Delectable Books

On this fine Monday afternoon, I began my delicious daydreaming on foods. The trigger of it all was simply because I am supposed to be cooking for the Tuesdays tomorrow. The last time I had people over for dinner was in March (EEEKKK!), so it's time to pull my sleeves and dive into the kitchen!

While thinking of the menu, my mind kept on being transported back to the top of my kitchen cabinet, where I had some 20 cookbooks. Ah, the joy those books have brought me!

Yes, it is time. It is time for me to divulge the cookbooks that I simply cannot live without.

1. Jamie Oliver's "The Naked Chef"

You need to go to page 120 where he had his amazing roast chicken recipe. I have made this chicken so much over the years. The multiple herbs that are used for this dish brought out the best flavor from the chicken. If you can, try to always use sea salt in the mix, it brings out the best taste from the chicken.

Another thing that I began doing recently every time I cook this chicken:
put aside the chicken broth and oil that comes out after you roasted it for 1 hour

For an easy-to-prepare lunch: take 2 tbsp of this broth, heat it up, and then mixed some of the left over chicken and some chopped tomatoes.
Add in pre-cooked linguini/ spaghetti/ vermicelli/ capellini, anything rod and long, mix it well. Buon appetito! You got yourself a delicious lunch!

The other recipes here in this book are all equally simple and so easy to make. For muslims like Taiko Tari here, substitute all Miss Piggy related stuff with chicken, or for broth you can always use mushroom broth. I have no idea what pork/lard are supposed to taste like; but I can assure you replacing them with chicken/mushroom base are very very tasty! Really, really!

2. "Vegetarian" by Fiona Biggs

I found this book 50% off at Barnes & Nobles in San Diego back in 2003. I remembered at the time paying only $5.00 (or something ridiculously cheap like that) and was sincerely hoping that the book could somehow make my life easier. You see, at that time I was dating a very picky vegetarian who liked to eat quality food. This book had ultimately saved my kitchen and is solely responsible in expanding my horizon to vegetarian cooking and eating.
Now, said boyfriend is history, but the cookbook remained going strong in my kitchen. Over the years, I have gone through literally half of the cookbook of some 175+ recipes. This book has opened my way to hummus, vegetarian pâté, baked pie, baked pasta, tortilla hors d'oeuvres, turnip soup, potato soup, mexican omelet, desserts.
The sad news about this book is that I don't think it is anywhere in circulation anymore. Been wanting to give this book as presents to fellow food and cooking enthusiasts, but they are nowhere to be found. Kind of making me feel special for actually owning it and using it religiously.

3. "The Essential Asian Cookbook", by Whitecap Publications

This book is a lifesaver for me to be living overseas and wanting to cook the foods from home. Early in the days where my foods and ingredients vocabulary were limited to the Indonesian language, I was ever clueless each time I am looking for the stuff in Japanese. Heck, I didn't even know the words in English, and back in those days there was no good source for localizing it based on the local market availability. Enter came this book with the pictures of those odd "gallangal", or "coriander", or "cumin", or "bawang merah" (Thai pearl onion), etc - since then grocery shopping has become so much easier, I can actually strategize a substitute for the impossible ingredients. The book smartly divide the books based on the countries the recipes came from, makes thematic party planning so much easier!

4. Mi madre
Last but not least... if all roads failed, such as no books to refer to,
nothing online that is trustworthy and all attempt led to a dead-end: I will pick up the phone and call my mother. She always has the ultimate answer to all my culinary questions.

Ah.... and for tomorrow night, I've decided to finally use my paellera and make some paella, as well as some rotisserie chicken and some tomato caprese. Yeah, that'll do it.