Star chefs’ books seize the season

ENCAPSULATED beet-juice spheres under verjuice ice and lemon thyme froth. Torchon of monkfish liver cooked sous vide in an immersion circulator at 64 degrees Celsius. Jamon iberico consomme.

Ah, fall, the season of college football, PTA meetings -- and high-profile chef cookbooks.

But entertaining as it may be to leaf through hotly anticipated new books by Thomas Keller and Ferran Adria, Grant Achatz of Alinea and the Fat Duck’s Heston Blumenthal, the home cook is likely to leave the cooking of the complex recipes in those volumes to the professionals.

So instead of enrolling in culinary school and purchasing the special equipment and ingredients (liquid nitrogen canisters, toad skin melons) called for by some chef-authors, consider that this fall’s dazzling cookbook lineup has many impressive offerings for the amateur. Six books, some debuts and some by chefs who’ve penned previous cookbooks, are welcome additions to any home cook’s working library.

Nate Appleman of A16, an Italian restaurant in San Francisco, and David Tanis, longtime chef at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, New York chef (at 50 Carmine, Il Buco and others) Sara Jenkins and L.A.’s own “Two Dudes,” Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo of Animal, have all written first cookbooks happily suited to the home cook.

Add new family-focused books by British chefs Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, and you have an impressive list of accessible cookbooks to choose from.

Of these six, three -- by Appleman, Oliver and Tanis -- were the most consistent, intelligent and creative.

“A16: Food + Wine” is the best of the bunch. This debut book by chef Nate Appleman and wine director Shelley Lindgren with Kate Leahy strikes a satisfying balance between simple and complex. It reads like a road map to the food and wine served at A16 (which is perhaps fitting, since the restaurant was named for a road in southern Italy), combining recipes and terrific photography by Ed Anderson with primers on wine by Lindgren and tutorials on ingredients from Appleman.

Even the novice cook can make Appleman’s raw zucchini salad with green olives, mint and pecorino. It’s an easy no-cook recipe, but one that combines technique (briefly salting ribbons of thinly sliced raw zucchini to soften them and remove water) and sophisticated flavor combinations, with impressive results.

A recipe for bucatini with tomatoes and bottarga combines purchased pasta and a sauce made with Roma tomatoes that are first salt-roasted -- for six hours -- with a very generous grating of bottarga (pressed, cured fish roe). Taken individually, each ingredient is rich in flavor: The tomatoes are velvety and dense, the pasta is simple, and the bottarga is unusual and complex; the three together are magnificent.

Monday meatballs is another basic dish, meatballs covered by San Marzano canned tomatoes and baked under aluminum foil. But Appleman’s extras -- grinding the meat yourself (use a food processor), and adding ricotta and more than the usual amount of bread crumbs -- elevate the simple to the extraordinary.

More advanced cooks can opt for Appleman’s recipes for from-scratch squid-ink pasta or pizza baked on a charcoal grill. Or try the unusual grilled shrimp with pickled peppers, preserved Meyer lemons and toasted almonds. If you don’t have pickled peppers or preserved Meyers on hand, the chef gives you easy instructions for making them yourself.

Jamie Oliver’s eighth book, “Jamie at Home: Cook Your Way to the Good Life,” is billed as an hommage to his garden. In the preface, the popular British chef (television’s former “Naked Chef”) explains that he’s fallen in love with his “veg.” The book, beautifully photographed by David Loftus, is a folksy, endearing exploration of what he does with that garden windfall.

Oliver tells readers to add a “swig of vinegar” or to “scrunch up” two pounds of strawberries with their hands for a quick jam. But for all the cuteness, Oliver really is charming, and his dishes are fresh, imaginative and well-balanced.

A striking salad combines whole carrots roasted -- along with a halved lemon and orange -- in a spice blend. The juice from the citrus forms the base of a quick vinaigrette. Tossed with handfuls of garden greens and slices of avocado, the salad gets another dimension from a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkling of toasted seeds. It’s refreshing, deeply flavorful and inventive.

Oliver’s grilled lamb kebabs -- meatballs formed around skewers, then grilled and wrapped in purchased flatbread, salad greens and quick homemade condiments -- are just as much fun, both to prepare and to eat. (Oliver is good at deciding which ingredients are worth the effort to make from scratch, and which aren’t.)

A matter of courses

“APlatter of Figs and Other Recipes” is the first cookbook from Chez Panisse’s David Tanis. Like the restaurant, the book offers simple menus of three or four courses for eight. (At Chez Panisse, a menu composed of a single series of courses is offered each night; diners aren’t given options.)

