I am not quite sure how, but I wasn't familiar with Nagi Maehashi's website RecipeTin Eats until this book was chosen as the book of the month for the Lambs Ear Cookbook Club a few months ago. I must have been living under a rock or something!
Whenever there is a new cookbook announced for the cookbook clubs I am in, I try to borrow it from the library which is what I did with this one. We picked this book up from the library and I was flicking through it in the car. By the time we got home, my husband said we need to buy this book. And he was driving!
I love the way that this cookbook is put together. For each recipe, you obviously have ingredients and instructions on how to make the dish. In addition there is an introduction for each recipe as to why you should cook it and also notes which might be substitution suggestions, or cooking tips, and every recipe has a tip regarding leftovers. In addition, each recipe includes a QR code which you can scan and it will take you to the RecipeTin Eats blog where you will find more hints and tips including videos.
The book is broken into a number of chapters which are Everyday Food, Effortless, Stir-Fries and Noodles, What I Do with a Piece of..., Pasta and Cosy Food, Meal-worthy Salads, Mexican Food, Asian Bites and Soups, Bigger Things, Sweet Endings and Everything Else You Need.
There are just so many clever features. For example in the What I Do with a Piece of .... chapter she takes a protein and then talks about what she would do with it. Another example is in the sweet section, there are recipes for chocolate cakes, vanilla cake and numerous other desserts, but there is also a double page spread where there are 10 different variations of buttercream frosting. In the stir fry section, she shares her formula for a good stir fry as well as her go to stir fry sauce and in the Mexican chapter there are a number of essential sauces and sides included
We have tried a few recipes so far but there are so many more that we want to try. Somewhat strangely most of the ones that we have tried are for chicken. Here's what we have tried so far:
Butter Chicken
Chorizo Potato Stew-Soup
Pad See Ew
Juiciest, Easiest Roast Chicken Ever
The most recent recipe that we tried was Creamy Tuscan Chicken Pasta Bake which was delicious the first night we made it and still delicious when it was reheated! I am planning to make it again this weekend! The kids are coming for lunch on Sunday to see my husband who had surgery this week, so this is what I will be cooking.
If you were to scan the QR code in the cookbook for this recipe, it takes you to this page where you can watch the video associated with the recipe. I was pretty happy with how it turned out!
There is one thing that I absolutely love about this cookbook and it is nothing to do with the recipes. It is that at the back of the book, each team member who worked on the book is acknowledged, but it isn't just a list of names but rather there is a photo for each of them. It's a simple touch but so lovely.
And, of course, there's Dozer, the author's Golden Retriever who is the official taste tester! Adorable.
I am not the only one who has loved this book I am sure. After all, it made the New York Times bestseller list and won both Book of the Year and Illustrated Book of the Year at the recent Australian Book Industry Awards.
I think it is pretty obvious that I am loving cooking from the book! And I am now following her on Facebook so that I can see new recipes that come out. I sure hope she is going to publish another cookbook because I won't worry about borrowing it from the library first. That is one cookbook that will be pre-ordered!
Weekly meals
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ReplyDeleteI have been reading her blog/recipes for a long time so I was very excited to see she had a book and it made the NYT, no less. I have many of her recipes in my meal rotation.
ReplyDeleteShe was very excited when it made the NY Times bestseller list.
DeleteI made the Chicken Fricasse on the weekend - perfect winter food. I also made the Christmas Baked Salmon at Christmas which was a real wiiner.
ReplyDeleteI need to try the Chicken Fricassee! Thanks for stopping by Brona!
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