Adrian Martin is a young, popular Irish chef. His new
cookbook, Create Beautiful Food at Home, takes reasonably easy to make at home recipes and makes them look
very, very fancy. His breezy explanations and the lovely photographs have me
convinced it is possible to make food at home that looks like it comes from a
swanky restaurant.
Which is not to say I'm convinced I want to. I'm more
of a bistro food home cook than a haute cuisine home chef. So I'm probably not
the target audience for Martin's new book. But for home chefs looking to learn
something different or polish up restaurant-worthy skills, this is a terrific, must-have book.
You will get an idea of whether this is the book for you from a partial list of Martin's suggested "Necessities for the Kitchen," which will "make your life much easier if you are making the recipes in this book":
- Squeezy bottles (for purées, dressings, etc.)
- Tweezers (for picking herbs and micro salads, and for plating up)
- Blowtorch
- Mandoline
- Fish slice
- Different-sized melon ballers
- Oyster knife
- Ice-cream churner
Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against ice cream. I am
even willing to make ice cream. I own a mandoline. And I own a single melon
baller in one size. But I do not know what a fish slice is. And I cannot
imagine using tweezers to plate individual herbs or "micro salad" or
a squeezy bottle to decorate a dish with puree. That's just not me.
But I know people who would LOVE this kind of thing, love it down to their toes. I can think of five or six friends who would be tickled to get this for Christmas. And if you are like them, you too will love this book.
The recipes are all beautifully presented – that's the point. They range from simple, like a fresh pea risotto with asparagus and basil purée, to elaborate, like individual chocolate and hazelnut tarts with chocolate tuiles and chocolate hazelnut ice cream (above). Some use the simplest of ingredients, a few rely on extravagant ingredients like fresh oysters, lobster, or foie gras. None are overly difficult, but they require attention to detail and a focus on timing and presentation.
If you have always wanted to make food as pretty as on
cooking shows or in posh restaurants, Create Beautiful Food at Home is the
perfect book for you. Please invite me over for dinner!
Weekend Cooking is a weekly blog event hosted by Marg at The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader. Beth Fish Reads started the event in 2009 and bloggers have been sharing book and food related posts ever since.