The Flavor Equation: The Science of Great Cooking Explained in More Than 100 Essential Recipes
Nik Sharma / 352 pages / Chronicle Books
Sharma, a former molecular biologist, turned food writer and photographer, explores the science behind the food we eat. This isn’t Heston-esque chemistry, but the hows and whys divided into seven fundamentals: brightness; bitterness; saltiness; sweetness; savoriness; fieriness and richness — with dishes to showcase each. The recipes themselves are a delightful mashup of Indian and American flavors: “I use food as a way to connect my past with my present and future — to weave a thread between my life in India, my life in America, and the people and places I’ve seen and met along the way,” says Sharma. Favorites include a masala cheddar cornbread and a garlic and ginger dal with greens. — MT-H
Ottolenghi Flavour
Yotam Ottolenghi and Ixta Belfrage / 320 pages / Ebury
The third in his vegetarian series with Plenty and Plenty More: 100 new recipes, 45 of which are vegan, and others which can be so with little effort. “How many more ways are there to fry an aubergine?” he asks. “The answer, I am delighted to say, is many.” Co-writer/creator Ixta Belfrage has widened the Ottolenghi world. The spices have become spicier, from further afield, the shift a little further from core old-school Ottolenghi, but there is nothing here to frighten the faithful. The recipes read beautifully, the flavor profiles are carefully constructed, the warm voice in the writing reassuring. The wider world it inhabits is made comforting and accessible. In short, another Ottolenghi triumph. — AJ
Jikoni
Ravinder Bhogal / 304 pages / Bloomsbury
The joy is in the subtitle: “Proudly inauthentic recipes from an immigrant kitchen.” Born in Kenya to Indian parents (Jikoni, also the name of her smart Marylebone restaurant, means “kitchen” in Swahili), Bhogal came to the UK as a child. There is a playfulness in these pages, an openness backed by rigour, an authentic celebration of diversity, heritage and flavor. It is there to be found in the voice and recipes: an inviting blending of cross-culture favorites, such as oyster pani puri, spicy scrag end pie, or paneer gnudi with saag. A book that wears its influences lightly but with imagination and respect. — AJ
Chaat
Maneet Chauhan & Jody Eddy / 272 pages / Random House US
Essential India via the US where chef Chauhan and writer Eddy live. Chaat crisscrosses India by train from north to south, east to west, in search of the country’s quintessential snacks. The reader is transported via railway stations, markets and home kitchens. Puris, dosas and pakoras scent the pages from Lucknow, Srinagar, Jaipur, Kolkata and more, with each city’s signature street food recipes. In a year when the world has shrunk, this book may go some small way to expand it. More than any other this year, it reignited a deep hunger to travel. — AJ
The Rangoon Sisters: Authentic Burmese Home Cooking
Amy and Emily Chung / 224 pages / Ebury Press
Bright and beautiful and full of dishes I want to eat: khayan jin thee thoke (tomato and crunchy peanut salad); khayan thee hnat (stuffed baby aubergine curry), and hsi jet khauk swe (garlic oil noodles), now a favorite midweek meal. South London-born sisters Amy and Emily Chung are NHS doctors who began a supper club in 2013 to great success. “Our food isn’t fancy; we don’t present it in rings or do saucy drizzles or foams. The recipes in this book are all our home-cooked recipes,” they say. Many of the dishes come from watching their mother and grandmother cooking. Well-crafted and accompanied by enticing, colorful pictures, this book is a joy. — MT-H
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
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