Do you have friends who like to cook?
Now is the time to bath your friends and yourself with a cookbook or two (you have always been fine, right?). To show your sincerity and pride in New Jersey, please let this book be written by the Garden State Chef.
Maybe your friend is dining in the chef’s restaurant and wants to make a new dish. With your gift, they can. Or, they are told (you? The Record?) how good a certain dish is, but, alas, never had the joy of eating it. Your gift solves this problem; they can enjoy the dish at home.
Besides, the recipe is a great gift. Not only because they are always there (unlike-insert sad face emjoi-food), but because they are full of mouth-watering inspiration. Happy inspiration does not deteriorate.
This is a recipe written by a New Jersey chef and can be a lovely gift. As an added bonus, we have provided some recipes to give you a good start in cooking.
Dan Richer, the pizza wizard at the award-winning pizza restaurant Razza in Jersey City, is obsessed with it. In the past 20 years, he has experimented, researched, tried and worked on all aspects of Pisa (this can explain why his pizza is ranked top by the New York Times, Thrillist, nj.com and many other institutions). It can be said that he is a leader in pizza making, so Richer said that this is why he wrote "The Joy of Pizza" (Little Brown & Co., 2021), which is a beautifully photographed cookbook.
"I really want to share the information I have," Richell said. "I have been making pizza since 2003. I have learned a lot through trial and error. I don't want to leave this information to myself. I don't want people to experience all the failures I have experienced."
He said that his recipes are suitable for home cooks and professionals. "I don't just use the dough recipe from our restaurant to tell the home chef to turn your oven as high as possible," he said. "During the pandemic, I reverse-engineered the dough for home cooks."
Gift Guide 2021: 8 recipes for those who can’t cook
He said that to make a great pie at home, you don't need fancy equipment or a special oven. "Your oven is very good," he said. All you need is a kitchen scale ("We use grams to ensure accuracy; each teaspoon is a little different, each spoon may be different") and a piece of baking stone or pizza steel. "I have broken too many stones and can no longer use another stone," Ritchell said.
Richer offers four main dough recipes, arranged in ascending order of difficulty (from easiest to most challenging). Each recipe will be adjusted according to the oven used-from household ovens to higher temperature ovens, such as Ooni pizza ovens, to commercial pizza ovens.
His favorite pizza? "Margarita," he said.
However, even a simple three-ingredient pie is different, he says, depending on whether the basil is added before or during cooking.
"This is a completely different kind of pizza," he said.
The book costs $35 and is available at Razza, 275 Grove St., Jersey City, 201-356-9348, razzanj.com ("We have a large number of autographed copies," Richer said), as well as many bookstores and Amazon .
More: Is this Jersey City chef the best pizza in New Jersey and New York?
Donuts saved her bakery. Rachel Wyman said he is the popular Montclair Bread Co. "One day, she fry some homemade brioche dough for herself and an employee for breakfast, and she Any leftovers prepared for customers. Donuts are so popular that today the description of this store is: "A bakery addicted to donuts. "
You can satisfy your donut addiction-and learn about Wyman, an avid jogger, hence the title of her recipe book-and by baking Wyman in her cookbook "Will Run for Doughnuts" (Simon & Schuster, 2021). The book is divided into childhood favorites, bread, doughnuts, community favorites and quarantine recipes.
When asked what recipe she wanted to share, Wyman replied without hesitation: "Bread pudding. I shared it with the community during the pandemic. This is an environmentally friendly recipe using leftover waste." And, she Ignore it, it's delicious.
The book can be purchased at Montclair Bread Co., 16 Label St., Montclair, call 973-509-2525; montclairbread.com, and through Amazon and wherever books are sold.
Like bread? : Here you can find the best artisanal bread in northern New Jersey
(Excerpt from Will Run for Donuts by Rachel Wyman. Published by Andrews McMeel Publishing in October 2021. Copyright © 2021 Rachel Wyman.)
The celebrity chef David Burke needs no introduction. But, just in case you have been out of the restaurant industry for more than 30 years, please know that the New Jersey born (Hazlet) and current New Jersey resident (Fort Lee) are the first ever United States to win the prestigious Meilleurs Ouvriers de France Diplome d'Honneur, twice nominated for the James Beard Best Chef Award, and owns or manages kitchens in many restaurants in New Jersey, including Ventanas in The Modern restaurant in Fort Lee, Red Horse in Rumson, and recently David Burke opened in Morristown in 1776.
