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Author to help home cooks build confidence, ‘get loose’ in the kitchen and understand that ...

Soothing piano music played in the background when Molly Baz joined a recent video interview, which was appropriate. Her latest book, More Is More (2023), furthers the immersive video experience of her debut, Cook This Book (2021), with audio cook-alongs via QR codes. Baz guides listeners through select recipes, allowing ample time to complete tasks while listening to calming classical music. The recipes are broken into tracks, so you can skip back to relisten and forward if you finish a section before the music has ended.

“I’m definitely an audio-oriented person. We listen to a lot of music in this household (which she shares with her husband, designer Ben Willett, and Tuna, a miniature dachshund). But the audio component of the book was born out of a desire to figure out a way to better teach my readers and support them in the process of cooking these recipes, knowing that cooking is so overwhelming for most people who aren’t professionals,” says the Los Angeles-based cookbook author, recipe developer and video host.

While Baz loves writing cookbooks and has a collection she plans to keep for the rest of her life, they have their limitations, she adds. “So much information gets left out of a recipe on a page. And my whole m.o. is teaching people how to cook and not just giving them recipes to muscle their way through without learning anything about what they’re doing.”

Podcasts such as Food52’s Play Me a Recipe follow a cookalong format, but Baz had never seen the concept in a cookbook. She worked with the audio media company Salt to produce what ended up being her favourite part of More Is More.

From Cook This Book, Baz learned that many of her readers aren’t familiar with QR codes and realized that she needed to educate them on the interactive features of More Is More. “People are not expecting to have any kind of augmented experience when they buy a cookbook.” Authors are increasingly incorporating codes linking to video tutorials of more involved techniques, such as in Pailin Chongchitnant’s Sabai, or atmosphere, like in Karan Gokani’s Hoppers, featuring travel clips from Sri Lanka. As readers see codes pop up more and more, Baz believes they will become second nature.

“I’ve only scratched the surface in terms of what I can do with this technology in my books, but I hope to be able to keep pushing it forward. By the time my next book comes out, who knows what the status will be with AI, but perhaps there’s an integration there that I haven’t even thought of yet. And that’s what’s so exciting to me about the future of writing cookbooks, is that the script is still unwritten in terms of what I can do with them, and I love the possibility there.”

More Is More is the culmination of Baz’s experiences working in restaurants but with home cooks in mind. The 100 recipes are bold and colourful, an aesthetic mirrored in the book’s design. They strike a balance between everyday meals and dishes for entertaining, with chapters dedicated to snacks, salads, carbs, surf and turf, chicken, vegetables, sandwiches, breakfast and sweets. With both her books, Baz did a “gut check” to make sure there was a range of recipes for different moments and kinds of cooks. For the ambitious home cook, for example, her stuffed focaccia with spicy greens and cheese comes together over two days. On the other end of the spectrum, her misobraised chicken and leeks is perfect for a weeknight dinner.

There’s an eight-page interlude featuring Baz’s last-meal menu (inspired by a 1950s New York steak house) — good for a party conversation starter, as well as for enjoying on a less morbid occasion than a deathbed dinner. “With this book, I took the liberties to have a little bit more fun and be less regimented with the structure of the book, which is very much in line with this 2.0 philosophy of More Is More.”

The maximalist approach of the book is, in many ways, the opposite of how Baz was trained as a fine-dining line cook, where the mindset was “less is always more.”

After graduating with an art history degree from Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York, Baz made a conscious decision not to go to culinary school “because I felt like the hands-on, real-life experience would serve me better.” Instead, she cooked in restaurants for five or six years before working in food media as a recipe developer and food editor for publications including Bon Appétit.

She bounced around a lot during that time, Baz recalls, spending a year at a restaurant, learning as much as she could from a chef and then moving on to the next. One of the fine-dining restaurants in particular, the now-shuttered Michelin-starred Picholine in New York City, was an education in more ways than one.

“I just felt so not at home there. And I did it. I took the job, and I forced myself to work there because I knew I was going to learn a lot and that I was going to learn about techniques that I would never learn at a more rustic, farm-to-table restaurant. I saw the value there — especially having opted out of going to culinary school, where you learn those classic French techniques. And it was a pretty miserable experience, to be honest, all around, and we were treated like garbage. But in retrospect, not only did I learn a lot, but I learned a lot about who I am as a cook in relation to what I’m not through that experience.”

A More Is More approach doesn’t mean lengthier ingredient lists, excess or gluttony, Baz underscores. It’s about learning how to use each component to its fullest potential. She layers mint into her “favourite meatballs of all time,” Mollz Ballz, three ways, for example.

As in Cook This Book, Baz starts with some ground rules. More Is More, as a philosophy, may be about cooking with abandon, but Baz believes you need to know the rules before you can break them. “The rules of the book encourage what I like to call a ‘don’t stop until it tastes delicious’ mentality, which is to say that the home cook is empowered to ensure that what lands on the table is something that they want to eat, that they find tasty and that suits their own preferences, and that there are a lot of ways to get there.”

Recipes and images excerpted from More Is More. Copyright ©2023 by Molly Baz. Photographs copyright ©2023 by Peden + Munk. Illustrations copyright

©2023 Claire Mccracken. Published by Clarkson Potter, an imprint of Random House.

CRISPY, CRUNCHY BROCC & GRAINS WITH SO. MUCH. MINT.

