The Elements of Taste," the long-awaited effort from Gray Kunz and Peter Kaminsky, is really two books under one cover.
The first offers more than 130 recipes from Mr. Kunz, the talented chef who earned four stars when he was at Lespinasse in Manhattan. Enticing photographs and clear instructions make his creative approach, often with Asian flavors, understandable to the home cook. This is the first book by Mr. Kunz, who has been out of the restaurant scene for three and a half years, and it's exciting to page through and imagine combinations like a gratin of sweet peas, tarragon and pistachios, or flank steak glazed with tamarind.
But the authors don't stop there. There's that second book, a treatise on taste. It's an effort to reduce every flavor the palate may encounter to 14 categories, subdivide and recombine them and come up with a language for analyzing food that feels like some of the esoteric approaches to wine.
Beyond the usual sweet, salty, bitter and sour, they have come up with floral herbal, spiced aromatic, funky and bulby, among others. And if that's not enough, they also have theories about what each taste does in a dish: saltiness and sweetness drive the flavor, while wine adds an underlying fruity fragrance and complexity. Some tastes are said to pull, others push. It's a trifle too lab coat and not enough apron.
"The Elements of Taste" (Little, Brown, $40) has an admirable objective, one that most cookbooks completely miss: it aims to teach how to achieve balance in a dish and, beyond that, in a menu. The premise is that every dish has a key flavor and texture that must be built on, using other taste and textural components, so that the end result pleases the palate and so that a progression of dishes evolves in an appetizing fashion. It's meant to make you a better cook.
The authors - Mr. Kaminsky is a food writer and critic for New York magazine - make the excellent point that for a good chef tastes are usually understood instinctively, the way composers may hear sounds mentally. It's how a chef can know what is missing from a sauce, say, and reach for some lemon, salt or butter to round it out. In a nutshell, it's what defines a good cook, professional or not.
There is a real cookbook in here desperately trying to get out. But the recipes are arranged in a way that supports their taste theories - grouped according to the flavor category and not by course or type of food. Each recipe has "tasting notes" at the end. It's a challenge for anyone who might simply want to cook dinner. Fortunately, there's a well-designed index.
As for the cooking, techniques like a quick sauté or simmer, for example, couldn't be simpler. But coming up with a finished dish can be another story. Many of the recipes require several components, starting with a basic ingredient, called a "platform food," like a piece of fish. Then a sauce, a topping, a relish make for a time-consuming series of recipes before the dish is ready to serve. A section called "The Chef's Larder" provides 43 recipes for the supporting cast.
There's an excellent sautéed striped bass served with bundles of roasted scallions and a green peppercorn-citrus sauce. The tamarind-glazed flank steak is easy, once you've prepared the glaze. Among the few one-pot exceptions is the meltingly delectable confit of veal breast with bulby vegetables, a great winter dish that's slowly braised.
The apple, brussels sprouts and turnip hash is a splendid example of balance, with the fruity sweetness of apple playing off the salty richness of bacon and the bitterness of the vegetables. As for the gratin of sweet peas or the ragout of morels, garden shoots and greens, or the fresh tomato summer rolls - I don't care what they are designed to illustrate. I can hardly wait to try them.
Pan-Seared Scallops in White Wine Broth With Butternut Squash
Adapted from "The Elements of Taste" by Gray Kunz and Peter Kaminsky
Time: 30 minutes
3 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup finely diced shallots
1/2 cup finely diced butternut squash
1 cup chardonnay or riesling
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons lemon juice, or more to taste
Kosher salt and freshly ground white pepper to taste
Cayenne pepper to taste
1 pound fresh bay scallops (Nantucket or Peconic, not calico)
2 tablespoons grapeseed oil.
Melt 1 tablespoon butter in medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Add shallots and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft but not brown. Add squash, wine, honey and 1 tablespoon lemon juice. Season with salt, white pepper and cayenne, and bring to a simmer. Taste and adjust lemon juice and seasonings. Keep warm over very low heat.
