Wright Eats

I spend all year dreaming about summer produce, especially our local Washington fruit.  For a couple weeks now, I’ve gone strawberry-crazy, making ice cream, jam, and eating them plain with a touch of our really nice balsamic from Italy, which is sadly almost gone.

I was about to make a strawberry tart this weekend, when I realized that cherry season is quickly slipping away!  Next week is already the last week of sour cherries from Mair Farm-Taki at the U-District market.  Why does it all come at the exact same time, and in spades?  I spend twice as much time in the kitchen in the summertime, it seems.  Not wanting to miss out, I grabbed a bunch of cherries this weekend, and we have quickly switched over to cherries in everything.

We had a breakfast of cherry baby dutch pancake, with Skagit River Ranch bacon.  Dessert tonight was a sour cherry almond cobbler.  Plans for the next week include salmon with grilled sweet onions, sweet cherries, and balsamic; David Tanis’ cherry-almond clafoutis (from A Platter of Figs), and Jerry Traunfeld’s goat cheese handkerchiefs with tart cherries and sage (from The Herbal Kitchen).

And then it’s on to apricots, peaches, blueberries, and blackberries.

Sour Cherry Almond Cobbler
Adapted from Ripe for Dessert, by David Lebovitz
Serves 8

David’s recipe uses sweet cherries, but I love the bracing tartness of sour cherries in my pies and cobblers.

For the filling:
5 cups sour cherries, stemmed and pitted (about 2 pounds)
1 cup sugar
3½ tablespoons cornstarch

For the topping:
7 ounces almond paste
1/3 cup sugar
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 large egg, at room temperature
½ teaspoon vanilla or almond extract
1 cup flour
1½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup whole milk

Position the oven rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

To make the filling: Mix the cherries with 1 cup of sugar and the cornstarch and arrange them in an even layer in a shallow 2-quart baking dish.

To make the topping: Beat together the almond paste and the 1/3 cup of sugar, until the almond paste is finely broken up.  Beat in the butter, then beat in the egg and the vanilla or almond extract.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.  Stir half of the dry ingredients into the butter and almond paste mixture, stir in the milk, and finally the remaining dry ingredients.

Spoon the batter evenly over the cherries in the baking dish and bake for 45 minutes, until the topping is golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Hm, I’ve been slacking on the blogging front, haven’t I?  Life has gotten a bit crazy lately, but here I am again.  During crazy times, we often find ourselves digging around in our freezer on weeknights, looking for something that might make a quick and easy dinner.  Which got me to wondering, what do other people keep in their freezers?  I love it when I find a great recipe that’s perfect for making a big batch and freezing.  Here’s what you might find in our freezer:

Marcella Hazan’s Bolognese sauce – It takes hours to cook Marcella’s Bolognese sauce, but it’s the perfect thing to have on the stove on a cool weekend afternoon.  With beef and pork (optional), milk, white wine, tomatoes, and a touch of nutmeg, it leaves you looking forward to Sunday dinner.  We make plenty of extra for our freezer.  Just defrost and heat, add a dab of butter to the sauce, mix in with your favorite pasta, and grate some parmigiano on top.

Tom Douglas’ fruit crisp topping – This stuff is perfect for a super-fast dessert.  I make a triple-batch and freeze it.  Then when I’ve got some lovely fruit – apples, peaches, cherries, whatever – I just cut it up, mix in a touch of sugar, throw it into a pie dish with some crisp topping, and pop it in the oven.  A large apple is perfect for one of our individual-sized Emile Henry pie dishes, and then the two of us can share a yummy apple crisp.

Tamales – These are newcomers to our freezer.  I wrote a couple months back about making tamales at our friend Kathy’s house.  Our freezer stash of tamales has dwindled, though, so we may need to make some more.

Bruce Aidells’ chicken and apple sausage – This homemade sausage is great both for breakfast and in savory recipes.  It’s juicy and better than anything I’ve bought in grocery stores.  It’s not too hard to make, actually, unless you want to stuff it into links which takes longer.  We just form it into patties for the freezer.  Bruce Aidells has a recipe for French toast stuffed with sautéed apples and some of this sausage, which is a great Sunday breakfast.

