Twist of the Wrist: Quick Flavorful Meals with Ingredients from Jars, Cans, Bags, and Boxes
Award-winning chef Nancy Silverton has conquered the gourmet world as the original dessert chef at Spago and founder of the celebrated La Brea Bakery. Her recipes are legendary, innovative, and delicious. However, in the last few years, there has been a great shift in cooking toward the Home Meal Replacement (HMR), better known as “takeout.” It’s impossible to spend hours in the kitchen after a hard day’s work, so more people are buying prepared foods and frozen meals, compromising taste for...
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Award-winning chef Nancy Silverton has conquered the gourmet world as the original dessert chef at Spago and founder of the celebrated La Brea Bakery. Her recipes are legendary, innovative, and delicious. However, in the last few years, there has been a great shift in cooking toward the Home Meal Replacement (HMR), better known as “takeout.” It’s impossible to spend hours in the kitchen after a hard day’s work, so more people are buying prepared foods and frozen meals, compromising taste for convenience. Realizing that people’s hectic workdays don’t afford everyone the time to re-create her epicurean triumphs, Nancy has come up with the perfect solution . . .Enter, the jar!Compiling a list of her favorite products that come in jars—and cans, bags, and boxes—Nancy has created easy-to-follow recipes that require less than thirty minutes to prepare. With this book there’s no need to sacrifice flavor, sophistication, and taste just because you’re spending less time chopping, cleaning, cooking, or baking. Nancy’s shortcuts not only allow us to produce quick and easy meals at home, they let us bring back the pride and the joy of creating gourmet meals for our family and friends. A Twist of the Wrist contains 137 quick and delicious gourmet recipes from salads to pasta to meats and desserts, such as:Cumin Shrimp and Chickpea Salad with Roasted Carrots Creamy Corn Soup with Bacon and Cheddar Crostini Orzo with Dried Porcini Mushrooms, Radicchio, and Aged Balsamic Vinegar Boneless Pork Chops, with Creamy Polenta and Fennel Pollen Seared Rare Tuna with Tomato-Olive Salsa Dulce de Leche Ice Cream Pie with Hot Fudge Sauce, Cajeta, and Salty Spanish PeanutsIn addition to Nancy’s own creations, she includes recipes concocted with prepared ingredients from some of her chef friends, including Sara Foster, Tom Colicchio, Charlie Trotter, Mario Batali, Suzanne Goin, Ruth Reichl, and Jean-Georges Vongerichten.There is also a pantry section, telling us where to get—by the Internet and mail order—the best of all things canned, jarred, and bottled.This charming and utterly indispensable cookbook is suited for any type of cook, whether you’re an on-the-go gourmand or you just love flavorful, accessible meals at home. A Twist of the Wrist fits perfectly into today’s modern lifestyle and is a must-have for the contemporary kitchen. Publishers Weekly In this beautifully illustrated book, renowned Los Angeles baker and chef Silverton (Nancy Silverton's Sandwich Book) uses premium prepared ingredients as shortcuts to ease the home cooking time crunch. Most recipes are timed at 30 minutes or less, but the elegance and seeming difficulty of the dishes set them apart from the usual quick-fix crowd pleasers: Pomegranate-Glazed Lamb Chops with Stuffed Grape Leaves and Tahini Sauce, or Buttermilk-Fried Oysters with Pickled Vegetables and Chipotle Mayonnaise sound like they should take much longer than half an hour, but with the ready-made ingredients, few cooks will have a problem. They might, however, have trouble actually finding those ingredients; even big-city dwellers may have to turn to the Internet for specialty items like green masala paste or fennel pollen, though a helpful glossary provides insight into locating them and some substitutions. Famous chef friends like Charlie Trotter and Mario Batali provide recipes revealing their own secret shortcuts. Fans of Silverton's last book will love the chapter on crostini with innovative toppings like ventresca, piquillo peppers and caper mayonnaise, using leftovers from jars bought for other recipes. Cooks looking for upscale yet quick meal ideas, and who will pay extra for pricey exotic items, are sure to appreciate this stylish cheat sheet. 38 color photos. 75,000 first printing.(Mar.)Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information
