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A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the endlessly inventive imaginations of star Spanish-American chef José Andrés and James Beard award-winning writer Matt Goulding, Vegetables Unleashed is a new cookbook that will transform how we think about—and eat—the vast universe of vegetables.Andrés is famous for his unstoppable energy—and for his belief that vegetables are far sexier than meat can ever be. Showing us how to creatively transpose the flavors of a global pantry onto the produce aisle, Vegetables Unleashed showcases Andrés’s wide-ranging vision and borderless cooking style.With recipes highlighting everything from the simple wonders of a humble lentil stew to the endless variations on the classic Spanish gazpacho to the curious genius of potatoes baked in fresh compost, Vegetables Unleashed gives us the recipes, tricks, and tips behind the dishes that have made Andrés one of America’s most important chefs and that promise to completely change our relationship with the diverse citizens of the vegetable kingdom.Filled with a guerilla spirit and brought to life by Andrés’s globe-trotting culinary adventures, Vegetables Unleashed will show the home cook how to approach cooking vegetables in an entirely fresh and surprising way – and that the world can be changed through the power of plants.
At this time of writing, The Audiobook Vegetables Unleashed: A Cookbook has garnered 9 customer reviews with rating of 5 out of 5 stars. Not a bad score at all as if you round it off, it’s actually a perfect TEN already. From the looks of that rating, we can say the Audiobook is Good TO READ!
PDF Vegetables Unleashed: A Cookbook with Free PDF EDITION!
I have a huge collection of cookbooks and have dozens that focus on vegetables alone and many that give vegetables the starring role with meat on the side, which is how I prefer to eat.I have had Vegetables Unleashed by Jose Andres and Matt Goulding for only a few days but already have read it cover to cover, and have just declared this week “Spanish Week” A week which may turn into a month the way I am going.Last nights dinner was fantastic, and I have already planned tonights dinner, and have a heap of recipes tagged for the rest of the week, and recipes not tagged for this week are ALL ones I want to make! Honestly I will without a doubt cook everything in this book.Not all of the recipes are influenced by Spanish cuisine. Andres has offered some interesting sounding recipes such as Yakitori Brussels Sprouts, Miso Roasted Asparagus and Carrot Curry. All sound delicious but this week I am concentrating on the ones that lean towards Spain. Some of the other recipes I will review later as I work through the book.The book is divided up into seasonal chapters which are also divided into produce subheadings. I have very specific thoughts about the formatting (those who have read some of my other recipe reviews will know that I often have a couple of things to say about this) I will elaborate on at the bottom of the review for those who are interested in exactly how this book is formatted and the pros and cons for that. But for those who just want to skip straight to the down-low right away….After the Introduction, What I Believe, The Way I Cook and the Getting Dirty chapters (all fascinating reading), the book is divided into seasons and the particular produce recipes for that season are then listed alphabetically within each seasonal chapter.In addition to the types of produce that is explored each season, chapters also have a number of feature pages, either a Journey (Eg. Highlighting a region) Food Fighters (Featuring an individual) Building Blocks (Eg. Exploring Vegetable Scraps or Piquillo Peppers or Marinated Olives) Love Letters (Eg. An ode to honey, or soffrito) Mini Essay (Eg. Mastering Stock, Impossible Protein)Produce featured is as follows with each vegetable having up to 7 recipes with lots of colorful and appetizing full page photos.SPRINGArtichokeAsparagusAvocadoCarrotsFennelGarlicLeavesPeasSpinachMixed VegetablesSUMMER:CornCucumberEggplantsGreen BeansPiquillo PeppersTomatoesWatermelonZucchiniMixed VegetablesFALLApplesBroccoliBrussels SproutsCabbageCauliflowerLeafy GreensMushroomsMixed VegetablesWINTERBeetsCitrusLeeksLegumesPersimmonsPotatoesWinter SquashMixed VegetablesNow for my thoughts on formatting (feel free to skip this paragraph) I have always been very partial to vegetable cookbooks that are divided up into specific vegetable chapters. If I have a surplus of mushrooms for example, I can go straight to the mushroom chapter and not have to flip back and forth between the index and random mushroom recipes scattered throughout the book. Seasonal recipe books are therefore not my favorite format. Jose has taken the extra step of doing