In The Kitchen With Anna: New Ways With The Classics
by Anna Olson
Whitecap Books, 2008
Followers of Food Network Canada's programs may easily recognize Chef Anna Olson as the affable pastry wiz from her popular dessert based show, Sugar, or her newest project, Fresh with Anna Olson. Besides being a television host, the owner of Olson Foods & Bakery (17 Lock Street, St. Catharines) and co-owner of Olson Foods at Ravine (1366 York Road, St. Davids), Olson is also a bestselling author.
The fifth instalment to her repertoire, In the Kitchen with Anna, is a collection of new twists on traditional recipes that are presented in a refreshing and down-to-earth manner. Suitable for novice to advanced home cooks, even vegetarians or the pickiest of eaters would be hard pressed to find fault within its 222 pages. The cookbook hosts a gamut of easy to follow recipes for simple to gourmet sounding soups, salad and sandwiches, an attractive assortment of appetizers that could double up as light entrees, comfort-providing fish, poultry and meat courses, and show-stopping vegetables and side dishes. True to Olson's forte, the book also features breakfast items, and an excellent selection of baked goods.
My hunger pangs were most enticed by the clean and well styled photographs of many of the recipes (she has even dedicated two pages as a pictorial guide on how to make the perfect omelette!). The text is clear, where key ingredients are listed in bolded text above the straight-forward directions; its friendly and approachable tone easily motivates the reader to try these classic dishes through one of three perspectives: to master a cooking technique; to challenge the taste buds to a new taste; or to appreciate the significance of a dish through a short anecdotal tale.
After browsing the pages of the cookbook, I decided to make five recipes from the book, choosing them based on general appeal, ease of preparation, and cost. For some, I followed the optional suggestions written neatly in a side column on each page for wannabe home entertainers like myself; for others, I stayed true to the main recipe.
The recipe that Olson insists every reader should make is the dip-inspired artichoke asiago squares (pg. 56). The preparation requires only a quick pulse in a food processor, which I don't have, so I had to resort to batch work with my 10-speed blender. Despite the extra work, the flavourful snacks were incredibly easy to put together! In fact, the lone difficulty with the hors d'oeuvres was whether they should be consumed using fingers or utensils. However, a feasible solution wasn't required as the squares disappeared in no time.
Bistro skate wing with capers and brown butter (pg. 79) was another contender due to its semi-exotic nature, short cooking time, and that it required few ingredients. In fact, the only thing I didn't already have in my pantry was the skate... and neither did the fishmonger. Thankfully, black cod has a dense texture and buttery sweet flavour like skate, and I ended up making a substitution with some frozen steaks that were on sale. I might not have been able to use Olson's tip for evaluating the freshness of the fish, but I was able to employ the cooking tips to successfully make this French bistro classic. Sweet, buttery, aromatic and silky, this dish is a winner for the most time-pressed, or laziest of cooks.
Both the harvest-friendly pappardelle pasta with squash, ricotta and sage (pg. 131), and side dish of sweet potato with onion and pumpkin seeds (pg. 146) required a little preparatory work. I spent most of my time chopping hard vegetables to bite-sized pieces, slicing inch-wide pappardelle noodles from fresh lasagne sheets, and caramelizing onions for 40-minutes, but found the dishes coming quickly together after that. The sweet potatoes and caramelized onions were fantastic - I had to substitute pecans in lieu of hard-to-find-around-Thanksgiving pumpkin seeds, which ended up adding a nice toasted flavour to juxtapose the intense and sticky sweetness of the vegetables. The pasta dish, on the other hand, was lacking depth which was remedied by the addition of a handful of toasted pecans and chopped dried sweetened cranberries. Finally, if it weren't for my own mix up and omission of water in the ricotta-squash mixture (it was only mentioned in the body of the recipe and not in the ingredient list, which I completely missed during my crazy 4-dishes-at-the-same-time cooking session), the sauce may have provided a nicer coat on the wide noodles which I found to be on the dry side.
The best came last with the pumpkin chiffon pie (pg. 187). If Olson excels at any craft, it would be in making dessert. Having the option to serve the pumpkin and spice filling as a pie or mousse (I did both), I found the luxuriously creamy brandy-spiked pumpkin chiffon ethereal, excellent by the spoonful, likened to whipped pumpkin scented ice cream. The sprinkle of toasted pecans gave body and crunch to the mousse, and was also a nice addition to the naked looking pie tops.
My experience from being "in the kitchen with Anna" was that the recipes were very user friendly: they required ingredients that can be bought at the corner store; they are flexible with substitutions; light in work, but strong in tastiness. Furthermore, an entire dinner party menu can be assembled using just one cookbook! I applaud Olson who tries to make these classics work in the modern kitchen where heavy emphasis has been placed on cutting down on time and expense, while increasing nutritional content. She also attempts to inspire the reader to make a personal connection to the food they eat, and with each tasty experience I'm sure more people will be willing to spend more time in the kitchen with Anna.
Renée Suen is a graduate student at the University of Toronto, specializing in cardiovascular sciences. She has an insatiable appetite and can often be found searching for the tastiest and best dishes in the city with her camera. Sometimes she recreates those experiences/experiments at home that can be found at her Flickr site.
