Cookbook Survivor: Padma Lakshmi, Tangy Tart Hot & Sweet
Saturday's Child Works Hard for a Living
I can see from picking up my copy of this that I’ve used it a few times: the tell-tale sign of food stains. I think I remember which recipes I made—one was a red snapper with a green apple chutney that was surprisingly dull, I think. That seems like a good reason to put it to the test. But I also haven’t used the book much, which is another reason.
I’ve come to respect Lakshmi in her work on Top Chef—over the years, she’s expressed more and more of her own thinking and expertise when it comes to food, particularly in her role as the primary host for the “quickfire” challenges that start off every episode. I like the kind of food she tends to like best on the show (and I always feel sorry for chef contestants who make an ill-advised detour into South Asian-inflected cuisine if they don’t have prior experience with it) and as I look through the cookbook I see a fair amount of things that I’d like to cook.
I can’t quite put my finger on why the book hasn’t landed with me more. I can see one reason, which is that she makes heavy use of a South Asian spice pantry which is one of the weaknesses of my own pantry. I almost think I should do the next three or four Cookbook Survivors on the Indian/South Asian books I have on the shelf and stock up so I can really put them to the test. It’s sort of the last great global cuisine that I know I love to eat but that I haven’t really cooked much myself.
Another thing that I see in looking through the pages is an issue that I know puts me off cookbooks, which is when I spot a version of something I’ve had and love to make and I try it, only to judge that version to be not nearly as good. In this case, it’s pastilla (variously also spelled bastilla, bisteela, etc.), a North African dish that is one of my major go-to dishes for a dinner party. It’s a layered phyllo-dough pie that that has some kind of fowl cooked in a strongly spiced broth (usually chicken, though the classic is made with pigeon) where the meat is taken off the bones and then the broth (usually with saffron, cinnamon, cardamom, and other aromatic spices) is used to cook some whisked eggs. The fowl makes one layer, the eggs (drained of the broth) the next, then the top layer is usually a mixture of almond, cinnamon and sugar). It’s a hassle to make but there’s nothing like it, and it will usually win over almost anybody. Anyway, Lakshmi has a version of it that’s ok, but I’ve got three or four other versions I like better and one of which I think is absolutely the best. It’s not particularly fair or rational of me to let that set my attitude towards a cookbook, but it does. Any cookbook that gives me best of show in one classic dish—or shows me a great new way to do that dish—stays in my heart. I think it’s rather the same kind of feeling you get when you actually go to a restaurant or eat over at a friend’s and you have something that’s so good that you never forget it, it sets the benchmark.
Anyway, I’m going to try a bunch of things from the book in small amounts tonight: some devilled eggs and an interesting warm peanut salad for starters, a spinach-plum salad and an herb-labneh salad (if I can find labneh) to go with a Thai-inspired shrimp curry. I was sort of tempted by a barbecued short rib recipe too, but that’s a lot of food already, even if I just make small amounts of each.