Dessert

Ricotta fritters with coconut and makrut lime chocolate sauce
Ricotta fritters with coconut and makrut lime chocolate sauce

Ricotta fritters with coconut and makrut lime chocolate sauce, Crave: Recipes Arranged by Flavour, to Suit Your Mood and Appetite by Ed Smith. Photography by Sam A Harris.

Crave: Recipes Arranged by Flavour, to Suit Your Mood and Appetite by Ed Smith.

Why do we choose to cook the things we do, when we do? Most of the time, it is simply so we can eat what we really fancy; a subconscious response to a constantly fluctuating state of mind and appetite that’s influenced by mood, season, weather, memory, occasion, outside events and internal feelings.

Ed Smith helps his readers home in on their cravings (whatever the reason for them) by organizing his recipes within six cleverly conceived flavor profiles: fresh and fragrant chili and heat tart and sour curried and spiced rich and savory; and (best of all?) cheesy and creamy. There’s also a directory of alternative cravings at the back, providing additional ways in. All bases are covered, from snacks through sides, to main courses and desserts.

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Crème Caramel
Crème Caramel

Crème Caramel, Vietnamese: Simple Vietnamese food to cook at home by Uyen Luu.

VietnameseIn Vietnamese, Uyen Luu demonstrates that Vietnamese food is just as easy to whip up as a bowl of pasta—all you need is a good bottle of fish sauce and a little enthusiasm! She shares 80 of her tastiest recipes—some traditional, some with a modern twist—using ingredients that are available at your local supermarket.

Recipes include noodle soups, salads, family-style sharing plates, one-pot wonders and dinner-party showstoppers, which are all easy to prepare, adapt and enjoy. The recipes are impressive yet simple: try the Caramelized pork belly with coconut milk and cavolo nero, Seabass, tomato & dill soup or Avocado tossed ramen with sweetcorn and tinned tuna in sweet soy sauce & mint and Crème Caramel.

Vietnamese is filled with fuss-free, delicious recipes that are quick to prepare, and will have you eating Vietnamese meals on a regular basis.
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Coffee, Date & Pecan Cake
Coffee, Date & Pecan Cake

Coffee, Date & Pecan Cake, How to be Sugar-Free and Keep Your Friends by Megan Davies. Photography by Kim Lightbody.

How to be Sugar-Free and Keep Your Friends

You’re being healthy, eating in a more considered manner and, most importantly, you’ve never felt better. So why is it still so tricky to navigate life as a sugar-free diner? From going out for dinner to staying in with friends, it can be a challenge to cook, eat and socialize in a world of refined sugar eaters.

How to be Sugar-Free and Keep Your Friends helps you to go about your life without compromises, excuses or apologies. Instead, you’ll be armed with over 50 fresh, exciting and globally-inspired recipes, free from any refined sugar, and discover a whole new world of natural sweeteners.

Happily cook for yourself, your friends and your family (without hearing any complaints!), and dip into tips, tricks and hacks to learn how to be a better, more easygoing sugar-avoider.

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Blood orange upside-down cake
Blood orange upside-down cake

Blood orange upside-down cake, Finding Fire: Cooking at its most elemental by Lennox Hastie. Photography by Nikki To.

Finding Fire: Cooking at its most elemental 

Finding Fire is a book about cooking with fire. Now with a new cover, it tells the story of how the UK-trained chef Lennox Hastie learnt the language of fire and the art of harnessing it. The book presents more than 80 recipes that celebrate the instinctive, focused cooking of ingredients at their simple best using one of the oldest, most fundamental cooking tools.

In Finding Fire, Lennox explains the techniques behind creating a quality fire, and encourages readers to see wood as an essential seasoning that can be varied according to how it interacts with different ingredients. Recipes are divided by food type: seafood, vegetables, meat (including his acclaimed steak), fruit, dairy, wheat and bases.

Alongside his recipes, Lennox tells of his journey from Michelin-star restaurants in the UK, France and Spain to Victor Arguinzoniz’s Asador Etxebarri in the Basque mountains and, ultimately, to Australia to open his own restaurant, Firedoor. The result, is an uncompromising historical, cultural and culinary account of what it means to cook with fire.

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Mulberry Clafoutis
Mulberry Clafoutis

Mulberry Clafoutis, How Wild Things Are: Cooking, fishing and hunting at the bottom of the world by Analiese Gregory. Photography by Adam Gibson.

How wild things are

How Wild Things Are celebrates nature and the slow food life on the rugged and sometimes wild island of Tasmania.

When chef Analiese Gregory relocated after years of pushing through her anxiety and cooking in high-end restaurants, she found a new rhythm to the days she spent hunting, fishing, cooking, and foraging—a girl’s own adventure at the bottom of the world.

With more than 50 recipes, including cheese-making and charcuterie, interwoven with Analiese’s thoughtful narrative and accompanied by stunning photography, it is also a window into the joys of travel, freedom, vulnerability, and the perennial search for meaning in what we do. This is a blueprint for how to live, as much as how to cook.

How Wild Things Are: Cooking, fishing and hunting at the bottom of the world is available at Amazon.com and Indigo.ca.   (more…)

Chocolate Mousse and Meringue Cake
Chocolate Mousse and Meringue Cake

Chocolate Mousse and Meringue Cake, The Ultimate Book of Chocolate: Make your chocolate dreams become a reality by Melanie Dupuis. Photography by Pierre Javelle.

The Ultimate Book of Chocolate: Make your chocolate dreams become a reality

In The Ultimate Book of Chocolate trained pastry chef Melanie Dupuis will teach you how to make your chocolate dreams become a reality. Learn how to temper, mould and decorate like a pro with the complete guide to everything chocolate.

