Modern Comfort Food
It’s heeeere: Ina Garten’s answer to simple, pantry cooking, with a heartfelt intro from the author about the pandemic. Publisher Clarkson Potter bumped up the release of “Modern Comfort Food” (Clarkson Potter; $35), the 12th in the Barefoot Contessa collection, so we no longer have to wait to see what husband Jeffrey’s been sniffing in lockdown. The new release date is Oct. 6.
Elevated sandwiches, casseroles and Garten’s 83 other new recipes are built around the idea that everyone is craving childhood classics during the crisis, and she’s offering them with twists — adding a fresh ingredient, a modern flavor or lightening up the recipes, she says. (Though we still found gobs of butter, heavy cream and cheese on most of these pages. This is not a bad thing.)
Standouts include an easy chicken pot pie soup with puff pastry croutons made from Pepperidge Farm frozen sheets; ultimate beef stew that uses boneless short ribs instead of chuck; and seared salmon with spicy red pepper aioli made with jarred peppers and mayonnaise. It’s allaround delish. (And we’ll be sharing that chicken pot pie soup recipe in the coming weeks.)
Flavor For All
The Florida husband and wife behind 2018’s “The Flavor Matrix” are up to their fun, chemistryenabled tricks again. But this time, James Briscione and Brooke Parkhurst of Angelena’s Ristorante Italiano in Pensacola are sharing the no-fail, flavor-packed recipes they cook at home.
Their new cookbook, “Flavor for All: Everyday Recipes and Creative Pairings” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; $30) features 100 approachable recipes that build on the science-based principles in “The Flavor Matrix,” like the fact that pork and apples go together because they share a chemical compound known as 2-acetylfuran.
In the new book, they introduce applebrined pork with caramelized onion and bourbon gravy; as it turns out, that compound is also prevalent in bourbon. Briscione, the chef at Angelena’s and a Food Network personality, elevates avocado toast with apple, fennel, cocoa and chile. The compound culprit that makes these seemingly disparate ingredients come together? Linalool.
The cookbook isn’t all chemistry. Briscione also shares valuable, classic cooking techniques and simple dishes that work because, well, they always have — and their kids devour them. Release date: Oct. 27.