Flash in the Pan

I can often tell how good a cookbook is by seeing how many small bookmarks my wife places among the recipes. Between bits of newspaper coupons and paper napkins, or whatever else was at hand, the top of my review copy of Ralph Brennan's New Orleans Seafood Cookbook has become a veritable forest. The recipes actually come from Brennan's restaurants. Given the extended family into which he was born - New Orleans restaurant royalty, with members owning a number of major names in that city's eating establishments - there is little surprise that he went into the business.

The beginning of the book has a "manual" for how to select, store, and handle various types of fish and seafood. I would have liked to see a bit more - for example, not just filleting a whole fish, but also gutting and cleaning it. However, even in the section on fin fish, there was a tip I had never heard for telling if a fish is done. Insert the tip of a knife into the thickest part of a fillet. Then put the tip against the inside of your wrist. If it feels hot, then it's done. And there's plenty of other useful information, like an explanation of the difference among different types of crab meat and crabs.

The recipes look fabulous: crab cakes with ravigote sauce, chilled smoked scallops with tomato-and-onion marmalade (making your own stove top smoker is in a tips appendix), oyster and artichoke bisque, baked catfish with sweet potato scales and andouille sauce, shrimp and spinach cannelloni with champagne butter sauce. This is upscale fish cookery.

Oddly enough, my eyebrows frowned when I came upon the dessert, side dish, and drinks sections. Heaven knows I love dessert, and there are some terrific recipes in here, and I've also been known to tuck into side dishes and even take the occasional drink (including a rum-based milk punch during a "Breakfast at Brennan's" at the famous restaurant owned by some of his kin). But there are so many general and even restaurant cookbooks, I found myself wishing that they had just concentrated on the fish alone, expanding those sections even more (not that they are skimpy by any means). But that's just me; my wife happily bookmarked through the rest of the pages as well.

It's a hefty $45, but you get a hefty amount of hardback for the money. It could make a great gift, whether for someone else or yourself.

Labels: book, cookbook, review

There are books that amuse and a few that shock. But if you partake of fast food in any of its forms - whether a burger joint or upscale chain café - get ready to be dumbfounded. The Stop & Go Fast Food Nutrition Guide by Steven Aldana, Ph.D, shows calories, fat (split into various categories), sodium, and dietary fiber of a wide range of the snacks, meals, and drinks you could find at close to 70 chains ranging from A&W to White Castle. Entries are color-coded in a green, yellow, and red motif to show relative healthiness of of the chow.

Let's take an example or two. Like the Starbucks apple fritter? That's 790 calories, with 37 milligrams of fat and a whopping 830 milligrams of sodium. Death on a dish. A plain old 16 ounce latté? That's a grande at 260 calories. How about a Hardee's Big Country Breakfast Platter with country steak? Just 1150 calories, 455 milligrams of cholesterol, and a completely astounding 2660 milligrams - otherwise known as almost 2.7 grams - of sodium. Personally, I'd double check the numbers for the green, yellow, and red coding: a Subway sweet onion chicken teriyaki 6-inch sub may have only 5 milligrams of fat and 370 calories, but it's got 1220 milligrams of sodium.

At $6.95 list, it's a great investment, and if you want to go to the web, you can get all the contents for free. Take it with you when you're out and get rid of some weight, because you'll surely lose your appetite.

Labels: book, diets, fast food, nutrition, review

If you have any interest in Gordon Ramsay, who at least ties Emeril Lagasse for ubiquity, then take a read through this review, by Bloomberg London food critic Richard Vines, of Ramsay's new book, Gordon Ramsay's Playing with Fire. Among other observations is the importance of money from private equity firm Blackstone Group as well as Ramsay's publicist. And here I thought it might be all about the food. The book is apparently due out in the U.S. come May of next year, but if you're desperate for the read, Amazon in the U.K. has it now.