Jerry Traunfeld’s apple black bean soup – a great winter soup, especially during the time when apples are the only fruit available at our local farmer’s markets.  Jerry’s absolutely right in his intro paragraph which says that it makes a huge pot – one recipe is plenty for several meals.

Vij’s – You’ll always find a cooler in our car on our way over the border to Vancouver, so that we can bring back cryovaced packs of our favorite Indian food for our freezer.

Soup and rolls from Dahlia Bakery – Every few weekends, we’ll stop in for a morning fried egg sandwich (the gourmet version of a McMuffin), and if we get there late enough, the lunch items are just coming out of the kitchen.  We might grab a soup or two, which comes with one of their traditional rolls, and freeze it for a weekday lunch at work.

Fu Man Dumplings – You need to call ahead 24 hours in advance to pick up a bag of Fu Man dumplings to-go.  With some of their super-garlicky sauce, the dumplings make a yummy snack.

Eat Local – We’ve mentioned this place on Queen Anne on our blog before.  Now they’ve set up tent at the U-District Farmer’s Market each Saturday, which means that you might find their dinners in our freezer a little more frequently now, or maybe one of their cracker-bread pizzas, pictured above.  Just as the name of the store implies, everything is made using local ingredients, and is quite delicious.

So, what do you keep in your freezer?  Favorite recipes?  Trader Joe finds?  Food that you’ve always got to have on hand?

This year, I went on a bit of a canning craze.  I’d actually never canned in my life before this year, but was “forced” into it by the bounty of fruit we received from our CSA.  We’ve done a CSA for years, but stopped doing it for the last couple years after the Pike Place Market stopped offering theirs.  We settled into a weekly routine of heading to the U-District market for our produce instead, which we were quite content with.

One of our favorite stands at the market is Tiny’s, since I love stone fruits and they are among the best and offer theirs for the longest season.  They have an amazing variety of plums, peaches, and cherries, along with melons, apples, and more.  So when I found out that they offer a CSA, I thought maybe we’d finally found a good replacement for the Pike Place CSA – local, good quality produce, and best of all, a much higher proportion of fruits than most CSAs.  I love snacking on fruit, and that was my one wish for the Pike Place CSA: more fruit.

Be careful what you ask for.  Every week, Tiny’s supplied us with the juiciest, most delicious fruit, at least several pounds per week.  And soon we had fruit coming out our ears, it seemed, and I was getting a little tired of plums, so I needed to start getting more creative.  Through the summer, we ate fruit sliced on our grilled fish and meat.  I made plum financiers, and peach crisps (not to mention enough zucchini bread to feed an army!).  But it wasn’t enough to keep up.

So I finally pulled out my jam book, Mes Confitures.  I was determined not to let the fruit go to waste, and preserves seemed just the thing.  And this book has some creative and tasty jam recipes.  This season, I made strawberry jam with mint and cracked black pepper, plum and rhubarb jam, peach jam with lemon verbena, pluot jam, and plum and apple jam with anise and vanilla bean.  I shared the jars with our neighbors and started collecting them to give as gifts for Christmas.

But when I started packaging the gifts, I realized that there was one kind missing: orange marmalade.  My dad’s favorite spread is this, and he even likes to ask for a jar sometimes for Christmas.  I’ve given him jars in the past, but never my own, even though I’ve had a marmalade recipe filed away that I’d clipped out of the newspaper years ago.  I was always a little nervous about making it because I’d never canned before and thought giving my family spoiled jam might not be the best Christmas gift.

Now that I’d learned how to preserve jams though, the recipe no longer looked very hard at all.  Four simple ingredients: oranges, sugar, water, and a touch of lemon.  It turned out to be as easy as the author, Greg Atkinson, says.  And it tastes better than any marmalade I’ve purchased.  I hope my dad enjoys his marmalade this year!

Here is Greg Atkinson’s recipe.  Check out the original newspaper article for his other recipes for maple and honey granola and ginger biscotti.

Satsuma Mandarin Orange Marmalade
by Greg Atkinson
Makes six half-pints

9 medium-sized mandarin oranges
2 cups water
¼ cup lemon juice
4 cups sugar

Peel the oranges and set the fruit and peel aside separately. Slice enough of the skins into fine julienne strips to measure 2 cups. In a large kettle over high heat, boil the sliced orange peel in water for 5 minutes. (If you want to make a marmalade that’s less bitter, pour the water in which the peels were boiled into a measuring cup and replace it with the same amount of fresh water.)

