My Favorite Cookbooks
And the recipes in them I love the most.
Hello, beautiful readers!
Let me quickly say that LA is still battling multiple wildfires (a new one just popped up day before yeaterday and quickly spread to over 10K acres), and I am still safe at home, and very grateful to be. In case you missed the update I posted while the Palisades and Eaton fires were raging two weeks ago, you can catch it here.
I love to eat, and I love to cook. Cooking, for me, is the perfect mix of creativity and rule-following for my artistic-yet-type-A brain. I can follow a set of directions and have something wonderful to show for it at the end. I can veer off a little when I feel like it, switching ingredients to my own preferences or making things sweeter or spicier depending on my mood. I think this love really blossomed during the pandemic, when making dinner became the daily event to look forward to when we were stuck at home. It is a time for me to set my worries aside, get messy and creative, and show my love for my husband and myself by making food that is fun and exciting and nourishing.
So, today I thought I’d share with you some of my personal favorite cookbooks, in case you’re looking to expand your own collection.
I want to mention, of course, that I am gluten free and a celiac (you can read my post all about that here, if you want), and people often ask me what my favorite gluten-free recipes are. For the most part, I don’t approach recipes that way. With a few exceptions, if you’re cooking at home, you can make just about anything gluten-free (baking is a different story, but I’m specifically focusing on cooking here). If you know that your ingredients are safe - tamari instead of soy sauce, gf all-purpose flour in place of regular, gf pasta when pasta is called for - there isn’t much stopping you from making nearly any recipe fit your needs. So I don’t approach finding recipes through a filter of their gluten-freeness; I find a recipe I want to make and then figure out what I need to do to make it gluten free.
Now, to the books.
Everyone’s Table by Gregory Gourdet - You may know that I am a giant Top Chef fan (also a pandemic development), and this James Beard award-winning cookbook from one of my favorite contestants, Gregory, is probably my single favorite cookbook I own. I have made more recipes out of this book than any other, and they have always been bangers. Gregory’s recipes are fresh and healthy and full of flavor, and they’re accessible for home cooks while making you feel like you’re cooking at a more elevated level than usual. Some things I keep coming back to are his Parsnip Puree and African Pepper Sauce, which go with anything and spruce up any protein. He also puts a lot of emphasis on sauces, spices, dressings, and oils, and gives dips their own section - so you know that’s a winner for me.
Repertoire by Jessica Battilana - We were first introduced to this book when we had one of the best meals of our lives, cooked by our friend April Morris at her home - Candy Pork. Boy, we dreamed of that candy pork for weeks after. Sweet, carmelized pork with rice cooked in coconut water to compliment it - it was beyond delicious. April recommended we get the book, and I have since made candy pork many times at home for Sean - now that I’m thinking of it, perhaps that’s what I’ll do this Valentine’s Day. I’m also a huge fan of the Roasted Carrots with Burrata and Salsa Rustica, which I have co-opted many times with different cheeses or ingredients in the salsa to spruce up carrots. This book promises to be “all the recipes you need,” which may be true, but honestly I’m not sure cause I haven’t made enough of them. I just keep going back to that candy pork.
The Dinner Party Project by Natasha Feldman - Alright, alright, full disclosure, Natasha’s my buddy and we go way back to studying abroad together in England in a year which I will not disclose. Watching her blossom into a badass food blogger has been an absolute delight, and her first cookbook, which focuses on making meals for a large group - something I love to do! - is a winner. When I made her Brown Butter and Sage RKTs (rice krispie treats) for friends, I was repeatedly told they were the best rkts folks had ever had, and her Honey-Jalapeño Black Beans changed my life. I won’t make black beans now without throwing those two ingredients in (a gross oversimplification of the actual recipe which you should make because it’s the best your beans can be). Natasha actually found out she was gluten free while she was making and writing this cookbook, and now she puts out an excellent substack called gluteus minimus with weekly gf recipes which I highly recommend.
