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Saturday, July 16, 2016

Home Cooked - Cookbook Review + Recipe

Home Cooked: Essential Recipes for a a New Way to Cook by Anya Fernald with Jessica Battilana

The blurb at the beginning of this book called my name.  It talks about rich sauces, meaty ragus with an unfussy execution and the focus on making delicious flavorful food.  I love cookbooks that focus on tasty food made with real ingredients and a focus on getting back to the fundamentals of home cooking with cooking from scratch and simple ingredients.

And Home Cooked is lovely.  From the homey picture on the cover to the botanical prints on the endpapers to the beautifully photographed ingredients and finished dishes.  It shows a lifestyle that I would love to emulate - clean without being sterile, homey without being cluttered and all the while relaxed content people who seem to be enjoying their meal.

At the beginning Anya Fernald talks about how she got her start in food, farming, and butchering which was absolutely fascinating and her devotion to what she does is admirable.  The cookbook starts out with a chapter called "Building Blocks" which I enjoyed.  There are recipes for sofritto, aioli, all different kinds of broth, and a number of different sauces including a Traditional Uruguayan Chimichurri that sounds heavenly.

After that it went a bit downhill for me - though really I should have realized that this wasn't the cookbook for me when I saw the recipe for "Trotter Broth".  The chapters progress in the order of a meal starting with Snacks and drinks, followed by main courses and vegetable side dishes and ending in dessert.  Unfortunately, the bulk of the recipes missed their mark with me.  While I'm sure the recipes all end with a delicious result and start with a clear and easy to follow recipe I don't see myself sitting down to a meal of Roasted Peppers with Salted Fish as my starter, followed with Bird and Bunny Ragu, and ending with a Panforte which while it sounds amazing would require a trip to the specialty grocery store across town.

The majority of recipes were either not for me because they involved organ meat (like Agrodolce tongue, braised tripe, seared beef heart, or grilled sweetbreads) meat that I don't care for or is hard to find (chicken fried rabbit, rack of goat, or squab confit), or requires too many steps to be something I make on a regular basis (tons of fresh filled pastas and homemade sausage).  While not for me it is a beautiful book and would be wonderful for cooks who are a little more adventurous than I am.

Today I thought I'd share two of the recipes from this book that I'll definitely be trying soon.  I think they'd pair well with some really nice cheeses to make a lovely snack or something to sit out pre-dinner.

Pickled Grapes

2 lbs organic seedless grapes, green, red, black, or a mixture, stemmed
3 sprigs fresh tarragon
3 cloves garlic, crushed
2 cups white wine vinegar
1 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons kosher salt

Pack the grapes into pint jars.  Add a spring of tarragon and a garlic clove to each jar.  In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine the vinegar, water, sugar, and salt.  Bring to a simmer, stirring to dissolve the sugar and salt, then pour the hot brine over the grapes.
Let cool to room temperature, then cover tightly and refrigerate.  Grapes are ready to eat in 1 day but will keep, refrigerated, for 1 month.  Serve alongside confits, pate, or other rich meats.

Olive Oil Crackers

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup warm water
1 tablespoon olive oil, plus more for brushing on crackers
1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more for sprinkling on crackers

In a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, combine the flours, water, olive oil, and salt.  Mix on medium speed until smooth and elastic, about 15 minutes (this can also be done by hand).  The dough should be very stiff and not all sticky; if necessary, add a bit more flour by the tablespoonful until it is no longer sticky.

Cover the bowl with plastic warp or a clean kitchen towel and let stand at room temperature for 1 hour (at this point the dough can also be tightly wrapped with plastic wrap and refrigerated for up to 3 days).

Preheat the oven to 350.  Transfer the dough to a floured work surface and cut into four pieces.  With a floured rolling pin, working with one piece of dough at a time, roll the dough as thinly as possible.  Using a sharp knife or pizza cutter, cut into 3 by 1 inch rectangles.  Transfer to two parchment lined baking sheets (the crackers do not spread, so you do not need to leave much space between them) and brush each cracker on both sides with olive oil, then sprinkle with salt.  Repeat with the remaining pieces of dough.

Bake, rotating the pans halfway through, until the crackers are blistered and golden brown, about 10 minutes.  Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool completely.  Bake the remaining crackers.  The crackers will keep for 1 week in a paper bag.  Reheat in a 300 degree oven for 5 minutes to recrisp if necessary.

This book was received from Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review.

