Roast Figs Sugar Snow - Diana Henry
Having spent five years trekking through some of the most blustery areas of Europe and North America, Diana Henry, the Sunday Telegraph's celebrated food writer has gathered a unique collection of recipes designed to warm the deepest of chills. The recipes in her new cookbook, Roast Figs Sugar Snow, capture the colours and feel of the winter season with succulent roast meats, earthy wild mushrooms, and a melange of warm colors from ingredients like roast squash, farmers carrots, and beetroot. The title, inspired by Henry's childhood memory of 'sugar snow', refers to a romantic vision of the special heritage of winter foods.
Sugar-On-Snow is a toffee created from the sap of local maple trees that is then poured over snow. As traditional as its reference from Laura Ingall Wilder's book Little House in the Big Woods, Sugar-On-Snow is more than food, it is a romantic remembrance of warm sugar houses staying cosy amidst the depths of a snowy forest.
Henry's recipe for Gin and Juniper Cured Salmon captures the crisp flavours
of wild salmon caught from cold waters, while the refreshing bite of gin and
juniper is complemented by the fennel cream sauce. Sea salt flakes sparkle
like snowflakes atop the inviting colour of a salmon fillet. The result is
an invigorating taste of winter food straight from the snow drifts of Scandinavia.
Just looking at Jason Lowe's photograph of Skier's Chocolate, a divine concoction of chocolate and cream, makes you want to skip the slopes and head to the chalet and the added touch of brandy is sure to warm any skiier's frozen toes. A favourite recipe from the ski slopes of Austria, northern Italy, Hungary, France, Denmark and Sweden, is a mulled wine called Glˆgg which is as fun to drink as it is to pronounce, umlaut and all. Carefully spiced with cardamom, cinnamon, and orange peel, Henry's recipe offers a tastier, more authentic alternative to the more chemical versions often found in Britain.
Not about Christmas, nor just about stew and mash, Roast Figs Sugar Snow celebrates the magic of the winter season through inviting, soul-warming recipes, spectacular photographs, and well-chosen writings from poets and novelists that capture the bounty of the chillier season.
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Simple Art of Marrying Food and Wine - Mark Hix & Malcolm Gluck
Choosing the right wine to accompany a meal is a bit like setting off on a blind date. So, for those who choose to be a bit daring, how do you go about matchmaking?
Allow Mark Hix and Malcolm Gluck to lend a hand. The two self- confessed divorcees
may not be the best at pairing up mates, but their new cookbook is a shining
example of their ability to pair the right wine with the right food. The
Simple Art of Marrying Food and Wine is a 45 recipe-strong companion
for the chef concerned with doing it well, and doing it right. The book features
mouthwatering meal and drink combinations, perfect for entertaining dinner
guests. Start with slow-baked plum tomatoes with rocket leaves and a glass
of Italian pinot nero or New Zealand pinot noir. Gluck and Hix expertly explain
how the acidity of the tomatoes would negatively affect pairing this dish with
a red wine, information you may feel free to bore your fellow dinner guests
with.
Guaranteed to impress is the combination of Thai green chicken curry and a glass of Verdelho. Spicy curries are often difficult dishes to find suitable complements for. Perhaps they're the culinary equivalent of the boyfriend with a mohawk that you don't know how to bring home to mum. Gluck and Hix give several options for dealing with the precarious spicy curry and wine situation with ease, and finish off the meal with a reisling and berry jelly that's sure to make two parts of a pair go sweet.
The book features handy tables to cross-reference other ingredients and cooking methods. Along with the color coded pages, white for food and tinted for wine, the book is divided by food groups that demonstrate the ideal food and wine pairings. Gluck and Hix don't preach the "red with meat, white with fish" rule of thumb, rather, they are well informed matchmakers who understand the chemistry needed for pair to be a complementary match.
So go ahead, why not do a little matchmaking?