"I love New Jersey," Burke said.
Burke wrote two cookbooks. The first is "Cooking with David Burke". "New American Classic" (Knopf, 2009) is his second work. The idea of this book is that once a chef has mastered the art of cooking classic American dishes, she can use it to cook more refined dishes, and then use the leftovers to make something completely different. So there are three versions of each dish.
"I always thought people could do more with leftovers," Burke said when asked what prompted him to write this 2012 cookbook. "This is a good book."
Why hasn't he written anything since then? "I'm famous and I'm too busy to write." This book sells for $19.99 on Amazon.
Chef Risa Magid Boyer permanently closed her charming restaurant Vanillamore in November 2020, which was Montclair's first dessert lounge. Boyer said the book was published in August 2020 and aims to "bring home Vanillamore."
"It finally came out at the perfect time," said Boyer, who recently launched Vanillamore Culinary Experiences, a private chef company. Boyer said that she is working hard to build her own brand and this cookbook is very helpful. Boyer can come to your home to cook-or you can get her recipes and make delicious desserts and delicious dishes for her yourself. Of course, you can also give this book to friends who love cooking during the holidays, hoping that it will inspire them to cook for you.
The "Vanilla Moore Cookbook" ("Life in Print", 2020) is full of cute photos that accompany Boyer's beloved dessert recipes such as dark chocolate salami, butterscotch blonde, chocolate chip cookies and Marshmallows (yes, homemade marshmallows). Her delicious dishes include ricotta cheese, sausages and figs with polenta and short ribs. The recipe was simple at first (chocolate shortbread and vanilla cake), and then became more and more challenging (strawberry cream puffs and orange bars).
Start with any recipe you like. But Boyer said her first choice is the recipe for sweet potato gnocchi.
You can order this book at chefrisa.com for $39.95.
Ilson Goncalves, the chef and owner of the famous Brazilian restaurant Samba in Montclair, wants to keep his grandmother and mother's recipes. After all, these two women are responsible for teaching Gonçalves how to cook. Goncalves spent a year compiling his book "The Samba Montclair Cookbook" (Life in Print, 2017).
His grandmother now suffers from Alzheimer's disease. But Goncalves said that she knew the book. "I remember she taught me how to make things in the kitchen," he said. "She taught me to cook." His mother owns a restaurant in Brazil.
The recipes in his book are the recipes he uses in the restaurant. "The only recipe that is not there is my specialty recipe," he said.
His favorite is his grandmother’s bone-in chicken ("It brings back my memories," he said.); beef stew ("It's lighter than the Russian version, and I asked the Russians to tell me it was what they eat The best beef stew ever.”); and acorn squash stuffed with shrimp (“This is my mother’s recipe, people love it,” he said.).
The book is priced at $19.95 and is available on Amazon and Samba, 7 Park St., Montclair; 973-744-6764, sambamontclair.com.
(Courtesy of Ilson Gonçalves, chef and owner of Samba Montclair)
Sazon is the brand name of a blend of spices commonly used in Brazilian and South American cooking. The homemade version is fresher and has a lower sodium content, and you will find it has many uses.
Christine Nunn is now the executive chef of Vesta Wood-Fired in East Rutherford and once had an acclaimed picnic at Fair Lawn. It closed in 2013, just as Nunn was about to complete her cookbook "The Preppy Cookbook" (Amazon Publishing, 2013).
"This is an interesting book," Nunn said.
Nunn said she flipped through her mother's old wooden recipe file to write her book. Of course, it contains many recipes she uses on picnics, including her beloved lobster roll.
She said: "This book is indeed a collection of some interesting comfort food, with some twists and turns." The recipe includes date bread, turkey tetrazzini, stew pot and perfect martini. Of course, there is also her beloved lobster roll.
It can be bought in bookstores and Amazon. The electronic version is priced at US$13 and US$5.99.
More: Vanillamore, Montclair's first dessert lounge, has closed
More: Fort Lee’s celebrity chef David Burke is building a New Jersey restaurant empire
Esther Davidowitz is the food editor for NorthJersey.com. For more information on where to eat and drink, subscribe and sign up for our North Jersey Eats newsletter today.