Customer Reviews

The Book of New Israeli Food: A Culinary Journey

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Israeli food writer Gur's oversize cookbook, with sumptuous photos by Eilon Paz, is as rewarding to page through as to cook from. Gur, the founder of Israel's leading food magazine, sets the scene, placing recipes and ingredients in context with Israeli life and culinary history, which encompasses influences from a worldwide diaspora. Scattered the world over, Jews absorbed local cuisines and adapted them to Jewish law and custom.

The two major divisions in Israeli cooking are the European Ashkenazi (Chopped Liver - Gur offers four versions, Gefilte Fish, Potato Pancakes), and the Middle Eastern and Balkan Sephardic (Bourekas, stuffed vegetables, Kubbe), but Israeli foods also include dishes from North Africa, Iraq, Syria, India and more.

Gur charts the evolution of Israeli cooking through its short history - naturally influenced by local foods and Arab cuisine - and illustrates techniques common in modern Israeli cooking, like flame roasting eggplants, which are then featured in 11 dishes, and choosing and using the versatile ground sesame sauce, tahini.

Gur also includes engaging stories on basics in Israeli culinary life - breakfast, olive oil, bread, cheese and more - and a short chapter describing some of the more prevalent special ingredients and spices.

The book is divided into five main chapters: Salads etc., The street and The Market, Simple Pleasures, Grill, Shabbat and Holidays. The heady flavor of lemon rises from salads like Fennel and Pistachio, Eggplant Carpaccio, or sumptuous Fatoush, a bread salad with garden-ripe tomatoes.

In addition to basic Falafel, Gur offers a fish version with spicy Harissa Mayonnaise. Other street foods include Shawarma, a shaved meat sandwich with hummus or tahini sauce, Shakshuka, with eggs gently poached in tomato sauce, and phyllo or puff pastry Bourekas stuffed with spinach or eggplant and cheese.

Simple Pleasures include breads, stuffed vegetables, rice dishes (Persian Green Rice, Rice with Crispy Noodles), couscous, soups like Creamy Jerusalem Artichoke and Kubbe Hamousta, a lemony broth with bulgar and beef dumplings, and fish dishes like Trout Casserole and Fish Ceviche with Eggplant Cream.

Grilled dishes include a variety of chicken wings in spices like za'atar and sumac, lamb kebabs and Cornish hens. Many of the familiar traditional dishes, like Challah, Chicken Soup (both European and Middle Eastern) and Cholent are found in the Shabbat and holiday dishes include for Gefilte Fish, Lamb and Quince Casserole, Honey Cake, Latkes, Passover Matzo Pie and Labane (yogurt cheese).

Lively, colorful, steeped in history, tradition and the modern melting pot, Gur's book is also well organized, with clear directions and an understanding of the home cook's approach.

This is a large 9" X 12", 304-page cookbook with stunning color photographs and a variety of kosher recipes from Israel.

I'm someone who doesn't enjoy the hassles of traveling, however, cookbooks from far and near are something I do enjoy. Perhaps it satisfies my latent sense of adventure without the need to leave home. I live near a large city and have access to a variety of exotic ingredients, but I found many of the recipes in The Book of New Israeli Food required very little extra purchases to complete.

I love to make desserts so, of course, my first pick was the "Citrus Semolina Cake" on page 208. Semolina flour-more familiarly used in pasta, fresh orange juice, ground coconut and a small amount of sugar listed in the recipe sounded like the perfect choice. It actually turned out just like the glossy color photo. A picture may be worth a thousand words but with recipes it's the taste. Mild citrus flavor enhanced the cake, which was lighter than a pound cake but heavier than a typical one made with cake flour.

The Book of New Israeli Food not only contains recipes for desserts, but salads, yummy breads and hearty entrées. A bit of history of the area and the customs, which made these recipes popular in this region, accompanies the color photos. There is a section called "special ingredients" that gives added information about those less familiar spices, etc.

This would make a beautiful addition to most home cookbook collections. Then you too can enjoy a bit of Israel without leaving home. I give The Book of New Israeli Food 5 stars.