I'm linking up with Weekend Cooking hosted by Beth Fish Reads





27 comments:

  1. I saw this book earlier at Blogging for Books but then it wasn't a selection for me anymore. I don't think I have the higher Klout score needed but it sure looked like a good book. Love the cracker recipe but I'm not sure I'd try the grapes. There's a sure "Nope" from my husband, lol.

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    1. The Klout score thing is kind of weird. Sometimes nothing is available and the next day it will be!

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  2. The recipes sound a little high-flown to count as "home cooking" in my book... or at least my kind of home cooking. A lot of those meats require either that you raise and butcher your own, cultivate the acquaintance of a farmer who will do it for you, or live in a city where you have access to specialty meat stores or meat departments. Since I don't qualify on any of those fronts, I think I'll stick to recipes with more common ingredients! Still, I love your description of the book physically, especially the idea of home as somewhere homey but neither cluttered nor sterile. That's an aspiration of mine, though I'm nowhere near reaching the "not cluttered" part of it!

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    1. Same here! I definitely need to get a little closer to the non-cluttered part! I have no idea where I'd get half of the ingredients!

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  3. Great and detailed review. I want to pick this one up and look at through it because it looks gorgeous, but I can tell from your review that it isn't for me either. I consider myself adventurous, but since I don't eat meat/poultry, the organ meats and sausage making are out and the number of steps for things makes the lazy cook in me cringe! ;-) But I am totally intrigued by those grapes--love pickles, grapes, and tarragon--so I may have to try those!

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    1. I don't think this is the book for me either but I'm definitely intrigued by the grapes! I'm looking forward to giving them intrigued!

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  4. Well, it would be a great book for someone raising their own farm animals, or near a specialty meat market, but you can't even find organ meats, or even duck is only found frozen now, at least where we live.

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    1. It definitely would be hard to find most of the ingredients - especially fresh without access to a farm or a specialty butcher shop.

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  5. Good to know when it's not worth bothering with a book. You made that clear! I can see why you haven't actually tried any of the recipes.

    best... mae at maefood.blogspot.com

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    1. I think it'd be a great book for someone - just not me!

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  6. This sounds like an interesting cookbook, Katherine, but also one better for reading and looking at the photos. The pickled grapes recipe sounds good and something I've never had before.

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    1. It's really beautiful to look at and I'm definitely looking forward to testing out the recipe!

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  7. It's got a lovely cover but I wouldn't want organ meat either!

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    1. It is beautiful but I'm definitely not going to be having beef heart any time soon!

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  8. I'm not a huge organ meat fan either. Have a great week. Cheers from Carole's Chatter

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  9. So this looks like a book for people who are on a farm and raise their own meat and grow a garden and hunt off the land...lol. :)

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  10. I'm not sure this book would be for me either. I prefer cookbooks that use ingredients most people have on hand.

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    1. The difficulty with finding the ingredients was definitely a stumbling block for me.

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  11. I'm not sure this book would be for me either. I prefer cookbooks that use ingredients most people have on hand.

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  12. What the what?!?! Although I was just listening to Gulp by Mary Roach and she went on and on about how nutritious organs were...so maybe these two could be besties. And was the name of the dish really Bird and Bunny Ragu? Huh. I love the idea of Home Cooked, too, especially the way you described your ideal home...but maybe without less kidney. ;)

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    1. Seriously that was the name of the dish! I like her sense of humor but I'm not eating bunnies!

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  13. I know! I can't wait to try them!

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  14. The book would have gone downhill for me, too. Even though we don't eat mammal meat at our house anymore, the organ meats would have been ugh too me too back in the day, and frankly, I have never, and could never eat a bunny. Those hand thrown pottery bowls on the cover though *heart eyes* Thanks for both of those recipes! I am going to try both of them. :) I am going to do a little experiment I am going to post about this review on my Facebook home and gardens page. See if you notice any extra hits.

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  15. Well I can certainly see why this book went downhill for you. Unlike the others, I actually LOVE bunnies (to eat, I mean). But hate tripe and am not a fan of organ meats in general (except chicken livers). I've never heard of pickled grapes .. interesting. I love making homemade crackers, so I might try them. Sorry I was so late getting here this week -- we were off camping and had almost no internet connection.

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  16. As you know, I love cookbooks, particularly those from the 60's and 70's that I've been collecting. Not many people review them, so I'm glad you share books we haven't heard of. Pickled grapes sounds really different and I'm going to try. Hugs...

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