, I’ll use that instead.

A Vegan Lentil Soup Made for Riffing

If, however, you’re looking for a dried legume situation in which you can improvise your fridge away, this one’s for you. It happens to be vegan.

It’s intoxicatingly delicious as written, but it’s so adaptable I wrote a whole story about how to riff on it, along with a customizable master recipe.

There’s also a version that stars black and red lentils boosted with a lot of ginger and turmeric, and changes up the greens. That’s the anti-oxidant special.

Roasted Cauliflower Soup to Dress as You Like

If you’re looking for a dreamy puréed soup you could almost make with your eyes closed, this is it. Roast pieces of cauliflower to concentrate their favor, drop them in simmering broth (vegetable or chicken), simmer to meld the flavors, then give it a blitz (right in the pot) with an immersion blender or (out of the pot) with a regular one, till it’s perfectly velvety.

Garnish it with a swirl of harissa sauce (just mix harissa from a tube with a little broth), or browned butter. Want to get fancy? Add fried sage (great with browned butter), or swap the swirl for some crisped prosciutto (bake slices at 375 degrees for 10 minutes, let cool and crisp up on the pan). Looking for extra richness? Stir in a little cream or crème fraîche before garnishing.

RECIPE: Roasted Cauliflower Soup

And now we’ll excuse you while you dust off that soup pot.

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Mac and cheese: This one hits all the cheesy, creamy, breadcrumby pleasure points

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By Leslie Brenner

Here’s a mac and cheese that’s so good we couldn’t take the time to style it before diving in. Yep, it’s that creamy and cheesy and satisfying.

I developed the recipe six years ago, when I was restaurant critic for The Dallas Morning News, and the city had developed such a deep and persistent craving for mac and cheese that chefs were afraid not to offer it on their menus. Hey — I told readers. You can make this at home!

I’m craving it today, so I thought you might be needing a mac infusion as well. It’s a crusty, cheesy antidote to anything that feels unsettling in the world.

Based on supermarket macaroni (fancy imported bronze-die-cut pasta need not apply!), it’s simple to put together, and if you heat the oven while you boil the mac, you can have it on the table in less than an hour (including time to grate the cheese). You’ll be surprised at how heart-warmingly satisfying it is — perfect on a meatless Monday night (or anytime!), by itself or with a simple green salad. Highly recommend.

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Showstopper dessert encore: Make Ottolenghi's fabulous rolled Pavlova while we still have peaches!

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was first published on July 30, 2021. Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh’s rolled Pavlova continues to be one of our favorite desserts ever. Peaches should be available from somewhere in the United States for at least two or three more weeks, so now’s the time to thinking about making it.

By Leslie Brenner

Looking for something fabulous and sweet to make this weekend or next? Or maybe you want something to wow a crowd during your upcoming August vacation?

Look no further: This rolled Pavlova from Sweet: Desserts from London’s Ottolenghi is absolutely smashing. Dramatic and gorgeous, it makes a hell of an impression — but it actually requires surprisingly little effort.

If you’ve never had or made a Pavlova, it’s actually quite simple: just whip egg whites with sugar until they’re thick and glossy, add a little vanilla for flavor and a touch of vinegar and cornstarch to stabilize, spread it on a parchment lined sheet pan and bake. When it comes out of the oven, it’ll be super-light, crisp and crusty on the outside and marshmallowy-soft on the inside. Round ones make great bases you can use in place of the shortcake for strawberry shortcake, or you can make a big one, dollop on whipped cream, top it with fruit and nuts and make a gorgeous statement. We’ve been doing both of those for years. Pavlovas are particularly wonderful for anyone needing or wanting to eat gluten-free.

But we’d never heard of a rolled Pavlova until we were flipping through Sweet last weekend, looking for a fruit dessert that we hoped would wow some wonderful new friends we’d invited to dinner.

And wow, did it! Not only was it a show-stopper; it was actually a show — everyone wanted to watch the dramatic roll-it-up maneuver. Then cutting the slices (thick ones! delightful crackly noise!) was its own entertaining moment.

The recipe probably reads a little scary if you’ve never made a Pavlova before — rolling a flat, crisp, thick meringue could seem perilous — but I knew it would be soft enough inside that rolling it up should be no problem. More than a show-stopper; it was actually a show — everyone wanted to watch the dramatic roll-it-up maneuver. Then cutting the slices (thick ones! delightful crackly noise!) was its own entertaining moment.