both, within each seasonal chapter, he has alphabetized the vegetables. There is no small appeal in having tomatoes and watermelons and other such wonderful summer produce side by side in a book. However, I would have preferred that the seasons were done away with, because for ease of use, I want to just grab a book off the shelf and flip through a book alphabetically to quickly find the vegetable I wanted to cook without flipping back and forth from the index to recipes scattered through the book. The way this book is laid out (which is better than the average) you would have to go to the specific season chapter and then flick through that particular chapter alphabetically until finding the vegetable of choice. But the format of this book requires you to know whether Garlic would be in Spring or Summer for example. If you weren’t sure, you would just have to use the index anyway. Although once you did, in this book the recipes featuring this vegetable would be all in one place , you might not be able to avoid using the index to find them which isnt so great when you are in the middle of a cooking frenzy and suddenly think I NEED a complimentary fennel recipe, like right now!The current format could have been made easier to flick through if each seasonal chapter had a color coded header going to the edge of each page so you could quickly see where each season started and ended, so you could more rapidly check each chapter under G for Garlic for example. But ideally the vegetables would just be alphabetical. But then with the size of my recipe book collection I have spent a lot of time thinking about such things as I try to skim through 30 books all formatted differently trying to find the perfect mushroom recipe for tonights dinner.Ok (rant over) that gripe aside, I love the wide variety of produce featured in this book and all the recipes sound wonderful so I can excuse the fact that it isnt formatted perfectly.I like to focus on either a single region or sometimes even a single cookbook or a single chefs books each week, as I find that allows me to immerse myself in a culinary culture or chefs oeuvre for 7 days without getting tired of such a narrow focus, plus particularly when I am focused on a particular region, it gives me the advantage of using any leftovers to add to the next meal, and add a few more complimentary dishes each night. This gives me the least leftovers and means that any ingredients I buy specifically for that week won’t languish in the fridge because they don’t go with the next nights cuisine. Having some leftover sides means that the next night I can focus in on one or two dishes each night, but still end up with three or four dishes on the table. Spanish cuisine lends itself particularly well to this style of cooking because any leftover dishes provides tapas for the next nights meal.Anyhow kitchen philosophy aside, last night I made Jose’s Cauliflower A La Romana with Caper Mayonnaise and also his Sugar Snap Peas A La Etxebarri. Oh my gawd the caper mayo was wonderful! And this from someone who has made mayonnaise from scratch since childhood using our grandmothers family-famous mayo recipe! But Jose's caper mayo is something else (apologies to my grandmother) NOTE: the ratios are incorrect however. 1.5 cups of oil is far too much. Following the recipe my mayo was extremely thick using just 1 cup of oil. Jose says it shouldn’t be too thick, yet with just 1 cup it was possibly too thick.The cauliflower prep was interesting. Dip in flour and then beaten egg and then fry. The coating was more like a soft batter rather than a crispy coating, but it was good, but perhaps I would work on making them a tiny bit crispier next time. But that caper mayo was the showstopper for me with adjustments notes above.As for the seared sugar snap peas I have done them that way before and they are delicious as simple as they are but in looking for a way to zip them up a bit I tossed them with some sweet paprika and lemon juice after cooking them. Nothing wrong with sugar snap peas seared and served plain, as Jose has written them, but I wanted to introduce some Spanish seasonings to them for this meal. I served this with a simple seared pork tenderloin seasoned with sweet smoked paprika, mustard seeds, toasted and ground caraway seeds and oregano (La Vera recipe in Spice Companion by Lior Lev Sercarz) and some garlicky bay scented smashed potatoes drizzled with olive oil.Tonight, I am doing Jose's Smashed Cucumber Salad and his Marinated Mushrooms and some simple lamb cutlets done on the grill (might have to use that La Vera Spice blend again for them)Later in the week, I am also planning to make the Zucchini soup, Catalan Style Spinach, Brussels Sprouts Afelia, Creamed Leeks, Patatas Bravas and a green salad to use up the rest of that wonderful caper mayo