A Twist of the Wrist\ Quick Flavorful Meals with Ingredients from Jars, Cans, Bags, and Boxes \ \ By Nancy Silverton \ Knopf\ Copyright © 2007 Nancy Silverton\ All right reserved.\ ISBN: 9781400044078 \ \ \ Tarragon Chicken Salad with Avocado and Bacon over Arugula\ \ I always keep a roasted chicken in the refrigerator at home. It's so handy to have around to make quick, last-minute meals. I'm lucky to live near a place in Los Angeles, Pollo alla Brasa, that roasts chicken over a wood fire. If you have such a place where you live, it's worth a special trip to go there for your chicken. You can really taste the wood and the fire flavors in the meat, and chicken cooked this way has a nice, firm texture. Because the amount of chicken you get from a whole chicken varies, I suggest you add the mayonnaise to the chicken gradually, using only as much as you think necessary.\ \ 8 strips thick-cut applewoodsmoked bacon\ \ 1 1 1/2-pound roasted chicken, meat shredded and skin and bones discarded (3-4 cups)\ \ 1/2 cup finely chopped fresh tarragon leaves, plus 1/4 cup whole leaves (about 40)\ \ 1 cup Garlic Mayonnaise (recipe follows)\ \ 1 ripe Hass avocado\ \ Sea salt\ \ 8 cups loosely packed arugula leaves\ \ 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil\ \ Freshly ground black pepper \ \ Adjust the oven rack to the middle position and preheat the oven to 350°F.\ \ Place the bacon on a baking sheet and cook it in the oven for 17 to 22 minutes, depending on the thickness of the slices, until it's done butstilly chewy, not crisp. Remove the bacon from the oven, transfer it to paper towels to drain, and allow it to cool slightly before tearing it into irregular pieces.\ \ Combine the shredded chicken, chopped tarragon, and 3/4 cup of the Garlic Mayonnaise in a large bowl and toss to coat the chicken with the mayonnaise. (Add more if necessary to coat the chicken thoroughly.)\ \ Halve the avocado, remove and discard the pit, and peel off and discard the skin. Cut the avocado into uneven chunks about the same size as the bacon and season them with sea salt. Put the arugula, avocado, and bacon in a large bowl. Drizzle with the olive oil, season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, and toss gently.\ \ Mound the arugula salad onto four plates, dividing it evenly. Mound the chicken salad on top of the arugula and sprinkle with the whole tarragon leaves.\ \ Garlic Mayonnaise\ \ In life, I believe everyone, especially those of us who are serious about food, is entitled to one food vice—something they love even though they have a hard time admitting it, whether it's Oreo cookies, Fritos corn chips, or Lipton onion dip made with onion soup mix. Mine, if I had to choose just one, is Best Foods mayonnaise (called Hellmann's on the East Coast). As many others as I tried and as much as I wanted to choose an organic brand for this book, I kept returning to my old favorite. The other mayos just didn't have that familiar, well-balanced flavor that says "mayonnaise" to me. This recipe uses Best Foods mayonnaise as a base to make a quick aoli (garlic mayonnaise). It takes minutes to make and is a delicious way to finish so many dishes.\ \ 1 cup mayonnaise\ \ 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil\ \ 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice, or more to taste\ \ 4 large garlic cloves, grated or minced (about 1 tablespoon), or more to taste\ \ 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt, or more to taste\ \ Stir the mayonnaise, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, and kosher salt together in a small bowl and season with more lemon juice, garlic, or salt to taste. \ \ \ Strawberries and Ladyfingers with Sour Cream, Muscovado Sugar, and Saba\ \ This dessert was invented one night at a dinner party at my house. One of the guests brought strawberries from the farmers' market that looked so good, Carolynn and I decided on the spur of the moment to turn them into a dessert using whatever I had in the house. This is what we came up with, and it was a big hit. Muscovado sugar is an unrefined brown variety from Africa, made from cane grown in volcanic ash. It has larger crystals than conventional brown sugar and a very strong molasses flavor. It adds another dimension of flavor to a simple dessert like this one that plain sugar wouldn't. You can find it at specialty food stores, but if you don't have any, substitute dark brown sugar. Ladyfingers are small finger-shaped sponge cakes that are most commonly used in tiramisù. I like their light, delicate texture with this simple fruit dessert. They're made of a very plain batter of eggs, flour, and sugar, and are one of the few items where I honestly can't tell the difference between fresh and packaged. Fresh ladyfingers might be slightly softer than packaged, but the flavor doesn't suffer in the packaged version. Just make sure the packaged ladyfingers you buy don't contain any weird ingredients.