Milk Street Vegetables

August 2, 2021
This vegetable-focused addition to the Milk Street oeuvre falls in line with its predecessors, meaning Kimball (The Milk Street Cookbook) continues cleverly tweaking traditional recipes to create strong flavors. He cadges a Vietnamese technique to craft scallion oil that brightens asparagus, while tomato pie in a crust of store-bought dough bakes upside down like a tarte Tatin. Recipe instructions are clear: Kimball always indicates, for instance, whether an immersion blender is the right choice for pureeing one of a range of tempting soups. The downfall is organization. Chapters are broken down into meze, stir-fries, and the like, and a helpful index by vegetable sits up front, while the occasional sidebar spotlights a single vegetable and then cross-references recipes that use it. Yet assignment to chapters feels random: Why is grilled corn a “Stovetop Standout” when it isn’t cooked on a burner? The distinction between two salad chapters is also hazy. A Malaysian-inspired cucumber and shrimp option is an accompaniment, while “Supper Salads” include a brussels sprout slaw. Repetition rankles: pasta with white beans and broccoli rabe is followed by pasta with white beans and chard. There is much that is appealing here, notably the up-to-date feel and streamlined preparations, but the confounding configuration relegates this to the good-not-great category. Agent: David Black, David Black Agency.

October 1, 2021

In the latest Milk Street cookbook (following Tuesday Night Mediterranean), Kimball focuses solely on vegetables. Entire sections are devoted to single ingredients: artichokes, asparagus, sweet potatoes, winter squash, etc. The book offers a full year's worth of meal inspiration and recipes, including options for roasting, baking, or stir-frying vegetables or incorporating them into salads and soups. There are also recipes for specialty condiments, like compound butters to top grilled corn or cauliflower shawarma, with substitutions as needed. As in the other Milk Street cookbooks, there are photographs of each dish that bring the recipes (like charred zucchini and tomato dip) into clear focus, but the multitude of vegetable recipes make it stand out among other Milk Street publications. The extensive table of contents and lengthy index are highlights. VERDICT Besides fans of Milk Street's magazine or videos, cooks of all levels will appreciate the variety of vegetable dishes in this handy guide. It's an ideal complement to Milk Street: Cookish, but it can also stand on its own.--Barbara Kundanis, Longmont P.L., CO

Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2021
Food media star Kimball makes a clear distinction: This compilation of vegetable dishes is intended as an up-to-the-minute guide to vegetable preparation rather than a vegans-only tome. Even better, it goes beyond a simple assemblage of recipes, acting as an educational guide to both the essence of specific ingredients and the best cooking techniques for superb results. A few example recipes: savory fresh corn pancakes, artichoke tart with gouda and herbs, smashed cuke salad, asparagus gomae, Indian carrot stir-fry. Dishes are extricated from many different countries, like non-mayonnaise potato salad from Austria, Mexican pozole with collard greens. The ten chapters of recipes, from mezze to hearty mains, rarely feature a traditional protein beyond eggs, shrimp, and tofu, but the meat-starved can always add beef, chicken, or fish. Kimball's experience as cofounder of Cook's Illustrated magazine and contributor to the America's Test Kitchen series, has made this a green-things reference for all, geared toward the average home cook; .

COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.