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The New Greek Cuisine
Featuring 150 recipes from Jim Botsacos, the chef of New York's acclaimed Molyvos Restaurant

by Jim Botsacos with Judith Choate

     

People rarely think of Greece as a country you go to for the food, but I’ve had some fabulous meals there. It’s a cuisine based on showcasing fresh ingredients rather than fancy technique, and Greece has some of the best vegetables, fish, etc. to be found. That simplicity and the famously healthy elements of the Mediterranean diet make Greek food a natural for today’s home cook.

In The New Greek Cuisine, Chef Jim Botsacos of Manhattan’s Molyvos restaurant offers a delightful mixture of classic Greek dishes and newer recipes derived from his own Greek-Italian heritage. Offerings run from casual family snacks to treats you’d proudly serve up to the friends who are always bragging about their latest gourmet discoveries. There’s also a wealth of information in the chatty introductions and comments with each recipe. This is a cookbook meant to be used rather than occupy space on the coffee table, but it’s also a pleasure to read.

Ever had a gyro from a local takeout? The recipe is in here for what that bland white glop on top is really supposed to be—a wake up and take notice yoghurt garlic sauce. One of my favorite Greek dishes is shrimp baked with feta and tomatoes. The version here, called Shrimp Sagnaki with Tomatoes and Feta, is easy and delicious and also taught me that sagnaki—which I only knew as a flamed fried cheese appetizer—is really the name of the special pan both this dish and that appetizer are made in. Looking for a new side dish? What about chickpea rice with its hint of cinnamon that you won’t know is cinnamon, just that there’s an interesting taste in there.

The book is nicely illustrated even if it is a working cookbook. If the pictures of stuffed veggies or lamb youvetsi (Greece’s answer to ossa bucco) don’t have you salivating, you might want to check in with your doctor. My one complaint is a bit of over-reliance on things like heavy duty mixers, food processors, and other equipment you could certainly expect to find in a well stocked middle class suburban kitchen, but not in a typical tiny urban apartment kitchen such as mine. You wouldn’t find most of them in a typical Greek kitchen either, so they aren’t strictly necessary. But it does mean you need a certain level of cooking expertise to be comfortable working around what you don’t have.

Recommended with that one reservation about equipment. Pick up a copy and taste just how much more there is to Greek cooking than baklava and bad takeout gyros.

The Book

Broadway Books / Random House
Oct 2006
Hardcover
978-0-7679-1875-6
Greek Cookery
More at Amazon.com
Excerpt
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The Reviewer

Kim Malo
Reviewed 2009
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© 2009 MyShelf.com