Feasting: A New Take on Jewish Cooking

Ruben, a restaurateur from Melbourne, Australia, brings a fresh perspective to traditional Jewish cooking with innovative recipes, modernizing and brightening a cuisine that’s often snubbed as heavy and muted. Basic recipes are exemplars of Jewish cooking, such as Ruben’s mother’s chicken soup, smoked whitefish dip, and chopped liver with the addition of cherry mostarda and crostini. She puts a new spin on classics with recipes such as pumpkin and ricotta kugel with homemade pasta, and a halva cheesecake. The book offers many unusual, tempting recipes such as sumac- and polenta-fried artichokes, spelt pasta with cauliflower and hazelnut bread crumbs, and a ocean trout confit with pickled cucumber and minted labne. Lush salads include carrot salad with avocado, orange, and miso tahini; fingerling potatoes with green dressing and harissa almonds; and a red cabbage and poppy seed salad. Desserts include her grandmother’s recipe for apple and poppy seed cake, an elegant lemon chiffon cake with passion fruit icing, and Nutella cookies. Some of the recipes call for ingredients that may confound American readers, such as goat’s curd and “dark chocolate couverture buds or small buttons” (i.e., chocolate chips), but it’s worth a little research to try these interesting and varied recipes. (Mar.)