Labels: Blackstone Group, Bloomberg, book, Gordon Ramsay, Richard Vines

What a marvelous book Ian Hemphill has created. If you have any interest in spices - which is to say, if you have any interest in cooking, this is a must. There are some recipes by his wife, Kate Hemphill, but this is primarily a practical reference from a second-generation spice merchant and obvious expert. The volume starts with interesting history that applies a pragmatic eye. For example, he dismisses the notion that people used spices in the dark ages to mask tainted foods because anyone who could have afforded the then-astronomical prices of the spices would likely have had money for something fresh. Instead, he attributes the growth of spices to improve bland food and, interestingly, to help moderate the strong gamy taste of many meats and poultry at the time, which might explain the concept of covering over a taste or aroma.

Of course there are sections on growing and using spices, and I found interesting the section on the spices and herbs that specific cuisines use. An approach I hadn't seen before is using relational weights - for example, in Indonesian cooking if you used cloves, turmeric, and coriander seed, they would likely be in a ration of 1 to 5 to 8. My first impression was that there were supposed to be proportions of spice blends, but that didn't make sense when you had, say, 15 different ingredients and you know that the cuisine in question doesn't use all of them every time. And there are recipes for specific spice blends at the end of the book. No, this chapter was to give you a feel for how the given cuisine uses and combines spices - very good to know.

What really grabbed me, though, were the entries for individual spices and herbs. Each includes the following: origin and history, processing, buying and storage, use, other names for the item, names in other languages, suggested quantities for a given type of dish, and what other spices and herbs that work well with it.

You do need to keep in mind that the book is from Australia, because some terminology might throw you. For example, there was a recipe for a savory biscuit. I was thinking the flaky type you bake, and then I suddenly remembered that in Australia and the UK, biscuit can mean a cookie or cracker. You will also find a few spices that aren't readily found in this part of the world. That said, at $24.95, this is a bargain.

Labels: book, cookbook, Hemphill, herbs, reference, review, spices

I was looking forward to reviewing A Taste of Challah (Feldheim Publishers; New York; 2007) by Tamar Ansh. The bread is traditionally served on Shabbat (Sabbath) meals by Ashkenazi Jews. It generally includes eggs and, at least in the U.S., comes in a braided loaf form for most of the year, and a round turban shape for the high holy days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

There was much good I found in the book. The author is a religious Jew and offers a lot of information on the theological and culture links. There is also more information than I've ever seen in one place on how to handle and shape the dough, including variations like a braided round challah that I've never seen. We'll get to some more good points in a moment.

But calling the volume A Comprehensive Guide to Challah and Bread Baking is overblown and inaccurate. For example, the only "regular" recipe for challah dough is called Always Perfect No-Egg Challah. The title alone suggests what anyone familiar with the bread knows: eggs are a normal component. I wondered whether strict kosher food laws might consider eggs as meat, and so something that could not be served with dairy, but a little research showed that eggs are considered pareve - neither meat nor dairy. Nothing wrong with variations, but I don't see how a book can be "comprehensive" without a version of the most traditional approach.

The basic recipe also called for 16 to 17 cups of flour for what it said were 6 large loaves. Three cups of flour are about a pound, adding the weight of oil, sugar, and sugar, I'm guessing that the "large" loaves would be about a pound each - not so large from my view. I didn't bother making this fundamental recipe because that's also far more bread than my family will go through before it goes stale, though under Jewish law you're supposed to eat three meals on Shabbat and start each with two loaves, so I'm guessing that's where the volume came from. However, those who are not religious Jews are likely to be overwhelmed by the amount.

Back to what I liked: I learned a technique of using a rolling pin to make perfect dough ropes which, in turn, helps create the proper braided shape. The only hint that I thought was missing was doing a double egg wash: once, letting that dry, and then a second time to help achieve the perfect color a good bakery can get. There's also an interesting collection of other recipes, ranging from bagels and pita (though either a long-baked or no-pocket type, again not the traditional one) to some Middle Eastern breads and dips that I've never before seen.

The upshot: some people, like me, will find a lot of good in the $35 book - and you can see that more money than usual went into a nicely crafted hardbound with abundant color photography. But if you're new to bread baking and want a traditional loaf of challah, you'd at least need to supplement this volume with a recipe from another source.

Labels: baking, book, bread, challah, recipe, review