Reviews
Every era must have its cookbook, and the cookbook for the early 21st century has arrived. It is not that the recipes Schneider, a columnist for Food & Wine, has included are particularly or innovative. These are recipes that reflect the way Americans cook and eat today, or perhaps the way we wish we cooked and ate. Schneider sets forth a list of techniques for cooking healthful and tasty food, then presents 600 recipes that follow these guidelines. She includes nutritional information charts at the back of the book. Introductory material to each chapter is comprehensive, e.g., a chapter on beans opens with a guide to buying, soaking and cooking dry legumes and combining beans and grains, then follows up with Chickpea Stew with Saffron and Winter Squash and Fat Beans with Mole. Asian, Italian and other multiculti fare typifies modern American cuisine, which means that Oven-Steamed Whole Fish with Chinese Flavors, Thai Seafood Salad with Lemongrass Dressing, and Salmon Cured with Grappa coexist happily in a chapter on fish and seafood. Often Schneider provides a jumping-off point for variations, as in Open Ravioli with a list of possible fillings and sauces. A chapter on desserts tantalizes with such treats as Rustic Rosemary-Apple Tart. Final chapters on flavor essences, flavored oils, sauces and more, as well as instructions for doing anything from peeling citrus fruit to seasoning a cast-iron pan, round out this impressively substantial effort., Want to eat healthful, delicious food without self-deprivation? Sally Schneider's A New Way to Cook shows you how. Schneider's approach is global: not only does she provide 600 recipes for a wide range of truly satisfying, good-for-you dishes, she offers a blueprint for better eating and cooking, no matter the recipe. Her mantra? No need to give up flavorful fats and the pleasures of salt and sugar, which are intrinsically necessary to a satisfying diet, she maintains. No food is excluded in her plan. Applying moderation, portion streamlining, and a number of unusual techniques--for example, you get all the flavor and satisfying mouthfeel of fat without excessive calories if you emulsify it first with water or other liquids--she offers her better way. Those of us caught between the need to eat sensibly and the reasonable desire to derive maximum enjoyment from food, impulses often at odds, will welcome her cookbook. Proceeding with an enumeration of essential techniques and "strategic" ingredients (for example, buying high quality can help check calories as people tend to eat less when they eat better), Schneider then offers her innovative recipes. These run the gamut from "Fried" Artichokes with Crispy Garlic and Sage to Oven-Steamed Red Snapper with Fennel Leeks and Curry to Chocolate Chestnut Truffles (chestnut pure helps keep calories in check). Many of the recipes include variations and improvisations--a basic roasted vegetable formula, for example, also offers "tutorials" that encourage cooking freedom. Schneider also presents flavor-enhancing component recipes (such as that for roasted garlic), as well as tips, charts, and other useful information that further extend the book's usefulness. With a chapter on "flavor catalysts" like dry rubs and flavored oils; nutritional analysis; and mail-order and other resources listings, the fully color-photo-illustrated book is a sure thing for readers who want to eat healthily and well. --Arthur Boehm
