Not surprisingly, this book was the debut pick for the new Gourmet magazine Cookbook Club. The recipes, which run the gamut from classic to modern, make use of every technique from steaming to grilling to frying. There’s even an intriguing, old-school method to cook fish in milk court bouillon that leaves the flesh soft and moist. After meeting Moonen recently at a conference in Monterey and hearing how he tested every recipe in a tiny, apartment kitchen rather than in a restaurant, I was eager to see if his dishes truly were a breeze for home-cooks. He didn’t disappoint. If his tuna burgers with harissa mayonnaise are any indication, I will definitely be cooking many more recipes from this book. The tuna burgers come together easily enough to prepare on a weeknight, especially if you make the accompanying cucumber salad the night before. Yet, the burgers are so tasty, they’re good enough for company. The harissa spice mixture, which can be purchased at gourmet groceries or made from scratch with Moonen’s additional recipe, gives these moist burgers a wonderful, subtle kick.

Tuna Burgers with Harissa Mayonnaise

From “Fish Without A Doubt’’ by Rick Moonen and Roy Finamore, Houghton Mifflin Company.

Tuna burgers deliver all the juicy satisfaction and richness of a hamburger. You do need to dice the tuna by hand; a food processor or grinder is going to make glue.

(serves 4)

For harissa mayonnaise:

• ¼ cup mayonnaise
• 1 teaspoon harissa (store-bought or use accompanying recipe), or more to taste
• 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
• 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

For burgers:

• 1 pound tuna, chilled in freezer for 15 minutes
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill
• Coarse salt
• Vegetable oil

For serving:

• Toasted potato rolls or hamburger buns
• Mom’s Cucumber Salad (see recipe below)

For harissa mayonnaise: Stir mayonnaise, harissa, lemon zest, and juice together in a small bowl.

For burgers: Cut tuna into ¼-inch dice, then chop it, to get a tiny dice. Put tuna into a bowl and add chives, dill, 4 teaspoons of harissa mayonnaise, and salt to taste. Mix it all up with your hands, then moisten your hands and form 4 burgers.

Heat a little vegetable oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. When pan is hot, reduce heat to medium, put burgers in pan, and cook for 2 minutes to brown the first side. Turn burgers over and cook for another 2 minutes for medium-rare.

To serve, spread rolls with harissa mayonnaise. Add burgers and pile on some cucumber salad.

Note: You can also make a very quick cucumber relish by peeling, seeding, and dicing a cucumber, tossing it with salt, and pouring in about 1/3 cup white vinegar; let it sit while you make the burgers.

Mom’s Cucumber Salad

My mom made something like this when I was growing up, though with red wine vinegar and no herbs. I took her idea and played with it. The cucumbers keep crisp like a great dill pickle.

(serves 4)

• 2 cucumbers, peeled, seeded, and cut into ¼-inch slices
• Coarse salt
• 1 small red onion, cut into very thin slices
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill
• About 1 cup rice vinegar

Put cucumbers in a colander with a generous teaspoon of salt and toss. Fill a sealable plastic bag with ice cubes and put it on top of the cukes to weight them and keep them very cold. Put colander in a bowl and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Take colander out of bowl and shake cucumbers well over sink. Don’t do anything like blotting them or rinsing them.

Put cukes into a bowl with onion, sugar, and dill. Toss to combine. Pour in the vinegar; it should just cover the cucumbers. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour before serving.

This will keep for at least 5 days in the refrigerator.

Harissa

This spicy paste is one of the staples of the North African kitchen. Sure, you can buy it in tubes in specialty markets and even in some grocery stores, but I have to say, nothing beats the flavor of homemade. The recipe is from my coauthor.

• 2 ounces dried Baklouti chiles, wiped clean, stemmed, and seeded (see Note)
• 4 teaspoons fennel seeds
• 2 teaspoons coriander seeds
• 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper (optional)
• 1 teaspoon coarse salt
• 3 garlic cloves, chopped
• 6 tablespoons olive oil, plus a little more 

Put chiles in a heatproof bowl and cover with simmering water. Let chiles rehydrate for 15 to 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, put fennel and coriander seeds in a spice grinder with crushed red pepper, if using, and salt. Grind to a fine powder, and pour into a food processor. Add garlic to processor.

Spoon 2 tablespoons of chile soaking water into processor, then drain the chiles and add them. Pulse a few times to make a very coarse paste. Scrape sides down, then turn on processor and pour in oil. Process until you have a thick paste _ don’t worry, it needn’t be completely smooth.