and who knows what else I will just have to whip up out of this book at the last minute. For proteins I will do some simple seafood, chicken, chorizo sausage on the grill. Jose's vegetables are the stars here so my focus will be on them.REVIEW UPDATE:-I am adding to this review as I cook through the book. Today I made the Zucchini Soup. As you can see from my photo it turned out greener than the image in the book. I did peel the zucchini, but the flesh was quite green directly under the skin. To remove the color you would have to peel away a lot of the vegetable or use summer squash. I did think the green color was pretty anyway. This is Joses wifes recipe. She uses Knorr Cubes but Jose was horrifed to discover that and didn't include them. But the flavor needed a boost I thought so I used 1.5 tsp Better Than Bouillion Vegetable (chicken could possibly be used too) In addtion to that it required a lot of salt. I believe I ended up adding about 2tsp total, perhaps it was 2.5. I lost count. Lovely soup with delicate flavor and thick texture. I would make again.-I made the cucumber salad with paprika and olive oil However the salt was listed as 2 Tb for two cucumbers and this was without a doubt a mistake. I used 2 Tsp and the saltiness was perfect (and I like quite a lot of salt) so I am a bit concerned now, after cooking from this book that two of the recipes so far have been off quantity wise. This is fine if you are an experienced cook, but for the less experienced I will continue to post any edits I find as I work my way through this book.-Marinated mushrooms were very good and instructions are given for doing other vegetables this same way. I added some Castelvetrano olives to my mushrooms. Yum!- Made the creamed leeks. Needed to cook them for a lot longer than the 25 mins Jose said. I also reduced the amount of cream because there would have been too much liquid and I wanted the cream to reduce to the “silky thickened sauce” Jose describes.We loved the richness and depth of flavor but in my opinion, the 2 cups of cream would be far too much for the 4-6 leeks and would have taken far too long to reduce.-Made the Beet Poke Bowl (on oval plate - see my pic) Loved it and would make again! Didn't change a thing but also seared a Tuna Steak coated in black and white sesame seeds (excuse the photo, tuna cooked a bit too long per my husbands request) to make a complete meal with the Poke, and the Yakitori Brussels Sprouts (these needed a squirt of lime juice in my opinion to brighten them up a bit, and I forgot to photograph them) Delicious and healthy meal. The next night I served it all again with marinated grilled chicken thighs. My only question is why did Andres suggest serving the Poke with a store purchased seaweed salad? Looked up how to make it and it seems simple enough so I have the ingredients now and will try making it myself (will let you know how it goes)You just can’t go wrong when you have some truly great vegetable books in your library. Any meal feels like an occasion even if the protein is a simple and quick piece of fish. I have just purchased Andres Tapas book and am now eyeing off his Made in Spain book.I cannot finish this review without giving a huge thumbs up to co-author Matt Goulding! His droll writing style got more than a few chuckles from me. His dry commentary is a wonderful counterpoint to Jose’s wild imaginings and the two of them together bounce off each other hilariously. Such as when Jose declared milk a vegetable because cows eat grass. Matt pointed out by that logic, meat would also be a vegetable. Not to be deterred Jose declared cigars a vegetable. The mind boggles thinking about what recipes might have been included in this book if Matt Goulding wasn’t involved. Jose, I agree with Matt. No one wants to eat hot watermelon, so I am thankful that one got shafted. I have already added Matts books to my Amazon wish list. Especially can't wait to get his Grape, Olive, Pig, Deep Travels Through Spain’s Food Culture.If you made it to the end of this review then obviously you simply must buy this book! You may also want to navigate to my profile to read my other cookbook reviews. You can also follow me to be notified when I post another review. Perhaps you would also be so kind as to click the helpful button? I spend a lot of time on my reviews hoping to help like-minded customers (hi there!) filter through all the crap out there. I also review and compare a lot of kitchen ware. Not one to have useless products in my kitchen I am fully prepared to buy 9 lemon zesters and compare them all and put them in an Amazon list on my profile and review each one with photos. That’s fun for me. Kinda weird I admit. If I see that this complete insanity has helped someone, it makes my day :)
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