Winter is high cooking time. Some days, you will simply not want to leave the house while nonetheless craving, say, a steamy impromptu hot pot. Other days, you might ache to crank that oven dial and bake yourself a tray of brownies. These eight cookbooks are happy to help you on your wintry journeys.
‘All That Crumbs Allow’
Oh, the allure of a single-subject cookbook that’s fun and frugal. Authors Michelle Marek and Camilla Wynne have assembled an homage to economy and that most versatile of ingredients: breadcrumbs. Savory bread dumplings, two pastas made with breadcrumbs, a pumpernickel Black forest torte, a breadcrumb omelet, and a toast-and-jam semifreddo — this is thrift as joyful hedonism. (out now, $27.50, Kitchen Arts & Letters)
‘The King Cookbook’
Dining at King, a shimmering corner restaurant in Manhattan’s West Village, warps time and space, planting you firmly in some parallel-minded part of France or Italy. Now, with the publication of “The King Cookbook,” the restaurant’s owners, Clare de Boer, Jess Shadbolt and Annie Shi, teach you how to emulate King’s breezy, precise cooking at home. Time to stock up on those salted Italian anchovies, high-quality olive oil, crème fraîche, preserved tomatoes, lemons, and so very many kinds of dried beans. (out now, $40, Macmillan, Amazon)
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‘Wine Pairing for the People: The Communion of Wine, Food and Culture from Africa and Beyond’
Eurocentric, schmeurocentric. Cha McCoy is here to prove to you the obvious, and mercilessly overlooked, actuality that food from all across the globe can go well with wine. “Wine Pairing for the People” spans five regions of the world: Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, the U.S. and Asia. As McCoy bops from Turkey to Somalia to the Deep South, the land of barbecue and Creole cooking, the certified sommelier reveals all the ways that wine can complement so many kinds of foods prepared so many ways. Mexican tamales with Sardinian vermentino, anyone?(out now, $35, HarperCollins, Amazon)
‘The Nonalcoholic Bar: Classic and Creative Cocktails for Everyone’
Let’s begin with the seemingly impossible: a booze-free martini. Author John deBary sets the optimal tone straightaway with a refrigerator martini that combines nonalcoholic gin and vermouth with olive brine, hot sauce and orange bitters. It emulates rather than replicates that boozy version and does so with aplomb. That’s the entire vibe of “The Nonalcoholic Bar,” right down to a footloose simulacrum of a Ramos gin fizz, reconsidered with blood orange juice and Sanbittèr soda. (Jan. 6, $20, Union Square & Co., Amazon)
‘Everyone Hot Pot: Creating the Ultimate Meal for Gathering and Feasting’
Natasha Pickowicz, baker extraordinaire, taps into her Chinese heritage with her second cookbook. But this is no slavish homage to authentic hot pot. Sure, there’s mushroom dashi and appetite-whetting cucumber stumps slapped with rice wine vinegar and soy sauce. There is also a charred, candied orange sauce and a chapter on blowout seafood-feast hot pots. Pickowicz is always about bringing people together. This time, she’s doing it while hot to pot. (Jan. 27, $30, Artisan, Amazon)
‘Simply Donabe: Japanese One-Pot Recipes’
A donabe is a Japanese earthenware pot. It’s also the name of a style of one-pot dishes. Naoko Moore walks you through cooking an array of dishes in these beautiful, utilitarian vessels, including miso ramen, shabu shabu, crumbled tofu with carrots and edamame, and matcha tiramisu — one container, so many possibilities. (Feb. 10, $40, Amazon)
‘Bittersweet: The Five Tastes of Dessert and Beyond’
Sweetness without ballast fizzles. Thalia Ho knows this and has written a baking book that pinpoints the delicious interplay between sweet and the other five tastes. A few telling examples: miso in a caramel apple pie, soy sauce in ganache brownies, and torched sherbet meringues. Your sweet tooth will never know what hit it, nor will it want to go back to before “Bittersweet.” (Feb. 10, $35, Harvest, Amazon)
‘Obsessed with the Best: 100+ Methodically Perfected Recipes Based on 20+ Head-to-Head Tests’
First things first: The “best” doesn’t exist. Still, a recipe adventure seeking to compare, contrast and comprehend how to think about different iterations of the same dish is a noble endeavor. In “Obsessed with the Best,” Ella Quittner runs recipes like scrambled eggs, meatballs, latkes, fresh pasta, yellow cake and even whipped cream through trial-and-error experiments. You are sure to encounter solid results and a fun read, even if Quittner’s best is simply quantitative opinion. (Feb. 24, $40, HarperCollins, Amazon)