The Pavlova was dreamy to eat: Lots of ripe and super-flavorful peak-season peaches and juicy blackberries mingling with whipped cream inside the soft and crunchy meringue roulade, with more whipped cream, fruit and toasted sliced almonds on top. Our friends had brought along a delightful Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise — one of my all-time favorite dessert wines — a glorious match, thanks to the peaches.

OK, I know what you’re thinking: Need to run out and buy peaches, blackberries, cream and eggs. Do let us know how you love it.

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Eight excellent eggplant expressions: These recipes coax the purple polyglots into off-the-charts deliciousness

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Baked Kofta with Eggplant and Tomato from ‘Falastin’ by Sami Tamimi

By Leslie Brenner

No one ever craves eggplant. (Do they?!) And yet eggplant — or aubergine, as it’s more mellifluously called on the east side of the pond — is an integral part of so many enticing dishes. Here are eight recipes that push those big, shiny lunks into the realm of the irresistible.

‘Falastin’ Baked Kofta with Eggplant and Tomato

I fell in love with this recipe when I reviewed Falastin — Sami Tamimi and Tara Wigley’s wonderful 2020 cookbook featuring the foods and flavors of Palastine. Because the dish requires a fat slice of ripe tomato on top of each lamb-and-beef patty, it’s the perfect time of year to make it: that moment when tomatoes are still in high season and eggplants are starting to beckon. Where’s our star player? A substantial slice of meltingly roasted eggplant sits under each meat patty. Spiced tomato sauce goes on top, the whole thing is baked to lusciousness and topped with herbs and toasted pine nuts.

I made it again a few nights ago, and it was so good I nearly fainted.

A Magnificent Moussaka

If I had to choose only one way to eggplant for the rest of my days, it might well be this moussaka. Again, the eggplant consorts with lamb, tomato and spices — but in moussaka’s case it’s pulled together with rich, cheesy béchamel and a layer of potatoes. Our recipe, we venture to suggest, is hard to beat, which is why we call it Moussaka for the Ages.

Bring on the Baba Ganoush

Late-summer-into-fall is the perfect time to throw whole eggplants onto the coals of a Weber grill or (almost as good) in your broiler. After their almost unimaginable transformation to smoky, velvety unctuousness, stir in tahini whisked to fluffiness with lemon juice and season with garlic. Then swipe a warm pita bread through one of the world’s most spectacular dips.

Unreasonably Good Roasted Ratatouille

Traditional ratatouilles can be good (ish). Roast the vegetables to concentrate flavors and preserve textures, and it becomes outstanding. Now is prime season for all the relevant ingredients: Zucchini, bell peppers, tomato, and, you know, eggplant.

Anjali Pathak’s Charred Baby Eggplants

Cute little purple-and-white-striped fairy tale eggplants (shown below) are ideal for these outrageously good Charred Baby Eggplants from Anjali Pathak’s The Indian Family Kitchen. The eggplants are melty-soft and the coconutty, spicy topping — with dabs of yogurt and delicate curry leaves — turns them into something super special. Find the curry leaves in a well stocked Indian grocery or supermarket, if you’re lucky enough to have one handy.

Fairytale eggplants can sometimes be found in farmers markets or Indian groceries.

Zap ‘Em and Make ‘Em Dance!

Fairy tale or other baby eggplants are also perfect for the chef José Andrés’ crazy-delicious, umami-forward Dancing Eggplant, but everyday globe eggplants work great for this as well. Zap them in the microwave or grill them, slather them with a Japanese-inspired sauce and top with bonito flakes that seem to dance for an uncannily good snack or starter. We adapted it from Andrés’ 2019 book Vegetables Unleashed.

Tangy Eggplant Salad with a Creamy, Rich Tahini Swirl

This glorious dish from Reem Kassis’ The Arabesque Table would surely take top prize at a mezze potluck, if such a thing exists. Pomegranate molasses is responsible for the zing.

A Dreamy Eggplant-Lentil Situation from Ottolenghi

Eighth (but by no means least!) is this fabulous vegetarian main course from one of our favorite cookbooks, Ottolenghi Simple. Pretty little green lentils from France share the spotlight in the dish with melty, roasty eggplant and charred cherry tomatoes. Tangy yogurt adds cool creaminess, and fresh oregano makes it interesting. Perfect weeknight dinner material heading into the fall.