Tanis’ book, interspersed with a nicely written narrative of the chef’s ideas and back story, is a lovely read. The recipes are nice too, although the book can be frustrating for those cooking for fewer than eight.

The menus are simple and rely heavily on market cycles. Zuppa di fagoli, served with garlic-rubbed toasts, is a well-executed white bean soup, but it’s heightened with the unusual addition of fennel seeds and further torqued by a drizzle of rosemary-infused olive oil.

On the suggested fall menu that includes the soup recipe, the dessert is a deft almond biscotti (Tanis’ simple recipe for this often underrated dessert is a great addition to a cook’s repertoire), but the first and third courses are composed simply of salumi and olives, and pears and cheese. Both are fine ideas, but you want something more from a chef with Tanis’ experience and imagination.

Tanis’ minimalism doesn’t always serve him well in other ways. Some menus are too bare-bones, some dishes a bit flat. A blueberry-blackberry crumble is so berry-heavy it seems more an enormous compote than a structured dessert, and a honey-lavender ice cream is nuanced but far too sweet.

The books by Sara Jenkins, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and the Dudes, Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo, are less reliable but often inspiring. “Olives & Oranges: Recipes and Flavor Secrets From Italy, Spain, Cyprus and Beyond,” by Jenkins and Mindy Fox, is a lively cookbook with a Mediterranean spin. It’s Jenkins’ first book, though she’s cooked at a string of New York restaurants (her restaurant, Porchetta, is opening this fall).

Jenkins’ dishes are straightforward, interesting for often-striking flavor combinations. But the recipes can be hit-or-miss. Cantaloupe gazpacho is a blend of melon and cucumber with olive oil, a splash of sherry vinegar and a bit of shallot.

Topped with matchsticks of prosciutto and a sprinkling of Aleppo pepper, the soup is easy, unusual and shot with flavor. But although a fattoush, or Middle Eastern salad of toasted pita and chopped vegetables, looked nice on the plate, it tasted flat.

Kid-friendly cuisine

“The RIVER Cottage Family Cookbook,” by Fearnley-Whittingstall and Fizz Carr, is the latest book by the British chef and television personality. It’s a book geared to parents and their kids -- somewhat of a departure for Fearnley-Whittingstall, who has frequently appeared on Gordon Ramsay’s expletive-filled television shows, and whose first book, “Cook on the Wild Side,” discussed preparing road kill.

The book does a great job of hitting its target audience, with short tutorials on subjects such as flour and chocolate, recipes for smoothies and ideas for kid-friendly projects, such as creating an ice-cream maker. Some of the recipes, however, aren’t so spot on.

A basic chocolate mousse is fantastic, and so easy your kids could start their careers as pastry chefs with it. But the honey fudge never set, remaining a sticky goo. A roast chicken turned out undercooked, bland even for kids; and though the accompanying gravy was tasty, there was only a scant tablespoon’s worth.

Shook and Dotolo’s first book, “Two Dudes, One Pan: Maximum Flavor From a Minimalist Kitchen,” is as colorful and slightly scruffy as the chefs themselves. The book is a happy mishmash, with recipes ranging from spicy citrus-glazed duck breasts to basic buttermilk pancakes.

Some recipes are very successful riffs on the traditional: Bacon-wrapped (the Dudes love bacon) meatloaf is shot with herbs, moist and deeply flavorful. But other dishes are disappointing.

Vinny’s spaghetti Bolognese was too heavy, thickened at the end with unnecessary butter and cream, and oddly one-dimensional. Pan-roasted eggplant (the chefs’ secret ingredient when they were on “Iron Chef”) with shallot vinaigrette turned out both underseasoned and undercooked.

Although some of these new user-friendly cookbooks are uneven, the standouts -- Appleman’s and Oliver’s -- are practical yet imaginative, with accessible instructions and helpful tips. They’re also a bargain compared with many of the for-pros books: All six hardcovers come in at below $40 each.

Meanwhile, chefs, wannabe chefs and collectors willing to spend a little more money ($250 for Blumenthal’s “The Big Fat Duck Cookbook”) or who have a handy immersion circulator (needed for Keller’s sous vide book) will have a stack of great cookbooks this fall too.