Pack harissa into a glass jar, cover with a film of olive oil, and refrigerate. It will keep for about 1 month.

Note: Baklouti chiles, the traditional Tunisian hot pepper for harissa, are available from Kalustyan’s (www.kalustyans.com). But you can substitute other dried chiles say, guajillos, mulattos, pasillas, or even chipotles or moritas, if you want a fiery harissa.

About Fish Without A Doubt

With health and environmental concerns plaguing so many types of seafood today, this book comes along at just the right time to help us sort out which fish can best be enjoyed without harming our bodies or our planet. Rick Moonen is a three-star seafood chef, and his co-author, Roy Finamore, is known for crafting books that home-cooks actually can cook from. It’s chockfull of creative, yet doable recipes. This is a book you’ll use again and again.

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The first, and probably most important, thing to know about this cookbook is that the term salad means much much more than a leafy green with some vinaigrette on it.  While there may be a token leafy green or two based salads in the book, they are most assuredly in the minority.  Instead you’ll find wonderful parsley, eggplant, pepper and tomato salads (alone or in combination with other veggies).  To complement all of the salads, Joyce has presented a wide range of dressing recipes.  Each salad recipe lists a couple of alternative salad dressings, creating a mix-and-match meal depending on what you have at hand and what you might want. 

In my garden the parsley has been thriving, so the “Greek Parsley Salad with Tahini Dressing” was an easy choice.  Technically this is a meze and is spread on warm pita but whatever the technical term the result is delicious.  If you’re not familiar with flat-leaf parsley try it here and see how wonderful it is.  In fact, I think parsley may be my favorite herb.  And Mediterranean Fresh is definitely in the running for favorite salad cookbook….

Greek parsley salad with tahini dressing

Reprinted from Mediterranean Fresh: A Compendium of One-Plate Meals and Mix-and-Match Dressings by Joyce Goldstein.  Copyright (c) 2008 by Joyce Goldstein.  Photographs copyright (c) 2008 by Andre Baranowski. With permission of the publisher, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

tahini salata

Serves 4 to 6

While called a salad, this is really a meze spread to be served with pita bread. I sometimes add toasted pine nuts to the parsley and tahini mixture, as I think they add texture and sweetness. If you don’t have green onions on hand, you can use 4 tablespoons chopped chives instead.

• 1/2 cup tahini dressing (see below), plus more if needed
• Water
• Sea salt, if needed
• 1 1/2 to 2 cups chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
• 3 green onions, finely chopped (white and green parts)
• 2 tablespoons toasted pine nuts, coarsely chopped (optional)
• Pita bread, cut into triangles and warmed

Put the tahini dressing in a blender or a small food processor and beat in a bit of water to make it thin enough to coat the leaves. Salt is crucial for the balance of flavor, so dip a leaf of parsley into the dressing and add salt if needed.

In a salad bowl, toss the parsley, green onions, and toasted pine nuts with the dressing. Serve with the pita bread for scooping.

Tahini dressing

Reprinted from Mediterranean Fresh: A Compendium of One-Plate Meals and Mix-and-Match Dressings by Joyce Goldstein.  Copyright (c) 2008 by Joyce Goldstein.  Photographs copyright (c) 2008 by Andre Baranowski. With permission of the publisher, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

makes 2 ½ cups

Tahini is a pantry staple in Israel, the Arab nations, Turkey, and the Middle East. A rather thick paste made from grinding sesame meal and oil, it comes to the market in cans, jars, and plastic containers. For years tahini was found only in stores specializing in foods from the Middle East or health-food stores, but today it is on many supermarket shelves. Not all tahini is of equal quality, so I advise sampling a few different brands to find one that is rich in flavor and has no bitterness. (Some of the “natural food” brands are not mellow enough for my palate, and a few have a nasty aftertaste.) My favorite, Al Wadi, comes from Lebanon.

After packing and shipping, the sesame paste settles to the bottom of the container in a dense lump and the oil floats on top. You will have to stir the tahini rather vigorously before use. A whirl in the blender or food processor will do it, or use a strong wrist and a fork. After you take what you need, put the rest back in the original container. Every time you need to use tahini, you will have to repeat the stirring process, as it will resettle.

Tahini becomes a salad dressing when you blend it with lemon juice and thin the puree with varying amounts of water. It can be thick or quite thin. Garlic is usually added, as are spices such as cumin and cayenne or another ground hot pepper. Creamy tahini dressing may be served as an appetizer dip for pita bread, spears of cucumber, carrots, radishes, and green onions. Thinned with water, it can be drizzled over a simple salad of sliced tomatoes or beets and greens. Tahini dressing can also be used to dress a salad of romaine lettuce, sliced cucumbers, and radishes. It is superb spooned over sautéed or grilled eggplant or zucchini. Stir it into mashed roasted eggplant and you create baba ghanouj. Stir it into mashed chickpeas and you create hummus.

