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Olives and Oranges: Recipes and Flavor Secrets from Italy, Spain, Cyprus, and Beyond

Olives and Oranges: Recipes and Flavor Secrets from Italy, Spain, Cyprus, and Beyond
By Sara Jenkins, Mindy Fox

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Product Description

By the time she was a teenager, Sara Jenkins had lived all over the Mediterranean, from Italy and France to Spain, Lebanon, and Cyprus, in cosmopolitan cities and in rural hamlets. The family eventually put down roots in a ramshackle farmhouse in a small Tuscan village, where she learned how to make ragu and handmade pasta at the elbow of her Italian “grandmother” on the nearby farm. Meals came from the garden and the surrounding pastures, not the supermarket, and Jenkins grew up schooled in the tradition of cooking from what was on hand.
In Olives & Oranges, Jenkins shares the simple, striking dishes she learned at the source. Many, like Peppery Braised Short Ribs and Classic Tuscan Eggplant Parmesan, are favorites from childhood. Others, like Short Pasta with Mushrooms and Mint and Spicy Lemon–Chocolate Ganache Tart, have a contemporary sensibility. Jenkins shows how understanding the Mediterranean “language of flavor” can help you follow your instincts and make your own great meals based on what you have, too. You’ll see how salt and lemon juice bring out the natural sugar in Carrot Salad with Lemon, Sea Salt, Parsley, and Olive Oil, and how to use the same technique with lime, salt, and a Moroccan condiment called harissa for a completely different effect in Tunisian Raw Turnip Salad.
The opening chapter introduces “small plates”— easy, versatile dishes that can preface a dinner or be grouped together for a small feast, from Roasted Red Peppers with Garlic and Celery Leaves to Chicken Liver Crostini. Soups are spontaneous and flexible, whether they are cooling purées like White Almond Gazpacho or sturdy full bowls like Rich Chicken Soup with Greens. The incomparable pastas encompass fast every-night selections (Spaghettini with Burst Cherry Tomatoes) to complex celebration affairs like Braised Rabbit Ragu and Homemade Lasagna.
Fish, poultry, and meat chapters feature rustic preparations: roasted scallops capped with a pale green butter seasoned with parsley and garlic; an impressively big-flavored chicken smeared with a mixture of bacon and herbs and baked in a salt crust; and a spectacular staple of Roman trattorias, veal cutlets wrapped in prosciutto and sage and crisp-fried. Desserts range from fresh Strawberries with Prosecco to a sumptuous Coffee Cardamom Crcme Caramel to the rich but light Lemon Olive Oil Cake.
Each of the recipes in the book is identified as “Quick-Cook” or “Slow-Cook” so you can choose which fit best into your schedule. “Flavor Tips” throughout the book suggest ways to modify the dishes so you can use what’s freshest and most available.

The daughter of the noted food authority Nancy Harmon Jenkins, SARA JENKINS has earned raves at all the New York restaurants where she has been the chef, including 50 Carmine, Il Buco, I Coppi, and Patio. Her newest venture, Porchetta, is located in New York City’s East Village. This is her first book.


Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #27122 in Books
  • Published on: 2008-09-08
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Hardcover
  • 384 pages