Meanwhile, sterilize six half-pint jars in boiling water, and allow them to simmer on low heat, undisturbed while you make the marmalade.

With the metal blade in the work bowl of a food processor, puree the fruit of the oranges and the lemon juice, then add this pulp and juice mixture to the mixture of orange peel and water. When the whole mixture reaches a lively boil, add the sugar and cook, stirring occasionally for 15 minutes, or until the marmalade has thickened slightly and a candy thermometer registers 220 degrees.

Transfer the marmalade to jars and seal with clean, new, two-part lids. Return the filled jars to the hot water bath where they were sterilized and let the jars simmer for 5 minutes. Allow the marmalade to stand undisturbed for several hours or overnight. Sealed jars will keep in a cool, dark place for a year; any jars that do not seal may be kept in the refrigerator.

Note: If you want to make more than just a few jars, make two or three batches in a row. If you try to double the recipe, it will not work as well.

Our friend Arathi likes to bake, even more than I do, which I hadn’t thought possible.  And anyone who’s lucky enough to work with her husband (like me) benefits from when she bakes too many cookies and he brings a batch to share.  After I tried her rusks, I had to get her recipe.  Like biscotti, they are twice-baked dry cookies/biscuits, not too sweet, and perfect for enjoying with your morning coffee or dipping into tea.  We also found that they go nicely with a glass of eggnog!

Greg’s Favorite Rusks
From The Farmhouse Cookbook, by Susan Herrmann Loomis
Makes about 80 rusks

2 cups whole almonds
2 cups sugar
5½  cups unbleached all purpose flour
¾ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sour cream
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 350F. Place almonds in a baking pan large enough to hold them in a single layer, and toast, stirring once, until they give off a toasted aroma, 10 to 15 minutes.

Raise the oven temperature to 375F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Combine the almonds and 2 tablespoons of the sugar in a food processor, and grind to a fine powder.

Sift flour, salt, and baking soda together onto a piece of waxed paper.

Cream butter and remaining sugar in a large bowl until pale yellow and light. Add the sour cream and the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the flour mixture and the almonds until just incorporated.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and pat it out to form a 13 x 4-inch rectangle that is ¾ inch thick. Cut the rectangle in half lengthwise, so you have two pieces of dough measuring 13 x 2 inches, and transfer them to the prepared baking sheets. Bake in the center of the oven until golden, puffed, and firm, about 35 minutes. Slide the parchment paper onto wire racks, and cool the strips until they are lukewarm, about 15 minutes. Lower the oven temperature to 300F.

Slice the strips crosswise into ½ inch thick slices, and lay them on their side on the parchment. Return the paper to the baking sheets, and bake slices until they are golden, 15 to 20 minutes. Turn and bake until golden on the other side, another 15 to 20 minutes. Transfer the rusks to wire racks to cool.

Last night, we had dinner with Marcella and Victor Hazan.  Marcella is a legend in the cooking world, and her Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking is the one book I would take if I were forced to whittle my cookbook collection to only one.  I’ve never made a recipe of Marcella’s that didn’t work and taste great, and her recipes use straightforward ingredients and aren’t complicated.  The Essentials book is, to me, like the Joy of Cooking for Italian food – it’s divided into vegetables, meats, pastas, desserts in a similar manner as the Joy of Cooking, and it’s a tome almost as large.

It was fun meeting both Marcella and Victor.  Victor read us an amusing passage from her new memoir, Amarcord, about the time that Marcella boiled a human skull that she had procured from a graveyard in Italy.  Victor was engaging to listen to, and I’m looking forward to reading Amarcord to learn more about Marcella’s life.  Marcella herself was just as cynical and critical as she is in her books.  She offered a Q&A session, and the first person asked her about a recipe; she replied, “Why is it that everyone always asks me about a favorite recipe?  Hm?”  Intimidated, only a few people asked further questions.  Victor and Marcella are a fascinating couple.