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amy.scattergood@latimes.com

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Homespun spirit

The FOLLOWING, in stores this month, are books you can use as well as enjoy looking at (alphabetical by author):

“A16: Food + Wine” by Nate Appleman and Shelley Lindgren with Kate Leahy. Ten Speed Press, $35.

“The River Cottage Family Cookbook” by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Fizz Carr. Ten Speed Press, $32.50.

“Olives & Oranges” by Sara Jenkins and Mindy Fox. Houghton Mifflin, $35.

“Jamie at Home: Cook Your Way to the Good Life” by Jamie Oliver. Hyperion, $37.50.

“Two Dudes, One Pan” by Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo. Clarkson Potter, $24.95.

“A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes” by David Tanis. Artisan, $35.

Amy Scattergood

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Reaching higher

Cookbooks FOR very serious cooks or, well, chefs (alphabetical by author):

“Alinea” by Grant Achatz, with Nick Kokonas, Mark McClusky, Michael Nagrant, Michael Ruhlman and Jeffrey Steingarten. Ten Speed Press, $50 (October).

“A Day at elBulli: An Insight Into the Ideas, Methods and Creativity of Ferran Adria” by Ferran Adria, Juli Soler and Albert Adria. Phaidon, $50 (October).

“The Big Fat Duck Cookbook” by Heston Blumenthal. Bloomsbury, $250 (November).

“Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide” by Thomas Keller, Jonathan Benno, Corey Lee and Sebastien Rouxel, with Susie Heller, Michael Ruhlman and Amy Vogler. Artisan Books, $75 (December).

“Great Chefs Cook Vegan” by Linda Long. Gibbs Smith, $35 (September).

“On the Line: Inside the World of Le Bernardin” by Eric Ripert with Christine Muhlke. Artisan Books, $35 (November).

“The Complete Robuchon” by Joel Robuchon, translated from the French by Robin H.R. Bellinger. Alfred A. Knopf, $35 (November).

-- Amy Scattergood

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Roast carrot and avocado salad with orange and lemon dressing

Total time: 1 hour

Servings: 8

Note: Adapted from “Jamie at Home: Cook Your Way to the Good Life” by Jamie Oliver.

1 pound medium carrots, assorted colors, with a quarter inch of the leafy tops

2 teaspoons whole cumin seeds

1 or 2 small dried chiles, crumbled

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 cloves garlic, peeled

4 sprigs thyme, leaves picked

Best-quality olive oil

Red wine vinegar

1 orange, halved

1 lemon, halved

3 ripe avocados

4 ( 1/2 -inch) slices of ciabatta or other good quality bread

2 handfuls colorful mixed salad leaves, such as Treviso, arugula or radicchio

2 bunches watercress

2/3 cup sour cream, optional

4 tablespoons mixed seeds, toasted

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Parboil the carrots in boiling salted water for 10 minutes, until they are nearly cooked, then drain and place them in a roasting pan.

2. Meanwhile, in a mortar and pestle, smash the cumin seeds, chiles, one-fourth teaspoon salt and one-eighth teaspoon pepper. Add the garlic and thyme and smash again until you have a kind of paste. Add 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil, or enough to generously cover the paste, and 1 teaspoon of vinegar. Stir together, then pour over the carrots, coating them well.

3. Add the orange and lemon halves, cut-side down, to the pan of carrots. Place in the oven for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the carrots are light golden brown

4. While the carrots are roasting, halve and peel the avocados, discarding the pits, then cut them into wedges lengthwise and place in a big bowl.

5. Remove the carrots from the oven and add them to the avocados. Using tongs, carefully squeeze the juice from the roasted orange and lemon into a bowl (you should have about one-half cup juice) and add the same amount of olive oil and 2 tablespoons vinegar, or to taste. Season with one-fourth teaspoon salt and one-eighth teaspoon pepper, or to taste, and pour enough dressing over the carrots and avocados to coat. Mix together, taste and correct the seasoning.

6. Toast, broil or grill the bread, then tear it into little pieces and add to the dressed carrots and avocados. Mix together, toss in the salad leaves and the watercress, add additional dressing to taste, and transfer to a big platter or divide among individual plates. You may not use all of the dressing; we used three-fourths cup.

7. Add a dollop of sour cream, if desired, sprinkle with toasted seeds and drizzle with more olive oil. Serve immediately.

Each of 8 servings: 333 calories; 5 grams protein; 22 grams carbohydrates; 8 grams fiber; 27 grams fat; 4 grams saturated fat; 0 cholesterol; 284 mg. sodium

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Almond biscotti

Total time: 1 hour

Servings:

Makes 3 1/2 dozen cookies

Note: Adapted from “A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes,” by David Tanis. Biscotti will keep for weeks in an airtight container.