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
While many cooks and cookbooks find inspiration in the Mediterranean's culinary traditions, this appealing, beautifully photographed tome by Jenkins (chef of New York City's Il Buco and Mangia, and the recently opened Porchetta) and Fox (editor of La Cucina Italiana) uniquely synthesizes a diversity of regional styles while adding some fresh ideas to the mix. Having grown up as the daughter of a foreign correspondent and absorbing the culinary vernacular of the countries in which her family resided (Italy, Spain, Cyprus and France), Jenkins uses the Mediterranean pantry as her foundation. She instructs how to select appropriate oils and vinegars; make the most of briny olives, anchovies and bottarga; and select cured meats and cheeses. The recipes that follow are organized almost like a restaurant menu, from a small plate of Sweet Corn Sformato to mains like Slow-Braised Pork Loin with Prunes. Jenkins acknowledges the classics in dishes such as the Tuscan peasant soup Ribollita or the chestnut meringue dessert Montebianco, but she also makes room for her own mashup interpretations, tossing spaghettini with ground lamb, yogurt and mint, and melding jasmine tea and dark chocolate in an intriguing panna cotta. Labeled as slow-cook or quick-cook, recipes are designed for ease without compromising their rich, timeless flavors. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
While many cooks and cookbooks find inspiration in the Mediterranean's culinary traditions, this appealing, beautifully photographed tome by Jenkins (chef of New York City's Il Buco and Mangia, and the recently opened Porchetta) and Fox (editor of La Cucina Italiana) uniquely synthesizes a diversity of regional styles while adding some fresh ideas to the mix. Having grown up as the daughter of a foreign correspondent and absorbing the culinary vernacular of the countries in which her family resided (Italy, Spain, Cyprus and France), Jenkins uses the Mediterranean pantry as her foundation. She instructs how to select appropriate oils and vinegars; make the most of briny olives, anchovies and bottarga; and select cured meats and cheeses. The recipes that follow are organized almost like a restaurant menu, from a small plate of Sweet Corn Sformato to mains like Slow-Braised Pork Loin with Prunes. Jenkins acknowledges the classics in dishes such as the Tuscan peasant soup Ribollita or the chestnut meringue dessert Montebianco, but she also makes room for her own mashup interpretations, tossing spaghettini with ground lamb, yogurt and mint, and melding jasmine tea and dark chocolate in an intriguing panna cotta. Labeled as "slow-cook" or "quick-cook," recipes are designed for ease without compromising their rich, timeless flavors. (Publishers Weekly )

About the Author
SARA JENKINS, the daughter of a Newsweek foreign correspondent and the noted food authority and author Nancy Harmon Jenkins, has received raves for her food at all the New York restaurants where she has been the chef, including 50 Carmine, Patio, Il Buco, and I Coppi. 

MINDY FOX is a freelance food editor, writer, food stylist, and former editor at Saveur. She has written for many magazines, including Saveur, Every Day with Rachael Ray, and Prevention, and collaborated on a number of cookbooks. She is the food editor of Cucina Italiana.


Customer Reviews

Oranges and Olives my number one cookbook5
I love this cookbook. From the 30+ recipe books on my kitchen shelf, this has become my # 1 creative source for preparing a delicious meal. The recipes for red onions in orange sauce, warm escarole with hot anchovy dressing, sweet pea and squash blossom risotto are just a few of the inventive, simple, healthy and delicious meals I've prepared.I've given several copies as gifts to other of my foodie friends and bathed in the extraordinary appreciation I've gotten from all them. Thank you Sara and Mindy for this jewel of a cookbook. It rivals some of the great classics.

sophisticated vegetarian meals!5
When I lived in New York, Sara Jenkins, who was then working at Il Buco and later at Patio, was one of the city's few chefs who made going out for a fine meal worthwhile for a vegetarian. There's pasta, and then there's pasta. And her magic ways with olives, oranges, and all the best of the green market came across in every dish.
I've tried over the years to mimic her Pasta with Many Cheeses, her wonderful soups and creative salads without ever quite getting it right.

It's been great cooking from her new book! She's managed to translate the subtlety of her best restaurant dishes to the page. Vegetarians will find plenty of not-too-obvious new ideas here.

What a good book!5
The pictures in Sara Jenkins's wonderful new book will make you want to cook everything, and you won't be disappointed in anything. The dishes are great, and the recipes work like a charm. Sara Jenkins is one of the few professional chefs who really gets what it means to cook at home day in and day out. The food here is the classic food of the Mediterranean--primarily Italian but with forays into Spain and as far east as Syria (Sara likes Aleppo pepper!). Some of the recipes are traditional; others are truly innovative, but always based on sound, traditional principles. This is the food you can find, if you're really lucky, in small mom and pop trattorias where the traveler eats with the locals; more important, it's the food that people cook at home: honest, seasonal ingredients prepared in just the right ways and in just the right combinations. Throughout the book Sara is with you, with flavor tips, suggestions about how to vary a recipe for a new season, advice about how to use the best of what's available at any time. With her at your side you'll soon get what it means to go to the market, find the best of the season, and turn it into a joy for your table. This beautiful book should be on every serious cook's shelf, and should be given to anyone just starting out.