Sometimes you are ready to cook. You are psyched. But what to make? Sometimes trying to figure out what to make can be the hardest part. And once you figure out what you want to make, you have to see if you even have all of the ingredients. That is why I like ingredient specific cookbooks. So even if you do not take time to pre-plan and organize your cooking, you can simply whip something up based on what you have available. It is “easy” to put together dozens upon dozens of recipes but to assemble a finely tuned and carefully focused cookbook is more difficult. That is what intrigued and appealed to me about Valerie Aikman-Smith and Victoria Pearson’s Citrus: Sweet and Savory Sun-Kissed Recipes.
In Citrus: Sweet and Savory Sun-Kissed Recipes, Aikman-Smith and Pearson work to demystify all kinds of citrus: from everyday run of the mill lemons to the somewhat more difficult to come by yuzu, a Japanese delicacy. The book is separated by types of citrus. After brief explanations about each, a small selection of recipes follow.
The recipes are varied from mixed drinks to savory dishes to desserts. There are also recipes for things that you can use to make other recipes (“Pantry staples” the book calls them). For example, how to candy peels or clementine curd. Many, although not all, of the recipes are accompanied by large, colorful picturesque photos. Because of the nature of the recipes, they act as a good jumping off point for readers and home cooks to experiment. Recipe calls for oranges? Why not try it with tangerines. You get the idea.
At 175 pages, Citrus: Sweet and Savory Sun-Kissed Recipes is not a large cookbook. The recipes are varied but, in the end, somewhat limited. However, it offers enough insight to get you interested in lemons, limes and their associates. The book encourages readers and cooks to approach what might normally just be used for zest, juice or flavoring with a more direct, head-on approach. Citrus: Sweet and Savory Sun-Kissed Recipes offers inspiration in all the right ways.
I received this book from the Blogging for Books program in exchange for this review. All opinions expressed are my own. This post contains affiliate links.
