37 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Mediterranean Jewel, 10 Sep 2002
This review is from: Crazy Water, Pickled Lemons: Enchanting Dishes from the Middle East, Mediterranean and North Africa (Hardcover)
What a wonderful book! This is a must-have for anyone who enjoys the food of the Mediterranean and is looking either for a different take on familiar ingedients or to be introduced to a whole host of new ones.
Diana Henry's fantastic recipes are interspersed with pages of tantalising and mouthwatering prose as well as carefully chosen literary quotations. This is a book that easily makes great bedside reading and should not just be confined to the kitchen.
Individual chapters deal with ingredients such as herbs, spices, fruit, nuts and even flower waters. Exciting recipes with exotic names beckon - how does "Rhone Ferryman's Beef with Camargue Red Rice" sound? Or even "Ice Heaven"? I can't wait to try dishes like "Lemon and Basil Ice Cream" or "Arab Andalusian Monkfish with Saffron, Honey and Vinegar" to name but two. In fact so infectious is Diana Henry's enthusiasm that I defy anyone who buys this book not to want to cook from it at the first opportunity.
I hope that there are many more publications to come!
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58 of 62 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
lyrical with outstanding recipes, 14 Nov 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: Crazy Water, Pickled Lemons: Enchanting Dishes from the Middle East, Mediterranean and North Africa (Hardcover)
There are several reasons I love this cookbook. First of all, every single recipe I've cooked so far (five, after owning it for 2 weeks) has been absolutely delicious. They really make you want to cook and eat. Secondly, Diana Henry's evocative essays and useful cooking tips have already expanded the range of flavours in my kitchen. If you've ever been intrigued by orange blossom water or pickled lemons, say, but didn't know how to use them, this book will inspire you to explore their possibilities, as it has for me. Thirdly, the wonderful photographs mean this is a beautiful cookbook, without being untouchably 'posh'. The food is 'home cooking' (ie approachable) but also adventurous. One of the best cookbooks of the year so far.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A truly inspirational cookery book which goes much further than just cooking...., 9 May 2006
....'enchanting dishes from the Middle East, Mediterranean and North Africa'.....it captures the cultures, too!
From inside the front jacket flap:-
'Crazy Waters, Pickled Lemons is an exploration of the ingredients and dishes of the Mediterranean, The Middle East and North Africa......presenting recipes that combine flavours in ways long forgotten - or never even discovered - in many western kitchens.
Special ingredients - the colourful, the aromatic, and the perfumed - which are all too often overlooked in the modern kitchen, are also featured.'
This book stands out from the average cookery book due to the passion which really flows from Diana Henry's descriptive writing - the reader can almost see and taste those flavours, which is far better described than me by the cover quote from Claudia Roden -'A glorious and magical feast for the senses'!
'Places, as well as tastes, are locked up in food. The clear perfumed stillness of a bottle of flower water, the sexy, velvety skin of a fig, the sunburnt blood colour of a jar of cayenne. Our love of foods has as much to do with what they represent as with what they taste like.'
Attractive paperback covers open to 192 high quality pages, split over chapters:-
* The Spice Trail
* Fragrance of the Earth
* A Bowl of Fresh Herbs
* Sweet Cloves and Liquid Gold
* The Sweet and the Sour
* Of Sea and Salt
* Plundering the Stores
* Fruits of Longing
* Curds and Whey
* Food from the Hearth
* Pith and Skin
* Heaven Scent
sandwiched between an introduction and a concise index, the latter listed by ingredient.
Each chapter opens with informative pieces relative to the title, followed by the recipes, which vary in the level of complexity but the majority are far simpler than their titles may suggest.
Each recipe is clearly laid out with a capitalised title, an opening note relating to the recipe, the number of servings, list of ingredients and a clearly laid out and numbered method.
The book is interspersed with useful notes, quotes and sayings....along with the usual stunning full-colour photography, from Jason Lowe:-
some of the ingredients
&
some of the dishes....... but these may prove to be a little on the light side for those of us who like to see what we are aiming for on the plate.
However, the easy flow of the passionate writing throughout makes this very easy to forgive.
A small taste of the recipes contained within:-
* Moroccan Chicken with Tomatoes and Saffron-Honey Jam
* Spanish Sausages and Migas
* Jewelled Persian Rice
* Simple Greek Lamb
* Lavender, Orange and Almond Cake
* Chilled Avocado and Coriander Soup
* Lemon and Basil Ice Cream
* Salt-Baked Potatoes with Crème Fraīche and New Season's Garlic
* Aubergines with Mint
* Pasta with Two Anchovy Sauces
* Breast of Duck with Pomegranate and Walnut Sauce
* Moroccan Lamb and Quince Tajine
* Muhamara
* Stuffed Figs dipped in Chocolate
* Yoghurt Mezze
* Lamb Pizza with Preserved Lemons
* Middle Eastern Orange Confit
* Violet Liqueur Truffles
......not forgetting, of course, the title dish -'Crazy Water'- a simple, but delicious recipe originating from the Amalfi coast, and 'Pickled Lemons', from page 165, packing a real punch as we near the end of this passionate work which is far, far more than just another cook-book destined to linger on a kitchen bookshelf!
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