Serves: 2 to 4 Produce:

❚ 1 ½ lb (680 g) broccoli (2 to 3 heads)

❚ 1 Fresno chili or jalapeno

❚ 1 large shallot

❚ 1 bunch of mint, basil or cilantro

Dairy:

❚ 2 oz (57 g) smoked cheddar or other hard smoked cheese Pantry:

❚ Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

❚ ½ cup grains, such as farro, wheat berries or barley

❚ Extra-virgin olive oil

❚ 3 tbsp white wine vinegar or champagne vinegar

1. Do some prep & cook the farro: Set two oven racks in the lower third of the oven and preheat it to 450F (230C).

Bring a medium pot of salted water to a boil. Add 2 big handfuls of grains (about ½ cup) and cook until tender but not mushy, 10 minutes (cook time may vary if using a different grain!). Drain and let cool to room temp.

2. Char the broccoli: Cut 1 ½ pounds (680 g) broccoli into 2-inch (5-cm) pieces, separating the florets from the stems and discarding just the woodiest tough ends (see note).

Divide the broccoli between 2 large rimmed baking sheets, drizzle generously with olive oil, and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Place one baking sheet on the bottom of the oven, if it is available to you, and the other on the lowest rack (see note).

Roast, switching the baking sheets halfway through, until the bottoms are well charred, 18 to 24 minutes, depending on the heat of your oven.

3. Make the dressing: Finely chop 1 Fresno chili, discarding the seeds.

Thinly slice 1 large shallot. In a large bowl, whisk together 3 tablespoons white wine vinegar, a couple tablespoons of olive oil, and a pinch of salt. Add the Fresno and shallot.

4. Crisp the farro: In a medium non-stick skillet, heat a few good glugs of olive oil (about 2 tablespoons) over medium heat. Add the drained and cooled grains and cook, undisturbed, until crisped and chewy on the bottom, 2 to 3 minutes. Give it a stir and continue to crisp for 1 to 2 minutes longer, until lightly golden and crisp but chewy. Season with salt and transfer to the bowl of dressing.

5. Assemble: Coarsely chop or crumble 2 ounces (57 grams) smoked cheddar cheese into bite-size pieces (you’ll have about 1/3 cup). Add to the bowl, along with the leaves from 1 bunch of mint.

Add the broccoli. Toss everything together, season with salt and pepper, and serve!

Notes: The stems are as delicious as the florets, and because you can create flat sides as you cut them, they get super caramelized and crispy as they cook.

If it seems like your oven is running really hot and the broccoli is charring too quickly before it’s tender, you can always move the broccoli up to a higher rack.

MOLLZ BALLZ

Serves: 4 to 6

Produce:

❚ 12 garlic cloves

❚ 1 bunch of mint

❚ 1 large yellow onion

Dairy:

❚ ½ cup fresh whole-milk ricotta cheese

❚ 2 oz (57 g) grated ParmigianoReggiano (½ cup), plus more for serving

❚ 3 tbsp unsalted butter Protein:

❚ 2 large eggs

❚ ½ lb (227 g) spicy Italian sausage, casings removed

❚ ¾ lb (340 g) 80 per cent lean ground beef

Pantry:

❚ 4 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling

❚ Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

❚ 6 oil-packed anchovy fillets, plus 1 ½ tsp of their oil

❚ 1 ¼ cups panko bread crumbs ❚ Red pepper flakes

❚ 1 (28-oz/227-g) can tomato purée

❚ Garlic-rubbed toast, for serving (optional)

1. Make the meatballs: In a medium bowl, whisk together 2 large eggs, 6 grated garlic cloves, ½ cup ricotta cheese, 2 ounces (57 grams) grated Parmigiano-reggiano, 2 tablespoons olive oil, 2 ½ teaspoons salt, 1 ½ teaspoons anchovy oil from the tin and lots of freshly ground black pepper.

Add 1 ¼ cups panko bread crumbs, whisking until well hydrated by the egg mixture.

Finely chop the leaves of about half of 1 bunch of mint. Add the mint and ½ pound (227 grams) spicy Italian sausage to the panko mixture, and work with your hands until the meat is evenly distributed. Add ¾ pound (340 grams) ground beef and work together gently until well mixed.

Divide the meat into 8 equal portions and roll them into balls — they’ll be about the size of tennis balls. Transfer to a rimmed baking sheet or large plate.

2. Make the sauce: Finely chop 1 large yellow onion.

Thinly slice the remaining 6 garlic cloves.

In a large Dutch oven, heat a few more glugs of olive oil over high heat. Add the meatballs in a single layer and cook, turning every minute or so, until browned in most areas, 6 to 7 minutes total. Transfer to a plate — the meatballs will still be raw in the centre but will finish cooking in the sauce later on. Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of fat from the skillet.

Reduce the heat to medium, add the chopped onions, sliced garlic, 6 oil-packed anchovy fillets, and a pinch or two of red pepper flakes, and cook, stirring often, until the onions are translucent and just barely beginning to brown at the edges, 6 to 8 minutes.

Stir in 1 (28-oz/227-g) can tomato purée, 3 tablespoons unsalted butter and a few more mint sprigs (reserving some for garnishee). Season the sauce with salt — it’ll need quite a bit. Bring the sauce to a simmer, then reduce the heat as needed to maintain a very gentle simmer and cook until slightly thickened, 4 to 6 minutes.

Nestle the meatballs back into the sauce, cover the pot, and cook over medium heat, turning the meatballs occasionally, for 8 minutes. Uncover the pot and continue to cook, reducing the heat as necessary if the sauce is boiling too rapidly, until the meatballs are springy/ bouncy when pressed with your fingers and cooked through and the sauce has reduced, 8 to 10 minutes.

3. Serve: Pick the leaves of the remaining mint, scatter the leaves over the balls with more Parm, and drizzle generously with olive oil. Serve with garlic-rubbed toast alongside, if desired.