Roasting-A Simple Art

Amazon.com

Kafka believes in "hot ovens, short roasting times, and rare meat," so most recipes in this cookbook start with "heat oven to 500x F." The result is food with profound flavors that is sensible, even primal, yet has the flair you'd expect from an opinionated pro. Despite controversy over her recipe for roast turkey, this book so impressed her peers that they voted it a Julia Child Cookbook Award in 1995. Herbivores rejoice: There are over 100 mouth-watering recipes for vegetables and some fruits, too, along with those for roasted meats, poultry and fish.

From Publishers Weekly

The first hairy hominid who discovered that fire rewarded the successful hunter with sublime pleasures of taste and smell could not have foreseen that that first rack of mammoth's rib might lead to Kafka's King Mackerel with Jalape?o Lime Sauce. Although the fish and vegetable dishes (Roasted Yellow Squash in Mint Bath) are enticing, this book addresses most valuably the often dismissed appetites of meat and fowl lovers. Along with recipes for racks of lamb, rib roasts and holiday turkeys come others for pheasant ("with liver-rich dressing"), bison (best served "unbelievably rare") and wood pigeon (stuffed with grapes). There are recipes for leftovers (Chutney Chicken Salad) and invaluable tips on how roasting enhances a stock, how to deglaze and how to control oven temperature. Kafka (Microwave Gourmet) is big on using every useful bit of a beast: she happily describes, in detail, how to butcher a baby goat and what to do with its head (some stocks are richer than others). Less ambitious cooks might do better to start with Kathy Gunst's Roasting (see below), because Kafka is as serious about her cooking as that hominid was about hunting. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.