Tahini dressing is also a superb finishing sauce. As you will see from the recipes in this book, it can be spooned into pita bread along with a bit of chopped cucumber and tomatoes to moisten falafel, mussels, or kefta. It may also be spooned over cooked fish and seafood as a finishing sauce. To lighten this rich, creamy dressing, some cooks beat in 1/2 cup plain yogurt.

• 1 cup sesame tahini, preferably Al Wadi brand
• 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
• 2 cloves garlic, finely minced
• 1 cup cold water, plus more if needed
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon toasted cumin seed, ground (optional)
• Pinch of cayenne (optional)
• Chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley, for garnish (optional)

Combine the tahini, lemon juice, and garlic in a food processor or blender and puree. Add water as needed to thin to a spreadable consistency for a dip and even thinner for salad dressing. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and with cumin and cayenne if you like.

To serve as a dip, spoon into a shallow bowl and sprinkle with chopped parsley. (Some cooks stir the parsley into the dressing.)

Variation: 

• Add 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne to the tahini mixture when pureeing.

About Mediterranean Fresh

In the Mediterranean, salad means anything from tabbouleh to white beans and prawns in a lemony dressing to small plates of mezze, antipasti, and tapas. Joyce Goldstein shows you how to make 140 of these delicious, healthful, easy-to-prepare dishes for a sensuous and satisfying meal. Joyce shows you the art of dressing a salad and how to use dressings as marinades, spreads, dips, and finishing sauces. Along the way you'll learn how to taste, balance flavors, and develop your palate.

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Pizza on the Grill starts, as you may expect, with a history of grilled pizza, followed with details on how to actually make pizza on a grill, how to make dough, and a list of great pizza cheeses.  This is all really informative but my favorite parts of the book are in the variety of pizza recipes, the alternative dough recipes and the large number of sauce and sauce-like recipes.  As the author’s say “Now the fun really begins!”. With sections on classic pizzas; meatless pizzas; pizzas with fish, pork, chicken, and beef; breakfast pizzas and even dessert pizzas you certainly won’t be lacking ideas for how to create new and intriguing pizzas.  Some of my favorites include “Blistering Corn, Asparagus & Pesto Pizza”, “Magic Mushroom Medley”, and “Smoking Salmon” (see recipe below).  You’ll also find some great, albeit weird sounding pizzas such as the “Yukon Gold Rush Pizza”.  Trust me, if you’ve never had potatoes on a pizza you must try it.  Complimenting all these great pizza recipes is a wide assortment of sauces ranging from from typical tomato based sauces, to pesto, to white bean puree, to garlic paste and more.  While I’m not sure about the sweet pizzas, I have to give the authors credit for creativity. And for those of you adventurous enough to try it please let me know what you think of the “Funky Monkey Pizza”! 

Smokin Salmon Pizza

From Pizza on the Grill by Elizabeth Karmel and Bob Blumer, Taunton 2008

• 1/4 cup uncooked grits or polenta, for rolling the dough
  
• 1   ball prepared pizza dough, at room temperature
  
• 2   tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 cup Boursin or other soft garlic cheese (one 5.2-ounce round)
• 1   small shallot, minced
• 4   slices smoked salmon (about 4 ounces), cut into strips
• Zest of 1 lemon, finely grated with a microplane or a zester
• 2   tablespoons chopped fresh dill or chives
• Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Preheat the grill, roll out and shape the dough, and grill the first side of the crust as per instructions below. Flip the crust and grill until the second side is well browned, 2 to 3 minutes. (Since you’re not melting cheese or warming any toppings, you don’t need to switch to indirect heat for a gas grill.)

Remove from the grill and immediately spread the entire surface with the Boursin. Sprinkle with the shallot and top with the strips of salmon. Finish with the zest, dill, and pepper. Slice and serve immediately.

ADVENTURE CLUB Replace the salmon with pieces of smoked sturgeon.

DRINK THIS Smoked salmon and champagne are an unbeatable combination.

Master Instructions: The Gas Grill Method

Preheat the grill by setting all the burners on high. After lighting, close the lid and leave on high for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat of all the burners to medium.