They are still in Seattle for a little while longer.  There are going to be a few private events and one public one.  For you folks who work at Amazon, they’ll be at a book signing event for employees.  And there is one more public dinner you can attend, tonight!  As of yesterday, there were still seats available for the dinner party at ChefShop’s warehouse in Interbay.  If you’ve shopped before at ChefShop, they are extending discounted reservations of $49 for dinner only, or $69 to get a signed copy of Amarcord, too.  Call (206) 286-9988 to reserve a seat.

Cooks & Books has a great lineup of visiting chefs and authors coming to Seattle this fall.  Kim Ricketts has been organizing these dinners for several years now, where she hosts a chef or food writer at a Seattle restaurant, promoting a new book release.  In past, we’ve attended dinners with Michael Ruhlman and Michael Pollan, two of our favorite food writers.  The events this fall look really exciting, and there are still seats left.

There’s been one new addition to the lineup that I’m particularly excited about – I finally get to meet Marcella Hazan!  She is my all-time favorite cookbook author.  Hers were the first cookbooks that Eric and I really learned to cook from, and we still consider our Hazan cookbooks the ultimate references for delicious Italian cooking.  I say “Hazan cookbooks” because her son, Giuliano, also has several outstanding books, all sitting on our cookbook shelf.

Marcella and her husband Victor, who translates her words and thoughts into the English text in her books, are coming to celebrate the release of her memoir.  I’m looking forward to reading it – each person who attends a Cooks & Books dinner gets a copy of the book, which you can get personally signed by the author.

Karen Page & Andrew Dornenburg                                   
THE FLAVOR BIBLE
September 28
The Corson Building

Marcella and Victor Hazan
AMARCORD: Marcella Remembers
October 13
Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery

David Tanis
A PLATTER OF FIGS AND OTHER RECIPES
October 27
Lark

Andrew Carmellini
URBAN ITALIAN
November 19
Tavolàta

Eric Ripert
ON THE LINE: Inside the World of Le Bernardin
December 14
Union

Now, if only Kim could get Grant Achatz to visit with his new book…

To me, nothing beats pasta made at home.  People think it’s difficult and time consuming, but it’s really one of those things that takes a few times to learn and get the swing of it, and then it’s actually pretty easy to make.  It takes me less than half an hour to go from flour and eggs to fresh noodles for the two of us, including cleanup.

The key to good homemade pasta is good fresh eggs.  We buy ours at the U-District market, usually from Skagit River Ranch or Sea Breeze Farm.  You only need to add flour and you’re on your way.  I’ve seen recipes using olive oil, water, semolina flour, salt, and other things, but I subscribe to the method I learned from Giuliano Hazan, which was passed down from his mother Marcella.  Marcella is an opinionated writer, but many including myself consider her the authority on authentic Italian cooking.  She says:

The basic dough for homemade pasta in the Bolognese-style consists of eggs and soft-wheat flour.  The only other ingredient used is spinach or Swiss chard, required for making green pasta.  No salt, no olive oil, no water are added.  Salt does nothing for the dough, since it will be present in the sauce; olive oil imparts slickness, flawing its texture; water makes it gummy.

I find that unbleached all-purpose flour works really well, and in Italy they typically use 00 soft-wheat flour.  Marcella points out that semolina is primarily used for factory-made pasta, which is in a completely different category than egg pasta:

The boxed, dry pasta one refers to as factory-made includes such familiar shapes as spaghetti, penne, and fusilli.  These cannot be made as successfully at home as they are in commercial pasta plants with industrial equipment.  Dry pasta from factories is not necessarily less fine than the fresh pasta one can make at home.  On the contrary, for many dishes, factory-made pasta is the better choice, although for some others, one may want the particular attributes of homemade pasta.

The Hazans’ cookbooks are great for getting a better feel for which sauces go with egg pasta and which with factory-made pasta.  A good rule of thumb (although there are plenty of exceptions) is to use factory-made pasta for olive oil based sauces and egg pasta for butter and cream based sauces.

Last Saturday evening, I made some fettuccine which we enjoyed with Bolognese sauce from our freezer.  Every once in a while we prepare a big batch of Bolognese so we can make sure we always have some in our freezer for quick meals.