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Captivating, versatile and rich with meaning, okra is an intrepid citizen of the world

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Quiabos Tostados com Pimenta — Brazililan Chargrilled Okra with Chile

By Leslie Brenner

Simmer it in a savory gumbo. Capture it in a pickle. Roast it to show off its depth. It’s the height of okra season, and there are endless delicious ways to treat the fascinating, polarizing pod.

You can shallow-fry it as Indian-spiced rounds that highlight its captivating geometry. Halve it lengthwise and grill it to smoky goodness. Cook it with tomatoes and onions, stir in olive oil and herbs and serve it as a tangy, cool Levantine salad.

Food historians disagree about okra’s origins. Most, including Jessica B. Harris (author of The Africa Cookbook: Tastes of a Continent), pin it as Africa. “The mucilaginous pod is the continent’s culinary totem,” she writes. “From the bamia of Egypt to the soupikandia of Senegal, passing by the various sauces gombos and more, this pod is used in virtual continent-wide totality.” Others say it comes from South Asia or Southeast Asia.

What’s indisputable is that okra has long since become a citizen of the world.

In Asia, it appears in various guides from India to Vietnam to Japan. A sour fish soup from Vietnam, canh chua cá, features okra, tamarind and pineapple. The late Shizuo Tsuji gave a recipe for okura wasabi-jōyu — a simple okra salad with wasabi, soy sauce and mirin — in his landmark 1980 book Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art. And in India, okra is popular quick-fried till crispy.

Crispy Sumac Okra from Anjali Pathak’s ‘The Indian Family Kitchen’

Intrigued? Try this crunchy, addictive version of Crispy Sumac Okra, adapted from Anjali Pathak’s The Indian Family Kitchen.

In Africa, Egypt has bamia (okra made sweet and sour with honey and lemon); Ethiopia has bamya alich’a (okra simmered with tomatoes, onions, garlic and spices); Benin has sauce bombo (okra simmered with tomatoes and chile, served on rice); and Nigeria has akara awon (bean-and-okra fritters). Recipes for all four, and more, can be found in Harris’ The Africa Cookbook.

Out of Africa, okra dishes appear all over the Levant, and in Afghanistan, Armenia and Kurdistan. In Turkey, okra are dried and later made into a soup, banya corbasi. Lebanon is home to a lamb and okra stew called bamya bel lameh, and also a delightful braised okra and tomato dish served cool or room temp, as part of a mezze — bamieh bi zeit. Glossy with olive oil, it’s particularly nice this time of year, as tomatoes and okra are both in high season. Claudia Roden offers a wonderful version in her classic 2006 book Arabesque: A Taste of Morocco, Turkey and Lebanon. Our adaptation takes her up on her suggested variation of using tangy pomegranate vinegar in place of sugar in the recipe.

Bamieh Bi Zeit — Lebanese Okra and Tomato, served cold as a salad

And then there are all the African diasporic dishes. These are the okra dishes that, over the centuries, have become extraordinarily meaningful for the communities descended from enslaved people, from South America to the Caribbean to the United States.

READ: “Okra, now at peak season, may be the most meaningful and expressive vegetable for this singular American moment”

In the American South, okra appears in gumbos and other soups and stews — often with tomatoes (as in Lebanon and all over the Levant) and/or shrimp. BJ Dennis, a Charleston, South Carolina chef with roots in the low country Gullah-Geechee community, has a magnificent recipe for Okra & Shrimp Purloo in Black Food: Stories, Art, and Recipes from Across the African Diaspora, edited and curated by Bryant Terry and published last year. From Dennis’ headnote:

“Okra is a vegetable that is dear to many of us throughout the African diaspora. And of course there’s shrimp, which is vital to our culture. This is a dish of pain, resilience and celebration. It’s the story of our existence in the so-called New World. If you were to give me one final meal to eat, it would be this.”

BJ Dennis’ Purloo with Okra & Shrimp, from ‘Black Food,’ edited and curated by Bryant Terry

Recently Dennis helped the International African American Museum (slated to open in January 2023) develop a Gullah-inspired menu; the cafe, Dennis tells me, expected to open the following year. Meanwhile, here’s our adaptation of his marvelous recipe, which also features Carolina Gold rice, another low country food with deep meaning for Gullah-Geechee’s descendants of enslaved people.

Okra pods go by the name molondrones in the Dominican Republic, where they’re eaten as a stew (guisado de molondrones) or salad. Guisados starring okra are also popular in Cuba and Puerto Rico, where the vegetable is called quimbombó.

