Description:
The Minimalist Cooks Dinner collects two years of recipes from Mark Bittman's popular New York Times column, "The Minimalist," which cleverly caters to the modern gourmet whose expectations are high but time is limited. In a hundred-odd recipes that cover the end-of-the-day meal gamut from soups and sides to entrées, Bittman packs strong flavor into a few ingredients so that food lovers can return home from a long day at work and make a meal that's satisfying but not exhausting. With less introductory text but more side notes than Bittman's previous cookbooks (The Minimalist Cooks at Home and the new classic, How to Cook Everything), The Minimalist Cooks Dinner commences with a section of 12 soups and stews--ranging from a truly spare miso soup to the richer Black-Eyed Pea Soup with Ham and Watercress--and then covers pasta, pizza, entrées (with shellfish, fish, poultry, or meat), salads, and starchy sides. Easy dishes such as Steak with Chimichurri Sauce (simply parsley, raw garlic, lemon juice, crushed red pepper, and olive oil), Fish Simmered in Spicy Soy Sauce (soy, sugar, scallions, and chile), or Scallops with Almonds (cayenne, almonds, white wine, and butter) are startlingly delicious, especially considering they take at most 30 minutes to prepare. But perhaps this cookbook's best asset, particularly for less-experienced cooks, are the crucial "Keys to Success" and the improvisational "With Minimal Effort" side bars, which respectively offer additional instruction and suggestions for quick ways to enhance the original dish. While not as comprehensive as Bittman's bestselling How to Cook Everything or The Minimalist Cooks at Home, this is an expertly refined collection that presents perfect, almost effortless meals for every night of the week. --Rebecca Wright
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