Egg Pasta
Makes 2-3 servings

1 to 1½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 eggs

Pour about a cup of the flour into a mound on a wood surface, and set aside the rest to incorporate later if you need more.  Create a hollow in the center of the mound, like a volcano, and break the eggs into the hollow.  Using a fork, beat the eggs lightly while slowly incorporating some of the flour from the walls, a bit at a time until the eggs are no longer runny.  Bring the mound of flour toward the center with your hands and work it together with the eggs.  Incorporate more flour if it is too sticky.  You will know that you’ve added enough flour when you can press a clean finger into the center and it comes away clean.

Using the palm of your hand, knead the dough.  Push forward with the heel of your palm, stretching it a bit, then fold it in half as you pull your hand back toward you.  Turn a quarter turn and repeat this motion of stretching, folding, and turning until the dough is completely smooth, about five minutes.  Immediately wrap the dough in plastic wrap and allow to rest at room temperature for at least 10 minutes.

Set up your hand-crank pasta machine, and lay out a couple clean towels.  Cut the dough into 2-4 equal parts (it’s easier to work with smaller pieces, so start by using four parts).  Leave all but one part wrapped in the plastic wrap.  Flatten the ball of dough with your hand.

With the machine at its widest setting, roll the disk through the machine.  Remove it and fold it in thirds.  With the folds on the sides, roll it through the widest setting 2-3 more times.  Narrow the opening between the rollers by one notch.  Roll the dough through again, just once.  Continue narrowing the opening and rolling through until the pasta is the desired thickness.  When you are about halfway done, the pasta will become very long and unwieldy – you can place it on the towel, cut it in half, and switch between the two pieces each time you narrow the opening.

Allow the pasta sheets to dry for a few minutes on the towels until they are leathery but not too dry or brittle.  Cut strips using a fluted pastry wheel to make pappardelle, or feed it through the machine’s cutting attachment to make fettuccine.

When there is ice cream, there are macaroons.  For years, I wondered what to do with leftover egg whites after making ice cream or a custard dessert.  Then I hit upon David Lebovitz’s coconut macaroon recipe and no longer have this problem.  These macaroons are what you imagine the perfect macaroon to be – chewy inside, toasted coconut outside, with a touch of honey flavor.  Now, I sometimes find myself wondering what sort of egg yolk recipe I can make just so that I can have some leftover egg whites.

Since we made ice cream on Saturday, I made a batch of macaroons yesterday afternoon.  Dipped in chocolate, they’re about the best use of egg whites I’ve found.

Coconut and Chocolate Macaroons
From Room for Dessert, by David Lebovitz
Makes 30 Cookies

4 large egg whites
1¼ cups sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon honey
2½ cups unsweetened coconut (see note)
¼ cup flour
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
2 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped

In a large skillet, mix together the egg whites, sugar, salt, honey, coconut and flour.

Heat over low-to-moderate heat on the stovetop, stirring constantly, scraping the bottom as you stir.

When the mixture just begins to scorch at the bottom, remove from heat and stir in the vanilla. Transfer to a bowl to cool to room temperature.

(At this point, the mixture can be chilled for up to one week, or frozen for up to two months.)

When ready to bake, line a baking sheet with parchment paper or Silpat and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Form the dough into 1½-inch mounds with your fingers evenly spaced on the baking sheet. Bake for 18-20 minutes, until deep golden brown. Cool completely.

To dip the macaroons in chocolate, melt the chocolate in a clean, dry bowl set over a pan of simmering water (or in a microwave.) Line a baking sheet with plastic wrap. Dip the bottoms of each cookie in the chocolate and set the cookies on the baking sheet. Refrigerate 5-10 minutes, until the chocolate is set.

Note: We purchase our unsweetened coconut in bulk from Whole Foods.

What had I gotten myself into?  Just before our friends arrived, I pulled the meat out of the braising liquid.  It jiggled like jello.  I hope Heath Putnam is right, because this stuff appeared to be almost entirely fat.  And here we were going to serve it to friends and call this dinner.

We have been obsessing about Heath’s Wooly Pigs bacon since it showed up at the U-District market last winter, but we had yet to try the pork belly that everyone has been raving about.  How could any pork be worth $25/lb?  Well, we wouldn’t know without trying, so last weekend we were determined to bring some home from our weekly market run.