Meanwhile, sprinkle your work surface with the grits or polenta. Place the dough in the middle of the surface. You can either roll out the dough with a rolling pin, stretch it out with your hands, or press it out from the center against the work surface. Ideally, you want a 12-inch, organically shaped piece of dough—round, square, or rectangular—1⁄8 to 1⁄4 inch thick (err on the thinner side for thin-crust pizza and on the thicker side for thick-crust pizza). Drizzle or brush both sides generously with oil. Our recipes call for 2 tablespoons, but we tend to use more oil when making our own pizzas, which results in a thinner and crispier crust.

Pick up the dough by the two corners closest to you. In one motion, lay it down flat on the cooking grate from back to front (as you would set a tablecloth down on a table). Close the lid and grill for 3 minutes (no peeking!), then check the crust and, if necessary, continue grilling a few more minutes until the bottom is well marked and nicely browned.

Use tongs to transfer the crust from the grill to a peel or rimless baking sheet. Close the lid of the grill. Flip the crust to reveal the grilled side. Follow the specific recipe directions for adding any sauce, toppings, and/or cheese.

Switch the grill to indirect heat by turning off the center burner(s) if you have a three- or four-burner grill. For a two-burner grill, turn off one burner. Set the pizza back on the grate over indirect heat (the unlit section) and grill, with the lid down, until the bottom is well browned and the cheese is melted, 7 to 10 minutes. For two-burner grills, rotate the pizza halfway through the cooking time. 

Remove from the grill, garnish, and season as directed. Slice and serve immediately.

Master Instructions: The Charcoal Grill Method

Build a fire by lighting 50 to 60 charcoal briquettes in either a chimney starter or in a
pyramid-shaped mound on the bottom grate of your grill. Once the briquettes have become gray-ashed (20 to 30 minutes), move them all to one side of the grill.

Meanwhile, sprinkle your work surface with the grits or polenta. Place the dough in
the middle of the surface. You can either roll out the dough with a rolling pin, stretch it out with your hands, or press it out from the center against the work surface. Ideally, you want a 12-inch by 6-inch, organically shaped piece of dough—a rectangle—1⁄8 to 1⁄4 inch thick (err on the thinner side for thin-crust pizza and on the thicker side for thick-crust pizza). Drizzle or brush both sides generously with oil. Our recipes call for 2 tablespoons, but we tend to use more oil when making our own pizzas, which results in a thinner and crispier crust.

Pick up the dough by the two corners closest to you. In one motion, lay it down flat—over the side without briquettes—on the cooking grate from back to front (as you would set a tablecloth down on a table). Close the lid and grill for 3 minutes (no peeking!), then rotate the crust 180 degrees and continue grilling until the bottom is well marked and evenly browned, another 2 to 3 minutes. 

Use tongs to transfer the crust from the grill to a peel or rimless baking sheet. Close the lid of the grill. Flip the crust to reveal the grilled side. Follow the specific recipe directions for adding any sauce, toppings, and/or cheese.

Set the pizza back on the grate over the side without briquettes and grill, with the lid down, for 4 to 5 minutes. Rotate the pizza 180 degrees and continue to grill with the lid down until the bottom is well browned and cheese is melted, another 4 to 5 minutes.

Remove from the grill, garnish, and season as directed. Slice and serve immediately.

About Pizza on the Grill

Americans love pizza and Americans love to grill--put them together and you have your own made-at-home version of a wood-oven pizza, straight from your gas or charcoal grill. Pizza on the Grill contains 100 recipes for innovative, just-got-to-make-it pizzas--including dessert pizzas--that will make you the backyard patio grill meister or mistress of your neighborhood--think Thai One On Pizza, Pulled Pork Pizza, and Fig, Walnut, and Rosemary Pizza, along with traditional classics like Pizza Margherita and Little Italy Pepperoni Pizza. Each recipe will contain music-to-grill-by and drink suggestions, as well as appetizers and salads to round out the meal and make this a one-top entertaining resource. 

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Knife skills are one of the most important and most difficult of the kitchen skills.  Poor knife skills will slow you down and to some degree limit your creations.  I know this first hand because I’m constantly trying to improve my mediocre knife skills.  Knife skills are hard to learn and while first hand instruction may be the optimal approach that is often not an option.  Norman Weinstein knows all of this since he’s been a knife skills instructor for the past decade and culinary instructor for over 20 years; he’s seen a lot and understands the difficulties of overcoming bad habits.  In “Mastering Knife Skills” he builds upon this experience to teach us everything we need to know about the knife and how to become a master at using it.  The book begins with how to purchase and care for your knives.  Next, Norman teaches us how to hold the knife and the two primary cutting techniques called the low and high techniques (see below).  Once the basics are over, the remainder of the book focuses on specifics for a wide variety of vegetables and meats including dicing, slicing, and so forth.  He continually re-emphasizes the basics along with the importance of practicing the skills to master them.  Norman further eases the process of learning knife skills with lots of photos and a DVD that shows you examples of the proper knife techniques and skills -check out a preview here!  Becoming a master at knife skills requires lots of practice and the desire to improve.  I found Norman’s style motivating and his technique understandable.  Although I can’t say I’m a master yet, I hear his words each time I use a knife and I’m working towards improving…