\ \ 1 pint ripe strawberries, hulled and cut in half\ \ 1 1/2 tablespoons saba, plus extra for drizzling and for serving on the table\ \ 1 cup sour cream (or crème fraîche)\ \ 3 tablespoons light brown muscovado sugar\ \ 8 ladyfingers\ \ Serves 4\ \ Place the strawberries in a medium bowl. Drizzle them with the saba and stir to combine.\ \ Mix the sour cream and sugar together in a small bowl to combine.\ \ Spoon the sour cream onto four plates and place two ladyfingers side by side on top. Spoon the strawberries over the ladyfingers and drizzle saba over each serving. Serve with the bottle of saba on the table for extra drizzling. \ \ Continues... \ \ \ \ Excerpted from A Twist of the Wrist by Nancy Silverton Copyright © 2007 by Nancy Silverton. Excerpted by permission.\ All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.\ Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site. \ \
Introduction 2Guest Chef Contributors 4Shoppping 5Equipment 6What Makes a Meal 8A Note on Seasoning 8Salads 10Soups 48Pasta and Polenta 52Eggs 92Crostini 108Traditional-Style Entrees 126Beef and Veal 129Pork 144Lamb 154Chicken 164Seafood 181Desserts 214Twist Essentials 238Acknowledgments 252Sources 253Index 255 y
\ Publishers WeeklyIn this beautifully illustrated book, renowned Los Angeles baker and chef Silverton (Nancy Silverton's Sandwich Book) uses premium prepared ingredients as shortcuts to ease the home cooking time crunch. Most recipes are timed at 30 minutes or less, but the elegance and seeming difficulty of the dishes set them apart from the usual quick-fix crowd pleasers: Pomegranate-Glazed Lamb Chops with Stuffed Grape Leaves and Tahini Sauce, or Buttermilk-Fried Oysters with Pickled Vegetables and Chipotle Mayonnaise sound like they should take much longer than half an hour, but with the ready-made ingredients, few cooks will have a problem. They might, however, have trouble actually finding those ingredients; even big-city dwellers may have to turn to the Internet for specialty items like green masala paste or fennel pollen, though a helpful glossary provides insight into locating them and some substitutions. Famous chef friends like Charlie Trotter and Mario Batali provide recipes revealing their own secret shortcuts. Fans of Silverton's last book will love the chapter on crostini with innovative toppings like ventresca, piquillo peppers and caper mayonnaise, using leftovers from jars bought for other recipes. Cooks looking for upscale yet quick meal ideas, and who will pay extra for pricey exotic items, are sure to appreciate this stylish cheat sheet. 38 color photos. 75,000 first printing.(Mar.)\ Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information\ \ \ \ \ Library JournalSilverton was one of the first of the new generation of artisan bakers, and her La Brea Bakery in Los Angeles has a national reputation. Her new cookbook, then, with recipes using convenience foods, is somewhat of a departure—the result, she says, "of a sort of reality check" when she realized how little time most people actually have to cook. She also began to discover the range of high-quality prepared products increasingly available even in supermarkets, and she embarked on a mission to develop sophisticated but quick and easy recipes that take advantage of them: Veal Involtini with Artichoke Leaf Sauce, for example, or Crab and Shrimp Cakes with Celery Root Rémoulade. Several of the products she calls for are fairly expensive (she does include a list of favorite "essentials," along with a source guide), and the prep times given for the dishes are probably overoptimistic for less-experienced cooks. Nevertheless, Silverton's approach is an unusual one, and her recipes are mouth-watering. Highly recommended.\ \ \ —Judith Sutton\ \
