Synopses & Reviews
Nowadays, everyone who entertains is looking for outstanding casual fare that will allow them to spend more time with their guests. Dishes must be quick and easy to prepare (or able to be made ahead) and filled with the purest ingredients for optimum flavor.
The Best of Gourmet, Featuring the Flavors of Thailand is filled with twenty-eight such menus-most are very relaxed, all are absolutely delicious.
For example, after a chilly day on the slopes, you may want to treat your houseguests to A Ski House Dinner. Begin the evening around the fire with champagne and a large platter of ever-so-tender smoked salmon with cilantro cream. Later, roasted veal chops with shallots, tomatoes, and olive jus nestled on pillows of soft polenta make a rich, indulgent entrée. And before everyone retires, a heavenly warm chocolate raspberry pudding cake, made the day before and reheated, is served with a glass of cognac.
When the summer heats up, why not spend A Weekend at the Shore with friends? You'll have three clever menus in hand that take advantage of the season's abundant fresh produce, include plenty of make-ahead dishes, and satisfy hearty seaside appetites. On Saturday morning you can serve Breakfast on the Beach with buttery-rich baked blueberry-pecan French toast. Lunch Indoors includes a serve-yourself composed salad of classic favorites and a lovely rhubarb rice pudding. Then, after a long day in the sun, Dinner on the Deck promises a seafood meal to remember with curry-marinated mussels, followed by grilled lobster with Southeast Asian dipping sauce.
Or perhaps a last-minute Beyond Backyard Basics dinner is closer to what you had in mind? This little gem of a menu features ratatouille with penne-a heavenly jumble of roasted eggplants, onions, yellow squash, and red bell peppers, with plum tomatoes, garlic, thyme, parsley, and basil. For dessert, multicolored grapes perched atop pastry cream in puff pastry shells make a scrumptious and ever-so-pretty choice.
So which menu will you try first? You'll find more than eighty pages of exquisite full-color photographs to help you decide. Altogether, this volume holds more than 350 recipes-including the very best recipes that appeared in Gourmet's food columns during 1999. There are hundreds of dishes that can be made in forty-five minutes or less (look for the clock symbol ð); plenty of leaner and lighter selections (look for the feather symbol F); seasonal ideas for everything from apples to zucchini; and an impressive array of tempting sweets and snacks.
This year's Cuisines of the World section turns to the intriguing flavors of Thailand with a traditional dinner for eight and a collection of Thai snacks. Dishes such as steamed red snapper with ginger, grilled beef salad, fish cakes, and coconut ice cream demonstrate the sweet, sour, hot, and salty tastes of this fascinating country. Informative primers and exquisite full-color photos add further insight.
Twenty-four more brand-new recipes appear in a special section featuring Unusual Pastas and Grains. From fresh rice noodles to Israeli couscous to wheat berries, and much more, these unique pantry items will undoubtedly expand your palette of flavors.
Just when you thought you had tasted it all, along comes a cookbook that opens up a world of new possibilities-The Best of Gourmet
Synopsis
When in Rome, do as
Gourmet's food editors do bask in the exquisite beauty, and relish every morsel at the best restaurants in town. At home you'll want to re-create your favorite dishes, and now you can.
The Best of Gourmet, Featuring the Flavors of Rome takes you on a gastronomic tour of the Eternal City in this year's "Cuisines of the World" section. Here the centerpiece is an ambitious feast inspired by the lush colors and sensuality of a Caravaggio painting. Crisp (and salty) fried salt cod, tender
gnocchetti bathed in rich tomato sauce, and succulent pork loin roast stuffed with truffle butter and mortadella satiate the palate. Towering puff pastries of grappa cream and rhubarb add the final dramatic stroke. You'll also find an elegant little meal created by an American artist who now proudly calls Rome her home, and eighteen more dishes that highlight the best dishes of the region. There's even a cooking class on gnocchi (both the Roman semolina version and the ever-popular potato dumplings that everyone loves).
But that's not all. This volume is a collection of dozens of menus and more than 325 recipes that were created by the food editors of Gourmet magazine during 2003. From simple weekday meals to weekend retreats to elegant parties, "The Menu Collection" is a year-round source for wonderful dining ideas. "It's a Kick" to host a Super Bowl Sunday party, and here's the one you want, boasting tow parmesan hero sandwiches one chicken, the other eggplant and a host of nibbles and finger-friendly dishes that will happily hold until halftime. The whoopie pies will certainly score a touchdown with your guests.
Or perhaps you'd like to invite your friends to "A Weekend in the Country"? There are twenty-one dishes five menus in all that can be prepared with a minimum of fuss. A warm kale and potato Spanish tortilla welcomes your guests; green pozole with chicken satisfies after a long day outdoors; an unbelievably good cranberry coffeecake awaits for breakfast; an unctuous osso buco and creamy polenta dinner adds style and grace to the big-night celebration; finally, pecan waffles with sauteed pineapple and vanilla brown sugar syrup send everyone off pampered to the nines.
The Best of Gourmet, Featuring the Flavors of Rome, packed with more than 120 full-color photographs, is designed to entice you to add variety to your everyday cooking and to entertain more often. Now, isn't that just what everyone needs?
Synopsis
Why don't you invite friends to the country this weekend for tender osso buco (with tomatoes, olives, and
gremolata) and creamy polenta? Add the mushroom tortellini in mushroom broth and a salad if you have time, but be sure to include the unforgettable candied kumquat and ricotta tart. This is just one of the dozens of outstanding menus that appear in this volume of
The Best of Gourmet.
You'll also find plenty of delicious dishes that Gourmet's food editors brought back from Rome in this year's "Cuisines of the World" section. Included is a remarkable meal inspired by Caravaggio and another by an American artist who now calls Rome her home. There's even a cooking class for making gnocchi and it's not as difficult as you think!
The Best of Gourmet, Featuring the Flavors of Rome for casual elegance at its best.