Using a Longer Chef’s Knife

From Mastering Knife Skills by Norman Weinstein, Stewart, Tabori  & Chang, 2008. 

If you used an 8-inch chef’s knife for the celery exercise, try the same technique of cutting something low with a 10-inch knife. The sequence of movements used with the 8-inch knife does not change. You still place the tip on the board, and push and make the cut with a forward-downward motion and a follow-through. But when you raise the handle and pull back on the tip to return to your starting position, you will raise and pull the knife back until you reach the last 3 to 4 inches rather than the center of the blade, then continue the forward, gliding motion until the bolster reaches the food item.

The photos above show a side-by-side comparison.

When you cut a low item with the 8-inch knife, you need the back half of the blade to make the cut and follow through. If you start the cut too far back on the blade, you will run out of room and instinctively press down. If you start the cut nearer to the tip, you will have to raise your elbow higher than necessary and create side-muscle stress. The beauty of the 10-inch blade is that its extra 2 inches of length also provide additional heft. It permits the cutting of small pieces much farther back on the blade where there is more weight. It is not efficient to cut something 1 inch wide with 5 or 6 inches of blade. You need at most 3 inches, and since you have more weight to work with, your muscles will have to work less. Finally, since the blade is longer, you have more options as to how much blade to use, whether to use a long stroke or a short stroke, for example. Smaller items require less of the blade. This is true for both 8- and 10-inch blades. If your item is wider, the longer blade has a clear advantage. You have fewer options with shorter knives. With practice you will figure out exactly how much blade is necessary to make the cut and get a proper follow-through.

About Mastering Knife Skills

As the number of gourmet home kitchens burgeons, so does the number of home cooks who want to become proficient users of the professional-caliber equipment they own. And of all kitchen skills, perhaps the most critical are those involving the proper use of knives. Norman Weinstein has been teaching his knife skills workshop at New York City’s Institute of Culinary Education for more than a decade—and his classes always sell out. That’s because Weinstein focuses so squarely on the needs of the nonprofessional cook, providing basic instruction in knife techniques that maximize efficiency while placing the least possible stress on the user’s arm. Now, Mastering Knife Skills brings Weinstein’s well-honed knowledge to home cooks everywhere.

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Photography by Simon Wheeler

Strawberry Sandwiches

From The River Cottage Cookbook by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall,  Ten Speed Press 2008

The idea of a strawberry sandwich may sound a bit odd, but I defy anyone who likes strawberries and sandwiches (that must be all of us, right?) not to be delighted by these. I like to think of them as a kind of summer dessert you can eat without a spoon. You don’t have to add the pepper, but I think it makes them even more irresistible.

makes 4 rounds

• 8 thin slices of good crusty white bread
• Soft unsalted butter
• 2 cups ripe strawberries
• A little superfine sugar
• Freshly ground black pepper (optional)

Spread the bread sparingly with butter. Hull the strawberries and slice them fairly thickly. Arrange the strawberry slices on the bread, as close together as possible without overlapping. Sprinkle lightly with sugar and add a few twists of black pepper if you like. Place a round of buttered bread on top to complete the sandwich, then cut into halves or quarters. I prefer to leave the crusts on, but they become wonderfully dainty if you don’t.

Variation

To make a summer teatime treat into an indulgent pudding, spread the bread thickly with clotted cream or crème fraiche (instead of thinly with butter) and be a bit more cavalier with the sugar.

About The River Cottage Cookbook 

First published in the United Kingdom in 2001, THE RIVER COTTAGE COOKBOOK quickly became a hit among food cognoscenti around the world. Now tailored for American cooks, this authoritative and animated ode to eating well is one part manifesto and one part guidebook for choosing and storing food grown in the garden, butchered from prize animals, or foraged or caught locally. Fearnley-Whittingstall writes with humor, wit, and clarity, bringing American readers what his legions of British fans have enthusiastically embraced: the best techniques and recipes for getting the most out of simple, superior food, while supporting the environment, vibrant local economies, and resourceful use of plants and animals.

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