Product Description

This selection of recipes forms an collection of dishes from lesser explored areas of the Mediterranean, North Africa and the Middle East. Divided into 12 chapters based on ingredients, the author introduces the home cook both to unsual indgredients and to unsual ways to cook with old favourites. Each dish is unusual, either because it uses "exotic" ingredients such as flower waters, pomegranates and cardamom, or because of its unusual use of ingredients, such as "Middle Eastern Orange Cake", made almost entirely of pureed whole cooked oranges. Several dishes are unsual simply because of their names, consider "Ice in Heaven", or the "Crazy Water" of the title.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #301439 in Books
• Published on: 2002-08-15
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 192 pages

About the Author
Diana Henry writes on food for numerous magazines, including House and Garden, Food and Travel, BBC Good Food Magazine and The English Home. She spent 12 years as a TV producer, making high-profile food programmes, most notably with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. Diana also worked closely with Antonio Carluccio on his Vegetable book.

Customer Reviews

A truly inspirational cookery book which goes much further than just cooking....
....'enchanting dishes from the Middle East, Mediterranean and North Africa'.....it captures the cultures, too!

From inside the front jacket flap:-

'Crazy Waters, Pickled Lemons is an exploration of the ingredients and dishes of the Mediterranean, The Middle East and North Africa......presenting recipes that combine flavours in ways long forgotten - or never even discovered - in many western kitchens.
Special ingredients - the colourful, the aromatic, and the perfumed - which are all too often overlooked in the modern kitchen, are also featured.'

This book stands out from the average cookery book due to the passion which really flows from Diana Henry's descriptive writing - the reader can almost see and taste those flavours, which is far better described than me by the cover quote from Claudia Roden -'A glorious and magical feast for the senses'!

'Places, as well as tastes, are locked up in food. The clear perfumed stillness of a bottle of flower water, the sexy, velvety skin of a fig, the sunburnt blood colour of a jar of cayenne. Our love of foods has as much to do with what they represent as with what they taste like.'

Attractive paperback covers open to 192 high quality pages, split over chapters:-

The Spice Trail
Fragrance of the Earth
A Bowl of Fresh Herbs
Sweet Cloves and Liquid Gold
The Sweet and the Sour
Of Sea and Salt
Plundering the Stores
Fruits of Longing
Curds and Whey
Food from the Hearth
Pith and Skin
Heaven Scent

sandwiched between an introduction and a concise index (listed by ingredient).

Each chapter opens with informative pieces relative to the title, followed by the recipes, which vary in the level of complexity but the majority are far simpler than their titles may suggest.
Each recipe is clearly laid out with a capitalised title, an opening note relating to the recipe, the number of servings, list of ingredients and a clearly laid out and numbered method.
The book is interspersed with useful notes, quotes and sayings....along with the usual stunning full colour photography from Jason Lowe:-

some of the ingredients
and
some of the dishes....... but these may prove on the light side for those keen to see what they are aiming for on a plate.
However, the easy flow of the passionate writing throughout makes this very easy to forgive.

A small taste of the recipes contained within:-

Moroccan Chicken with Tomatoes and Saffron-Honey Jam
Spanish Sausages and Migas
Jewelled Persian Rice
Simple Greek Lamb
Lavender, Orange and Almond Cake
Chilled Avocado and Coriander Soup
Lemon and Basil Ice Cream
Salt-Baked Potatoes with Crème Fraîche and New Season's Garlic
Aubergines with Mint
Pasta with Two Anchovy Sauces
Breast of Duck with Pomegranate and Walnut Sauce
Moroccan Lamb and Quince Tajine
Muhamara
Stuffed Figs dipped in Chocolate
Yoghurt Mezze
Lamb Pizza with Preserved Lemons
Middle Eastern Orange Confit
Violet Liqueur Truffles....

......not forgetting, of course, the title dish - 'Crazy Water' - a simple, but simply delicious recipe originating from the Amalfi coast, and 'Pickled Lemons', from page 165, packing a real punch as we near the end of this passionate work which is far, far more than just another cook-book destined to linger on a kitchen bookshelf!

lyrical with outstanding recipes
There are several reasons I love this cookbook. First of all, every single recipe I've cooked so far (five, after owning it for 2 weeks) has been absolutely delicious. They really make you want to cook and eat. Secondly, Diana Henry's evocative essays and useful cooking tips have already expanded the range of flavours in my kitchen. If you've ever been intrigued by orange blossom water or pickled lemons, say, but didn't know how to use them, this book will inspire you to explore their possibilities, as it has for me. Thirdly, the wonderful photographs mean this is a beautiful cookbook, without being untouchably 'posh'. The food is 'home cooking' (ie approachable) but also adventurous. One of the best cookbooks of the year so far.

A Mediterranean Jewel
What a wonderful book! This is a must-have for anyone who enjoys the food of the Mediterranean and is looking either for a different take on familiar ingedients or to be introduced to a whole host of new ones.
Diana Henry's fantastic recipes are interspersed with pages of tantalising and mouthwatering prose as well as carefully chosen literary quotations. This is a book that easily makes great bedside reading and should not just be confined to the kitchen.
Individual chapters deal with ingredients such as herbs, spices, fruit, nuts and even flower waters. Exciting recipes with exotic names beckon - how does "Rhone Ferryman's Beef with Camargue Red Rice" sound? Or even "Ice Heaven"? I can't wait to try dishes like "Lemon and Basil Ice Cream" or "Arab Andalusian Monkfish with Saffron, Honey and Vinegar" to name but two. In fact so infectious is Diana Henry's enthusiasm that I defy anyone who buys this book not to want to cook from it at the first opportunity.
I hope that there are many more publications to come!