From Brazil comes salada da quiabo, an okra salad, and caruru — a shrimp and okra stew. The state of Bahia is known for the dish; in Pará — the country’s northernmost state — caruru is a shrimp and okra curry. There’s a delicious-looking recipe for it in Thiago Castanho’s 2014 book Brazilian Food. “The origins of caruru point to a divided authorship between native Indians and Africans,” writes Castanho in the headnote. “This typical dish of Bahia state is nowadays associated with the African-Brazilian religious ritual, Candomblé, and served as a main course, as here, or as part of a banquet.”

I haven’t yet cooked or tasted a traditional caruru, but I recently had the pleasure of tasting a fabulous spin at Meridian, a spectacular modern Brazilian restaurant in Dallas (which happens to be a client of my consulting business).

Grilled Jumbo Prawn Caruru from Meridian, a modern Brazilian restaurant in Dallas, Texas

In his Grilled Jumbo Prawn Caruru, Meridian’s executive chef, Junior Borges — who is from Brazil, near Rio de Janeiro — featured okra all kinds of ways: braised in the sauce, halved lengthwise and charred to top, raw as little round okra exclamation points. It was an okra tour de force — served with a Carolina Gold rice cake that’s deep-fried and dusted with ramp powder.

Chef Borges told me, when he featured the dish recently, that caruru has “deep meaning” for him and his family.

Much simpler than either chef Borges’ or Castanho’s caruru — and unlike those, a snap to prepare at home — is Quiabos Tostados com Pimenta (chargrilled okra with chile). Our adaptation is also from Castanho’s Brazilian Food. To make it, drizzle whole okra pods with olive oil, char them on a grill-pan, season them with aviú (tiny Brazilian dried salted shrimp) or other dried salt shrimp, plus thinly sliced fresh red chiles, lime juice and cilantro.

It’s absolutely transporting. And I love chef Castanho’s suggestion that if you can’t find aviú or other dried shrimp, you can use katsuobushi — Japanese bonito flakes — instead. The katsuobushi adds a similar aquatic umami note, while incontrovertibly proving that okra is, by any measure, a well traveled, adaptable, flexible, deliciously versatile citizen of the world.

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5 favorite dishes for summer-into-fall

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Shrimp Sauté with Texas Vegetables celebrates late-summer flavors.

By Leslie Brenner

Oh, happy day — we’re out of triple digit-weather in North Texas, where I live. It’s not a moment too soon, as it’s such a delicious season produce-wise. All the corn and tomatoes and zucchini and eggplant, with incredible flavor bursting every-which-way — it’s enough to make a person pull out the knife sharpener, dust off the stove, polish the pepper grinder and get chopping.

Here are a few dishes I’m loving this summer-into-fall moment:

Shrimp Sauté with Texas Vegetables

To celebrate these flavors a few nights ago, I put together a quick sauté of shrimp and late-summer Texas vegetables. It’s inspired by two dishes: one I grew up with, Rosa de la Garza’s Texas Chicken, and a dish I love from Adán Medrano’s Don’t Count the Tortillas: The Art of Texas Mexican Cooking, Camarón con Fideos de Calabacita. The resulting easy sauté is pictured up top. If you believe what we read about the health benefits of eating things of many hues, you’ll certainly feel great about this. The taste benefits? Take a bite, and you’ll see.

Roasted Ratatouille

Have you ever made (or even tasted) a great ratatouille? I thought not. Last year, I cracked the code of how to make one — and it’s easier than the normal way. Pro tip: This approach involves letting your oven concentrate the flavors and safeguard the textures.

Ottolenghi’s Stuffed Zucchini with Pine Nut Salsa

Anyone bored by zucchini will have a life-changing moment upon tasting this. It has been Cooks Without Border’s most popular recipe since we wrote about it two years ago.

Chicken Musakhan

The national dish of Palestine is traditionally prepared during olive harvest season to celebrate the olive oil harvest. This version, from Ottolenghi’s partner Sami Tamimi’s 2020 cookbook Falastin (written with Cooks Without Borders’ friend Tara Wigley) is insanely delicious.

José Andrés’ Corn on the Cob with Elote Slather

Not ready to turn on the stove or light your grill just yet? Here’s an outstanding dish you can achieve with just a quick pass in the microwave. It’s from superstar chef José Andrés’ Vegetables Unleashed.