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened

3/4 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/4 teaspoon almond extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

Pinch of salt

3/4 cup sliced almonds

1. Heat the oven to 325 degrees. In the bowl of a stand mixer or in a large bowl using a hand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then add the almond extract.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. With the mixer running, slowly incorporate the dry ingredients into the butter mixture. Add the sliced almonds and mix for a minute more. You will have a soft dough.

3. Put the dough on a floured board and divide it into thirds. Roll into logs about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Place the logs on a parchment-lined baking sheet, spaced about 3 inches apart, and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until slightly browned. Remove the logs and let them cool slightly.

4. While the logs are still warm, cut them on the diagonal into slices about one-half-inch thick. Place the slices on two baking sheets and bake for 5 to 10 minutes, or until barely brown. Turn over the biscotti and bake an additional 5 to 10 minutes, until barely brown. Cool on a rack.

Each serving: 68 calories; 1 gram protein; 9 grams carbohydrates; 0 fiber; 3 grams fat; 2 grams saturated fat; 16 mg. cholesterol; 25 mg. sodium.

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Monday meatballs

Total time: 2 hours, 15 minutes

Servings: 6

Note: Adapted from “A16: Food + Wine,” by Nate Appleman and Shelley Lindgren with Kate Leahy. Grana is an Italian cow’s milk cheese similar to but less expensive than Parmigiano-

Reggiano; it’s available at many cheese shops, Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods markets. You can substitute Parmigiano. A meat grinder or food processor is needed for this recipe.

10 ounces boneless pork shoulder, about 1 1/3 cups ground

10 ounces beef chuck, about 1 1/3 cups ground

6 ounces day-old country bread

2 ounces pork fat, finely chopped

2 ounces prosciutto (4 to 5 slices), chilled in the freezer for 15 minutes and then finely chopped

1 cup loosely packed, fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves, coarsely chopped

1 tablespoon kosher salt, divided

2 teaspoons dried oregano

1 1/2 teaspoons fennel seeds

1 teaspoon dried chile flakes

2/3 cup fresh ricotta, drained if necessary (if sitting in whey, drain overnight in cheesecloth)

3 eggs, lightly beaten

1/4 cup whole milk

1 (28-ounce) can San Marzano tomatoes with juice

Handful of fresh basil leaves

Block of grana for grating

Best-quality olive oil for finishing

1. Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Coat 2 rimmed baking sheets with olive oil. In a large bowl, combine the pork, beef, bread, pork fat, prosciutto, parsley, 2 teaspoons salt, oregano, fennel seeds and chile flakes and mix with your hands just until the ingredients are evenly distributed. Set aside.

2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the ricotta, eggs and milk just enough to break up any large curds of ricotta. Add the ricotta mixture to the ground meat mixture and mix lightly with your hands just until incorporated. The mixture should feel wet and tacky. Pinch off a small piece, flatten it into a disk, and cook it in a small saute pan. Taste and adjust the mixture’s seasoning with salt, if needed.

3. Form the mixture into 1 1/2 -inch balls, each weighing about 2 ounces, and place on the prepared baking sheets. You should have about 30 meatballs.

4. Bake, rotating the sheets once from front to back, for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the meatballs are lightly browned. Remove from the oven and reduce the temperature to 300 degrees.

5. Sprinkle the tomatoes with the remaining salt, and then pass the tomatoes and their juices through a food mill fitted with the medium plate. Alternatively, put the entire can of tomatoes and salt in a large bowl, don an apron and squeeze the tomatoes into small pieces with your hands.

6. Pack the meatballs into 1 large roasting pan or 2 smaller roasting pans. Pour the tomato sauce over the meatballs, cover tightly with aluminum foil, and braise for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, or until the meatballs are tender and have absorbed some of the tomato sauce.

7. Remove the pans from the oven and uncover. Distribute the basil leaves throughout the sauce.

8. For each serving, ladle the meatballs with some of the sauce into a warmed bowl. Grate the grana over the top, drizzle with olive oil to finish and serve immediately.

Each of 6 servings: 414 calories; 30 grams protein; 22 grams carbohydrates; 3 grams fiber; 23 grams fat; 9 grams saturated fat; 183 mg. cholesterol; 1,693 mg. sodium