Pat scallops dry on paper towels. Place oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add scallops; sauté in single layer without moving them until golden on one side, 2 minutes.
Shake pan to roll scallops around, or use spatula to flip them over. Add remaining butter. When it starts to brown, add remaining lemon juice; season with salt and white pepper. Baste with pan juices briefly.
Divide scallops among four shallow soup plates. Bring broth to simmer, check seasonings, and ladle over scallops. Serve.
Yield: 4 first-course servings.
Apple, Brussel Sprouts and Turnip Hash
Adapted from "The Elements of Taste" by Gray Kunz and Peter Kaminsky
Time: 40 minutes
10 slices country bacon
Kosher salt
1/2 pound brussels sprouts, quartered
3 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and cut in 1/2-inch-thick slices
1/3 cup cider vinegar, approximately
1 large white turnip (about 1/2 pound), peeled and cut in 1/3-inch dice
Freshly ground white pepper
Pinch sugar.
Fry bacon until crisp. Drain on paper, crumble and set aside. Bring 2-quart pot of salted water to boil, add brussels sprouts, blanch 2 minutes, drain and plunge in bowl of ice water. Drain and set aside.
Melt 1 1/2 tablespoons butter in large, clean skillet over medium-high heat. Add brussels sprouts and cook until beginning to brown, 5 minutes. Remove sprouts from pan; set aside. Add 1 tablespoon butter to pan, add apples; cook until golden, 5 minutes. Remove; set aside.
Place 1/3 cup vinegar in saucepan used for brussels sprouts. On low heat, add turnips, season with salt and cook gently until turnips are tender and vinegar is reduced to a couple of tablespoons, 3 to 4 minutes. Add a little water if liquid evaporates. Add brussels sprouts and cook, stirring occasionally, 2 to 3 minutes. Fold in apples, pepper and sugar, heat through, then add remaining butter and fold in bacon. Check seasonings by tasting turnip; add more vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper if needed to get a flavor that's tangy, salty and barely sweet. Serve.
Yield: 4 side-dish servings.
The New York Times
The first offers more than 130 recipes from Mr. Kunz, the talented chef who earned four stars when he was at Lespinasse in Manhattan. Enticing photographs and clear instructions make his creative approach, often with Asian flavors, understandable to the home cook. This is the first book by Mr. Kunz, who has been out of the restaurant scene for three and a half years, and it's exciting to page through and imagine combinations like a gratin of sweet peas, tarragon and pistachios, or flank steak glazed with tamarind.
But the authors don't stop there. There's that second book, a treatise on taste. It's an effort to reduce every flavor the palate may encounter to 14 categories, subdivide and recombine them and come up with a language for analyzing food that feels like some of the esoteric approaches to wine.
Beyond the usual sweet, salty, bitter and sour, they have come up with floral herbal, spiced aromatic, funky and bulby, among others. And if that's not enough, they also have theories about what each taste does in a dish: saltiness and sweetness drive the flavor, while wine adds an underlying fruity fragrance and complexity. Some tastes are said to pull, others push. It's a trifle too lab coat and not enough apron.
"The Elements of Taste" (Little, Brown, $40) has an admirable objective, one that most cookbooks completely miss: it aims to teach how to achieve balance in a dish and, beyond that, in a menu. The premise is that every dish has a key flavor and texture that must be built on, using other taste and textural components, so that the end result pleases the palate and so that a progression of dishes evolves in an appetizing fashion. It's meant to make you a better cook.
The authors - Mr. Kaminsky is a food writer and critic for New York magazine - make the excellent point that for a good chef tastes are usually understood instinctively, the way composers may hear sounds mentally. It's how a chef can know what is missing from a sauce, say, and reach for some lemon, salt or butter to round it out. In a nutshell, it's what defines a good cook, professional or not.
There is a real cookbook in here desperately trying to get out. But the recipes are arranged in a way that supports their taste theories - grouped according to the flavor category and not by course or type of food. Each recipe has "tasting notes" at the end. It's a challenge for anyone who might simply want to cook dinner. Fortunately, there's a well-designed index.
