Book: Ideas in Food - Great Recipes and Why They Work

By Aki Kamozawa and H. Alexander Talbot

The book is divided into two sections: ideas for everyone and ideas for professionals. The first section has information that is useful for everyone from the home cook to the professional, addressing subjects such as brining, dehydrating and smoking, and the making of stocks, roasts and confits. The ideas for professionals are more esoteric, with information on hydrocolloids ("a substance that forms a gel in the presence of water", and which include gelatin, starch, pectin and agar agar); transglutaminase (also known as "meat glue", it binds proteins together); liquid nitrogen (to freeze); and carbon dioxide (for carbonating and aerating).

In the chapter on smoking, they write about how smoke works on food (adding fragrance, flavour and colour); the difference between hot- and cold-smoking; and the use of liquid smoke. The recipes they give in this chapter include cold-smoked fried chicken (which they describe as "the best fried chicken ever"); smoked pasta dough; and sweet and sour eggplant.

On the subject of breads, the recipes include fail-safe bread (which comes with the warning, "While this is my fail-safe bread dough recipe, I don't guarantee that it will be a fail-safe recipe for everyone, although your probability for success is very high."), sourdough waffles, cheese-stuffed flatbread and buttermilk biscuits.