Big City, Little Kitchen

Fan of Top Chef that I am, I was so excited to get Padma Lakshmi’s new cookbook, Tangy Tart Hot and Sweet.  There is a great emphasis on foods with light, fresh flavors; spices; and the blending of culinary traditions from around the world.  Weaved throughout are little vignettes that reveal a bit about the author and her evolving relationship with food.

I especially like the section on starters; here, Padma presents light dishes that are appealing to both the eyes and the palate.  The tea sandwiches with cucumbers and goat cheese are spiked with dill and scattered with ruby-colored pomegranate seeds; I can imagine the sensation of smooth cheese and cool cucumbers, followed by a pleasant shock of crunchy and sweet.  See also the hot and sour fruit chaat, a fruit salad that delivers both heat, from spices, and a cool bite, with cucumbers and mint. 

You can learn a lot about spices, particularly those common to Indian and Southeast Asian cooking, by flipping through this book.  When an exotic ingredient is incorporated into a recipe, there is a note indicating where it can be bought and how it functions.  For example, amchoor is a powder made from sundried green mangoes that acts as a souring agent.  It is stocked in Indian grocery stores, but if you don’t have any on hand, use lemon juice, and reduce the liquid in the recipe.  Tips like these are scattered throughout, and prove useful if you live in an area without immediate access to ethnic grocery stores.  That said, I now have a reason to stock up at Kalustyan’s, the famed Indian grocer.

As lovely as the recipes are, this Tangy Tart Hot and Sweet could stand on its own as a coffee table book.  The pictures have a cool-toned, rustic quality, and pictures of mundane objects like weathered spoons and whisks take on an appealing quality.  The intense greens of salads, charred and juicy surfaces of meats, and pale, sweet rose-petal-and-pistachio ice cream make you want to run to the kitchen and get to work.

The things I intend to make right away:  Chili Honey Butter (!), Chipotle & Date Chutney, Homemade Masala Chai, Grilled Manchego Bites with Apricot Preserves, Cardamom and Cashew Cookies…yikes!  Looks like I will be busy for awhile.