Lucky Peach: All About Eggs: Everything We Know About The World’s Most Important Food
Author: Rachel Khong & editors of Lucky Peach
Publisher: Clarkson Potter
Price: RM129.90
I’ve always thought eggs the most perfect of ingredients: ubiquitous yet so versatile that I could (and often do) eat them every day for a month and feature them in a different dish every day. Millions of eaters, cooks, and writers the world over feel the same – definitely among them, the editors of the sadly missed Lucky Peach. So it is only fitting that this is the food magazine’s final cookbook.
Far more than just a collection of egg recipes (although those deservedly take pride of place and we’ll get to them in a minute), All About Eggs delves into the biological and chemical make-up of an egg, egg-related stories about remarkable people (the world’s fastest omelette-maker!), how to decode egg cartons, and what substitutes can be used.
We zig backwards and forwards through history to trace the egg’s changing social status, and zag across geographical boundaries to explore just what it means in various countries and cultures. The editors really have left no egg carton unturned in their production of a definitive tome on the subject, and every essay and anecdote is spiked with the jaunty writing and humour that informed Lucky Peach itself.
Threaded throughout the delicious writing, 88 recipes from around the world celebrate, illuminate and inspire – Taiwanese oyster omelettes; Eggs Kejriwal from Mumbai; rompope, an eggy Mexican drink; the lightest of French souffles; and even “custardy” half-boiled eggs from Malaysia.
My only complaint (the fact that reading this made me hanker for the perfect omelette and scramble is not a valid one) is that the food photos are all clustered in the middle of the book, making flipping back and forth between recipe and photo necessary. But that in no way detracts from the egg-cellence of this book. – Suzanne Lazaroo
Modern Baker: A New Way To Bake Cakes, Biscuits And Breads
Authors: Melissa Sharp with Lindsay Stark
Publisher: Ebury Press
Price: RM167.90
The first thing to know about this book is that it is not just about the unprocessed, whole foods and ancient grains, and gluten free alternatives – as most “new way to bake” books are about – but gut health.
Why gut health you ask? Because it is key to our overall health, both mental and physical. “About 80% of our immune system is our gut microbes, so to be healthy and fight off diseases our gut flora needs to be in championship shape.”
Author Melissa Sharp started on this eating track after discovering a lump in her breast at 36 years that led to a change in diet and career, and the opening of a café-bakery, Modern Baker, in Oxford, Britain, in 2014.
More recently, Sharp and her business partner, artisan baker Lindsay Stark, received government research funding to bring their vision of healthy baking to a much wider audience.
This book continues their passion to spread the word – and that non-medicated sense of wellbeing and happiness the author feels – urging more people to get in the kitchen, “experiment, enjoy – and thrive”.
The good news they want to share is that cakes and breads can be positively good for you (yeah!). Think long-fermented sourdough and gluten-free brown rice starters for breads, and breakthrough recipes like carrot and olive oil cake, and cashew nut icing. – JW
The Indian Cookery Course
Author: Monisha Bharadwaj
Publisher: Kyle Books
Price: RM163.30
Accomplished cookbook author and teacher Monisha Bharadwaj thrills, excites and entices in this delightful Indian epicurean odyssey. Filled with historical details about the many regions in India and their highly-nuanced cooking styles, the book explores the vast tapestry of Indian food from north to south and everywhere else in between.
You’ll discover delicious-sounding recipes for potato-stuffed bread; lamb with spinach; Kerala chicken stew; crisp garlic prawns; spicy scrambled eg
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