Cookbook Survivor: Josef Centeno, Baco: Vivid Recipes from the Heart of Los Angeles
Saturday's Child Works Hard for a Living
This is another of those “welcome to the X-Men, hope you survive” kinds of columns. This is the first time I’m using this cookbook—it came to me via a big shipment of cookbooks from a family member’s collection. (So I doubt I’d kick it to the curb just yet, but this might determine whether I use it again in the near-term future.) It’s one of the newest in the group of books I was sent, a cookbook by a LA chef with a number of restaurants there. Unlike many of the restaurant-connected books in my collection, I’ve never eaten at any of his places, so there’s no nostalgia factor here.
It’s a visually attractive cookbook, very accessible. It looks quite a lot like some of Ottolenghi’s books—big typeface, not a ton of insets or meandering stories. I have no trouble spotting things I’d like to cook in it. One thing that strikes me off the bat is that there’s a lot of space and attention in the beginning to distinctive sauces, spice mixes, components, dressings. I like that: I could see just working with it for those alone, potentially. It’s very LA in the sense that his food combines Tex-Mex, Japanese, and Middle Eastern elements and flavor profiles.
On the other hand, almost everything in the book has that slightly decadent, fall-of-Rome feeling to it, with recipes built around one significant element or ingredient that would be hard to source in some cases even if you were a half-block away from the Grand Central Market in LA or were willing to drive to five or six places all across the city. I appreciate the fusion ideas that seem to drive his cuisine, but they’re a bit fussy throughout. Making shichimi togarashi, the Japanese chile powder, with urfa biber, a smoky dark Turkish dried chile, is cool, but honestly, I don’t think it’s a huge difference, using urfa biber (though I have it on hand, so it wouldn’t stymie me) but that’s a lot of the book.
Where I really felt a twinge of annoyance was seeing recipes call for harrough, where I sat there mulling over what that was. Harrough, harrough, not familiar with it. Then I look at the part of the book where he says what it is and it’s a made-up word, for his version of harissa. Just call it harissa then, harrisa a la baco if you must. In explaining harrough he talks about using it in bazole! It’s his cross between pazole and ramen! A lot of it is right on that line between clever and pretentious.
But a lot of the fusions are clever ideas, no question and in a few cases may add to my shopping list the next time I’m at H-Mart or looking at the Burlap and Barrel spices at Philly Foodworks. I’m going to go fairly simple here: I’m making some crudites with a warm walnut-based bagna cauda dip, some flatbreads, and braised boneless chicken with leeks, tomatoes and yogurt.