When I told Heath that we wanted some of the Mangalitsa pork belly, he rifled around in the coolers and pulled out a package of belly and ribs.  I was about to pay when he said, “You know, if you like pork belly, you should really try the jowl.  I think it’s even better than the belly.”  I paused.  “Ok, I’ll buy some jowl instead.”  I paid up, and as I was leaving, he said, “You’re brave.”  Brave?  What was that supposed to mean?  He said that apparently most people are squeamish about this sort of thing.  I have never cooked with jowl or any of his Mangalitsa pig products, so I had no idea what he was talking about.

He sent me away with instructions to cook it at low temperatures to avoid ruining the pork and said that I could cook it the same way as pork belly.  The recipe I had in mind was the belly recipe Rebekah Denn wrote about at the Seattle P-I.

We prepared the jowl, along with some tiny Brussels sprouts from the market, and carrots.  While the jowl was crisping in the oven, we had a roasted endive salad with orange segments, from The Herbfarm Cookbook.  Then, it was ready.

It turns out that this pig is worth every bit of hype that’s been surrounding it.  What incredible flavor.  The stuff is tender, moist and just melts in your mouth.  It is insanely rich and I can’t recall a more flavorful meat I’ve ever eaten.  Just amazing.

What makes these pigs taste so different from other pork?  Heath has a very unique thing going here.  He imported the heirloom breed of Mangalitsa pig from Europe, raises them on a special diet (including access to herbs in the pastures), and slaughters them humanely.

He only started selling these pigs at the end of last year and has already created a ton of buzz, even in national publications.  A couple months ago, Saveur magazine started a new feature highlighting one U.S. state each issue.  The premier state was Washington, and Wooly Pigs was on the list of ten food items not to miss.  We are lucky because you can’t buy this pork outside Washington at the moment since it’s prohibitively expensive to distribute it.  But Heath is starting to partner with farmers in other states, and has just sold some piglets to a farmer in the Bay Area who will be raising and selling them there.

To complete our locavore menu, we ended with a rhubarb crisp topped with crème fraîche ice cream.  The first rhubarb of the season was at the market on Saturday, and we wanted to try an ice cream recipe from my new Perfect Scoop cookbook.  We picked up crème fraîche, eggs, and raw milk from Sea Breeze Farm, and when we stopped for our morning crêpe from Anita’s Crêpes, she suggested we add some vanilla bean to the recipe.  We figured that a graduate of the CIA who formerly worked at the French Laundry would know what she’s talking about, so we did so.  It was a nice ending.

One place we try not to miss whenever we visit Vancouver, BC is Vij’s.  Hands down, this place has the best Indian food anywhere.  There’s usually a wait for a table, but it’s no problem when you’re drinking a cup of their homemade chai tea.  It’s fun to go with friends so you can share, since there are too many tempting dishes to choose just one.

They also have a more casual cafe next door called Rangoli.  We haven’t eaten there, but you can grab take out or bring home some pre-packaged meals for your freezer.  When we went to Vancouver in February, we brought a small cooler with us for the express purpose of bringing some food from Rangoli back to Seattle.  We weren’t really sure what we were allowed to bring over the border, but when asked by the border guy whether we were bringing back food, we said we had Indian food, and then he looked at us very grumpily and wanted to know what sort of Indian food.  We said “Vij’s” and he said, “Oh, ok, go ahead.”  See, even the border guy knows about this stuff. :)  Tonight, we pulled a couple packets out of the freezer, threw them into a pot of boiling water, made some Cumin Basmati Rice, and heated Rangoli Naan in the oven.  A very satisfying dinner, indeed.

A year or two ago, we heard rumor that they were trying to start selling their frozen food in Seattle area grocery stores.  I haven’t seen this happen, however.  Has anyone heard or seen anything more about this?

The Cumin Basmati Rice recipe is from their cookbook, Vij’s: Elegant and Inspired Indian Cuisine.  We hadn’t cooked Indian food before our friends Rachel and Steve gave us a copy of this cookbook when it was first published, and wow, what a way to start cooking Indian!  We dove right in by making an entire meal, right down to the homemade paneer.  It was a huge success.  I highly recommend this fantastic cookbook.

Vij’s
1480 W. 11th Ave, Vancouver, BC
(604) 736-6664