Starting with the basics, Melanie will take you through all the different varieties of chocolate you will be working as all the other basic ingredients required. She then explains in detail, accompanied with step-by-step pictures, all the various techniques in the book, from tempering to making ganache, chocolate mousse, creme anglaise, biscuit bases, meringue and more. The main recipes include every chocolate dessert you could ever imagine, plus more, from caramel bonbons and millionaire’s shortbread to Easter eggs, truffles, macarons, cakes, Swiss rolls, eclairs and more: this truly is a chocoaholic’s dream book!

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Danish Dream Cake
Danish Dream Cake

Danish Dream Cake, Scandikitchen: The Essence of Hygge by Brontë Aurell. Photographs by Peter Cassidy.

Scandikitchen: The Essence of Hygge by Brontë Aurell

Hygge is in the zeitgeist, but what is it, how do we bring hygge into our lives and why are we so captivated with this Danish word?

According to Brontë, it is really not complicated and doesn’t involve spending vast amounts of money on candles or blankets… in its purest form it is simply about appreciating life.

Explained in 12 entertaining chapters interspersed with recipes, you will learn first about the origins of the word hygge and then how to embrace it.

Essays include: Hygge and Happiness; Hygge and Baking; Hygge and Time; Hygge and Stress; Hygge and Soul; Hygge and Nature; and Hygge and Your Home. Hygge is a completely psychological and emotional state of being.

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Tiramisu
Tiramisu

Tiramisu, The Italian Deli Cookbook: 100 Glorious Recipes Celebrating the Best of Italian Ingredients by Theo Randall. Photography by Lizzie Mayson.

The Italian Deli Cookbook

The Italians have taken the very best of Italian produce all over the world. From Hong Kong to London, Sydney to Brooklyn, people everywhere have access to a treasure trove of ingredients through Italian delicatessens.

Theo Randall’s Italian Deli Cookbook showcases delicious family recipes using favourite ingredients. Easily accessible in supermarkets now too, and worth paying a little extra for the very best, these are transformative ingredients that can make for easy lunches and suppers, or dinner party centrepieces.

With 100 recipes using cured meats, smoked fish, jarred vegetables, vinegars, olives, pasta, pulses, cheeses and wine, stunning photography throughout, and original, simple recipes, as well as a directory of classic delicatessens worldwide, elevate your cooking the easy way with the expert guidance of world-renowned chef Theo Randall.

The Italian Deli Cookbook: 100 Glorious Recipes Celebrating the Best of Italian Ingredients is available at Amazon.com and Indigo.ca.   (more…)

Striped Citrus Pie
Striped Citrus Pie

Striped Citrus Pie, The Book on Pie: Everything You Need to Know to Bake Perfect Pies by Erin Jeanne McDowell. Photography by Mark Weinberg.

Look no further than The Book on Pie for the only book on pie you’ll ever want or need.

Erin Jeanne McDowell, New York Times contributing baker extraordinaire and top food stylist, wrote the book on pie, a comprehensive handbook that distills all you’ll ever need to know for making perfect pies.

The Book on Pie starts with the basics, including ways to mix pie dough for extra flaky crusts, storage and freezing, recipe size conversions, and expert tips for decorating and styling, before diving into the recipes for all the different kinds of pies: fruit, custard, cream, chiffon, cold set, savoury, and mini. Find everything from classics like Apple Pie and Pumpkin Pie to more inspired recipes like Birthday-Cake Pie and Caramel Pork Pie with Chile and Scallions.

Erin also suggests recommended pie doughs and toppings with each recipe for infinitely customizable pies: Mix and match Pumpkin Spice Pie Dough and Dark Chocolate Drippy Glaze with the Pumpkin Pie, or sub in the Chive Compound-Butter Crust for the Croque Madame Pielets . . . the possibilities are endless. With helpful tips, photographic guides, and inspirations—pie-deas—it’s almost like having Erin in the kitchen baking pies with you. (more…)

Victoria Sponge
Victoria Sponge

Victoria Sponge, excerpted from The French Laundry, Per Se by Thomas Keller (Artisan Books). Copyright © 2020. Photographs by Deborah Jones.

The French Laundry, Per Se by Thomas Keller Bound by a common philosophy, linked by live video, staffed by a cadre of inventive and skilled chefs, the kitchens of Thomas Keller’s celebrated restaurants—The French Laundry in Yountville, California, and Per Se, in New York City—are in a relationship unique in the world of fine dining.

Ideas bounce back and forth in a dance of creativity, knowledge, innovation, and excellence. It’s a relationship that’s the very embodiment of collaboration, and of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. And all of it is captured in The French Laundry, Per Se, with meticulously detailed recipes for 70 beloved dishes, including Smoked Sturgeon Rillettes on an Everything Bagel, “The Whole Bird,” Tomato Consommé, Celery Root Pastrami, Steak and Potatoes, Peaches ’n’ Cream and Victoria Sponge Cake.

Just reading these recipes is a master class in the state of the art of cooking today. We learn to use a dehydrator to intensify the flavour and texture of fruits and vegetables. To make the crunchiest coating with a cornstarch–egg white paste and potato flakes. To limit waste in the kitchen by fermenting vegetable trimmings for sauces with an unexpected depth of flavour. And that essential Keller trait, to take a classic and reinvent it: like the French onion soup, with a mushroom essence stock and garnish of braised beef cheeks and Comté mousse, or a classic crème brûlée reimagined as rich, creamy ice cream with a crispy sugar tuile to mimic the caramelized coating.

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