Armchair Interviews agrees

The recipes are modern and interesting, without being difficult or fussy. Even the few very traditional recipes that one might expect to find here are given a fresh new twist. They reflect regional influences and ingredients. The photography is vibrant and the accompanying stories make this book much more than just a collection of recipes. Would make an excellent gift.

i just bought this beautiful book and spent an hour looking through it carefully and marking pages of recipes i want to try. unlike most cookbooks, this one has many recipes that are simple yet enticing -- i will really try many. too often one looks through a cookbook, is attracted to the photos, but chooses not to really get down and actually make one of recipes. this is NOT one of those cookbooks. i am married to a tunisian, and many of these recipes are authentic even to that culture. i will update this posting when i have chosen and cooked something from the many i have marked to try.

I really enjoyed this more as a photography book than a cookbook. It really does seem to be more likely to be found on a coffee table as opposed to a kitchen. The photography is particularly lovely. The photo of a pomegranate grove ready for harvest is just breathtaking. The descriptions of the different holidays and recipes are very informative and well-written. However, as a cookbook, many of the recipes were very specialized. Some of the spice mixes would be very hard to find for the average American kitchen, as well as the ingredients for many of the main courses. The cake and bread recipes would be much easier to produce, and the sweet challah recipe was particularly good. If you want a beautiful food book for your coffee table, purchase this. If you want a more American kitchen friendly book on Israeli food, look elsewhere.

I am a big fan of cookbooks and I must say this is the best one I have ever purchased! First of all it is the first cookbook that I actually sat down and read the stories and even recipes page by page because the way it's written is so enticing. The stories and recipes really do a good representation of the huge variety that exists in Israel and I was able to relate to all of them and find recipes for my favorite home and street food that I miss so much.
Yesterday I chose 6 recipes that I had never made before and tried them out, and I found myself having to write this review because of how wonderful all of them turned out! Really brought me back to those days eating pita with zaatar on the streets, or having kebabs in the restaurants up north by my house.
The book is very user friendly as you can find beautiful pictures of practically all the recipes if you're not sure what they look like. The recipes are very easy to follow and the ingredient lists include substitutes for ingredients that you can only find in israel and measures in both metric and american systems making them really easy to shop for and follow. The instructions are very clear and even the most complicated tasks seem so easy to follow that you just want to pick it up and do it. Everything I made yesterday was delicious, as we say "lelakek ta'etsbaot!" and I can't wait to keep making more recipes next week!

I purchased this cookbook because it is the only cookbook that I could find that included a recipe to make Schwarma without mixing milk and meat. The recipe was well printed, directions were clear, and the product was amazing. Recipes have both metric and non metric measurements. I fed 300 people and requests for the recipe are still coming in. The Title of the Book is PERFECT. "The Book of New Israeli Food: A Culinary Journey" is just what defines this product. Living and visiting in contemporary Israel, means experiencing food from a variety of cultures and countries. The photography brings you through a sensory journey of sounds, smells, and sights, as you wet your appetite with the promise of foods from the market and the Mediterranean, with respect to the uniqueness of Israeli breakfasts, salads, the bread, and the propensity of olive oil. This artistic book is the first Israeli cookbook that I have seen that honors the countries, cultures, holidays and stories of all Israeli citizens. Foods, recipes, faces, and stories of Arab Israelis in the same binding as those of Ashkanazi and Sephardic Jewish Israelis. The Holiday chapter includes recipes of Rosh Hashana, Shavuot, and Ramadan amongst others. More than a culinary journey, it is also a photographic journey and an emotional journey through the land of Israel and its' "tastes". It may have started as a search for Schwarma coming out of MY kitchen, however the first book I purchased was gifted as a "coffee table book" because it was so amazingly artistically beautiful with an amazing message. It tastes like Israel. It tastes like PEACE. "Mumtaz" "KOL TOV". Good job. !!!

What a great book! The recipes are yummy and the pictures are delightful. Fun to read through too! A must for Middle Eastern cooking and in particular Israeli.

This truly is the most amazing cookbook I have ever used. Every recipe I have made from this book has been wonderuful. In addition to the great recipes, the various sections about different foods in Israel is great. Also, this is is one of the most beautiful cookbooks I have ever seen. Although I prefer the cover and binding of the paperback Israeli edition, the inside is the same and is filled with beautful photography.

The photos in the book are beautiful and if I had a coffee table that's where this book would reside. I only wish that there had been more vegetarian recipes.