How to Roast a Lamb
By Michael Psilakis (Little, Brown)
Heft: 288 pages
Damage: Dhs128.50
Difficulty: 7/10
Michael Psilakis’s debut cookbook is an emotional autobiography in narrative and recipe form. It’s also a great introduction to the marvels of Hellenic cuisine for those who know nothing about it. Psilakis, beginning with childhood favourites, moves from simple home cooking to complex restaurant fare. The bulk of the dishes – precise and lavishly illustrated – are easy enough to replicate (although some of his Anthos creations require dozens of ingredients and could take all day to make).
We tested: Shrimp with orzo and tomato. Quick (assuming you’ve banked some of that puree), flavour-packed pasta.
Mastering the Art of Chinese Cooking
By Eileen Yin-Fei Lo (Chronicle)
Heft: 384 pages
Damage: Dhs183.50
Difficulty: 8/10
This deluxe, glossy Chinese-food primer is geared more toward fully fledged Sinophiles than stir-fry dabblers, methodically exploring the full breadth of China’s complex cuisine. Eileen Yin-Fei Lo, an authority on the subject – she’s taught classes in New York since the ’70s – arranged this new book (her 11th) not in chapters but in lessons, with plenty of helpful photos and diagrams. Read it from cover to cover to fully master the cleaver, the wok and the bamboo steamer – not to mention your own fan-dried Peking duck. Now, isn’t that something worth shelling out for?
We tested: General Tso’s chicken. So much better than take out.
I Know How to Cook
By Ginette Mathiot (Phaidon)
Heft: 976 pages
Damage: Dhs165.25
Difficulty: 4/10
Published in 1932 and available now for the first time in English, Ginette Mathiot’s home cooking bible – the French answer to The Joy of Cooking – assumes you know your way around a saucepan, but don’t want to spend too much time stuck behind one. While Julia Child tried to explain haute cuisine to the American home cook, her Gallic predecessor took a more proletarian approach. Mathiot’s recipes, pared down to the essentials, are quick and dirty– and surprisingly easy to follow. Coq au vin, distilled into two short paragraphs, takes barely more than an hour to cook. The result is the sudden ability to create an elegant weekday supper in very little time.
We tested: Trout aux amandes. An elegant weekday supper in just half an hour.
Read more: http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/restaurants-bars/80616/best-cookbooks-for-holiday-gifting#ixzz0XrlNHvSZ
