Milk Street Vegetables
250 Bold, Simple Recipes for Every Season
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- $25.99
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- $25.99
Publisher Description
IACP AWARD WINNER FOR BEST GENERAL COOKBOOK
Move vegetables into the center of your plate from the realm of sides and salads with this vegetable-cooking bible of more than 250 full-flavor recipes, from James Beard and IACP award winner Christopher Kimball's Milk Street.
Chili-spiked carrots. Skillet-charred Brussels sprouts. Mashed potatoes brightened with harissa and pistachios. These are just three ways to put vegetables in the center of your plate.
Here in the U.S., meat is cheap and has been in the center of the plate for centuries. The rest of the world, however, knows how to approach vegetables, grains and beans not only with respect but with a fresh, lively approach, one that transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary.
To get a vegetable education, we traveled to Athens to learn how winter vegetable stews could taste light and bright, not hearty and heavy. In Cairo, we tasted eggplant and potatoes that punched up flavor with bold pops of texture from whole spices. And in Puglia, Italy, we had a revelatory bite of zucchini enriched by ricotta cheese and lemon.
This is a world of high-heat roasts, unctuous braises, drizzles of honey, and stir-fries aromatic with ginger and garlic. And with 250 recipes, the possibilities are nearly endless: A simple head of cauliflower can become Cauliflower Shawarma, Sichuan Dry-Fried Cauliflower, or Curried Cauliflower Rice with Peas and Cashews Humble cabbage travels the world to become Butter-Roasted Cabbage with Citrus, Hazelnuts and Mustard; Hot and Sour Stir-Fried Cabbage; and Thai-Style Coleslaw with Mint and Cilantro Mushrooms are transformed into Stir-Fried Mushrooms with Asparagus and Lemon Grass or Miso Soup with Mixed Vegetables and Tofu and greens get the Milk Street treatment in dishes like Pozole with Collard Greens; Hot Oil-Flashed Chard with Ginger, Scallions and Chili; and Persian-Style Swiss Chard and Herb Omelet
It’s never too late to get your vegetable PhD.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This vegetable-focused addition to the Milk Street oeuvre falls in line with its predecessors, meaning Kimball (The Milk Street Cookbook) continues cleverly tweaking traditional recipes to create strong flavors. He cadges a Vietnamese technique to craft scallion oil that brightens asparagus, while tomato pie in a crust of store-bought dough bakes upside down like a tarte Tatin. Recipe instructions are clear: Kimball always indicates, for instance, whether an immersion blender is the right choice for pureeing one of a range of tempting soups. The downfall is organization. Chapters are broken down into meze, stir-fries, and the like, and a helpful index by vegetable sits up front, while the occasional sidebar spotlights a single vegetable and then cross-references recipes that use it. Yet assignment to chapters feels random: Why is grilled corn a "Stovetop Standout" when it isn't cooked on a burner? The distinction between two salad chapters is also hazy. A Malaysian-inspired cucumber and shrimp option is an accompaniment, while "Supper Salads" include a brussels sprout slaw. Repetition rankles: pasta with white beans and broccoli rabe is followed by pasta with white beans and chard. There is much that is appealing here, notably the up-to-date feel and streamlined preparations, but the confounding configuration relegates this to the good-not-great category.