Half Baked Harvest - Every Day by Tieghan Gerard - Alright, this one comes with a biiiiig ol’ caveat that Half Baked Harvest, aka Tieghan Gerard, has gotten a lot of flack as a food blogger for a lot of things - there are accusations that she’s stolen recipes; and she gets a lot of criticism for culturally appropriating recipes; and not to mention (but to mention) the fact that she is a tiny person and a lot of her recipes are heavy on the butter and cream. That last one is neither here nor there to me - let’s not police people’s bodies - but I do think the first two points are worth considering, and if she’s not for you, that’s certainly understandable. Once I learned about all this stuff I was a little more reticent to head to her site for my recipes, which is where I have spent a lot of time the past few years getting ideas for dinner. In her favor, I do think her recipes are very accessible for home cooks and can start to open a cook up to experimenting more and making recipes that require multiple steps without making you want to throw your pan over the balcony. I do often find myself halving the butter amount or swapping the heavy cream for coconut milk (which she often encourages) in efforts to make her recipes a tad healthier. She also has a ton of cocktail recipes on her site, which I appreciate. ANYWAY, controversy aside, there’s a lot to like in this book, like Dark Mocha Lava Cakes, which I made last Thanksgiving, Ginger-Pepper Salmon with Garlic Rice Noodles, and Garlic Butter Brussels Sprouts with Shortcut Lemon Aioli. And if you want to try a few of her recipes that are available online without buying the book, some of my faves are Sheet Pan Brown Butter Lemon Salmon and Potatoes with Parmesan Asparagus (the arugula salad that’s a part of this recipe has quite literally become my nightly go-to); Crispy Salt and Vinegar Smashed Potatoes, and Sheet Pan Honey Buffalo Chicken with Broccoli.
Try This at Home by Richard Blais - Back on the Top Chef train, Richard Blais is without a doubt one of our top five favorite chefs to come through the franchise. I watch his other series, Next Level Chef, and we’ve visited his restaurants in San Diego. When he first appeared on the show in season 4, he stood out because of his love of molecular gastronomy and wild cooking techniques, which this book certainly plays up (his other, more recent cookbook, So Good, is also excellent, and a little more straightforward). I included this book on my list simply for the inclusion of the Vidalia Onion Rings with Beer Mustard, a recipe that was so successful, Sean brings it up to anyone he can when he gets the chance. They were incredible. And an example of me taking a very much not gluten free recipe and making it gluten free to excellent results!
Finally, Dishoom - Look, reader. If you find yourself in the UK and have the opportunity to eat at Dishoom, you simply must. Wait for hours if you have to. It will be worth it. Dishoom is our favorite restaurant in the world - probably made all the more enticing by the fact that it doesn’t exist in the States. Thankfully, this beautiful cookbook gives us a little more of a chance to experience the magic that is Dishoom. The recipes will certainly take you all day to cook, make no mistake. But the result will be so worth it. Cooking from this book is not a weekly occurrence, but an event, a once-or-twice-a-year happening we often refer to as “Dishoomas.” The Chicken Ruby and House Black Daal are a must, and the Gunpowder Potatoes and Chicken Berry Britannia Biryani are also wonderful, and slightly less time consuming. This book is also just a beautiful addition to your collection.
So, there you have it: my favorite cookbooks! Going through these books reminded me that there are so many recipes I still haven’t tried in many of them and I’d like to get back to it. Please note I specifically did not include dessert-centered cookbooks in this list, which I have a lot of as well, and if you’d like to hear about those, I can certainly do a part two.
I’m also recently really enjoying using the New York Times app for finding nightly recipes. And, as another treat for you, this Roasted Salmon with Chimichurri is probably my number one most cooked recipe of all time - I have it memorized. (And yes I know it is not a traditional chimichurri!!! But it’s good!!)
Thanks for reading, and have a delicious week.
Need to buy the Dishoom cookbook ASAP so I can have a Dishoom of my own. Please do a part 2, I love reading about your cooking!!