As for the cooking, techniques like a quick sauté or simmer, for example, couldn't be simpler. But coming up with a finished dish can be another story. Many of the recipes require several components, starting with a basic ingredient, called a "platform food," like a piece of fish. Then a sauce, a topping, a relish make for a time-consuming series of recipes before the dish is ready to serve. A section called "The Chef's Larder" provides 43 recipes for the supporting cast.
There's an excellent sautéed striped bass served with bundles of roasted scallions and a green peppercorn-citrus sauce. The tamarind-glazed flank steak is easy, once you've prepared the glaze. Among the few one-pot exceptions is the meltingly delectable confit of veal breast with bulby vegetables, a great winter dish that's slowly braised.
The apple, brussels sprouts and turnip hash is a splendid example of balance, with the fruity sweetness of apple playing off the salty richness of bacon and the bitterness of the vegetables. As for the gratin of sweet peas or the ragout of morels, garden shoots and greens, or the fresh tomato summer rolls - I don't care what they are designed to illustrate. I can hardly wait to try them.
Pan-Seared Scallops in White Wine Broth With Butternut Squash
Adapted from "The Elements of Taste" by Gray Kunz and Peter Kaminsky
Time: 30 minutes
3 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup finely diced shallots
1/2 cup finely diced butternut squash
1 cup chardonnay or riesling
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons lemon juice, or more to taste
Kosher salt and freshly ground white pepper to taste
Cayenne pepper to taste
1 pound fresh bay scallops (Nantucket or Peconic, not calico)
2 tablespoons grapeseed oil.
Melt 1 tablespoon butter in medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Add shallots and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft but not brown. Add squash, wine, honey and 1 tablespoon lemon juice. Season with salt, white pepper and cayenne, and bring to a simmer. Taste and adjust lemon juice and seasonings. Keep warm over very low heat.
Pat scallops dry on paper towels. Place oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add scallops; sauté in single layer without moving them until golden on one side, 2 minutes.
Shake pan to roll scallops around, or use spatula to flip them over. Add remaining butter. When it starts to brown, add remaining lemon juice; season with salt and white pepper. Baste with pan juices briefly.
Divide scallops among four shallow soup plates. Bring broth to simmer, check seasonings, and ladle over scallops. Serve.
Yield: 4 first-course servings.
Apple, Brussel Sprouts and Turnip Hash
Adapted from "The Elements of Taste" by Gray Kunz and Peter Kaminsky
Time: 40 minutes
10 slices country bacon
Kosher salt
1/2 pound brussels sprouts, quartered
3 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and cut in 1/2-inch-thick slices
1/3 cup cider vinegar, approximately
1 large white turnip (about 1/2 pound), peeled and cut in 1/3-inch dice
Freshly ground white pepper
Pinch sugar.
Fry bacon until crisp. Drain on paper, crumble and set aside. Bring 2-quart pot of salted water to boil, add brussels sprouts, blanch 2 minutes, drain and plunge in bowl of ice water. Drain and set aside.
Melt 1 1/2 tablespoons butter in large, clean skillet over medium-high heat. Add brussels sprouts and cook until beginning to brown, 5 minutes. Remove sprouts from pan; set aside. Add 1 tablespoon butter to pan, add apples; cook until golden, 5 minutes. Remove; set aside.
Place 1/3 cup vinegar in saucepan used for brussels sprouts. On low heat, add turnips, season with salt and cook gently until turnips are tender and vinegar is reduced to a couple of tablespoons, 3 to 4 minutes. Add a little water if liquid evaporates. Add brussels sprouts and cook, stirring occasionally, 2 to 3 minutes. Fold in apples, pepper and sugar, heat through, then add remaining butter and fold in bacon. Check seasonings by tasting turnip; add more vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper if needed to get a flavor that's tangy, salty and barely sweet. Serve.
Yield: 4 side-dish servings.
The New York Times