Cookbook Survivor: Andy Baraghani, The Cook You Want to Be
Saturday's Child Works Hard for a Living
This is another one of those slightly off-brand uses of this column, in that I’m giving a brand-new cookbook a try rather than evaluating whether I want to keep an old under-used one. But hey, I’m not above tossing a new book out in a fit of pique if I really don’t like it. I’ve felt that way before a few times and done it once or twice.
I doubt that’s going to be the case with this book, however. I decided to pick it up based on a NYT review column (along with two others mentioned in the same review: Arabiyya and The Wok). There was something about the title that I found slightly off-putting, like it was a kind of “basics for new cooks”, but the review described it otherwise. The review was right. I’ve spotted a good twenty or thirty recipes in the book that I’m immediately drawn to, and I’m particularly taken with a lot of the vegetable recipes, which is not typical for me, as a lot of our diet is centered (excessively so) on meat. I also just really like the basic mood of the recipes and Baraghani’s prose is right in the zone of what I prefer in a cookbook—enough that I get a feel for him as a cook and the sensibility that guides his recipes. And yes, he’s pretty much the cook I want to be: casual, informal, unfussy about authenticity in a narrow sense, able to pull from several distinct pantries/flavor profiles comfortably. But he also has some nice, simple ideas (and he’s very good about recounting where he picked them up).
This weekend, I’ve already made his “cucumber every day” salad, which is really nice and looks good as well, and his version of larb, which I made with leftover barbecued pork shoulder. Tonight (Saturday) I’m making some ricotta dumplings that sound really great. (You’re offered the option of making them in a fancy crescent shape or just as basic plops, I’m going basic plop.) Tomorrow I’m cooking for myself while the rest of my family is on a short trip, so I’m going to make his roast carrots with hot green tahini to go with a simple pan-seared chicken breast. I’ll post up the complete results tomorrow but I feel reasonably confident that I can say already that it’s a cookbook worth having.