BUBBY'S BRUNCH COOKBOOK
BY RON SILVER & ROSEMARY BLACK
Review by Barb & Ron Kroll
Bubby's Brunch Cookbook
(Ballantine Books) ISBN 978-0345511638 0345511638
Ron Silver provides brunch recipes from Bubby's New York City restaurant in response to recipe requests from diners. Created for easy home cooking, the 200 delicious comfort food recipes are suitable for everyday family meals and brunch buffets for company.
Homemade pastrami recipe
This 309-page brunch cookbook makes it easy for home cooks to plan, cook and serve brunch dishes for small and large groups.
Each chapter of Bubby's Brunch Cookbook begins with an index of recipes. Ron Silver introduces each chapter and recipe. In the Brunch Meats and Fish chapter, for example, he explains how to smoke and cure meat and fish at home to reduce costs, eliminate preservatives and customize the results.
In the homemade pastrami recipe, he advises cooks to use a slow-cooking BBQ smoker and apple wood or cherry wood to bring out the meat flavor. He also explains that homemade pastrami has a shelf life of only five or six days, compared to store-bought pastrami, which you can store longer, because it contains preservatives.
How to pick the right coffee grind
Sidebars add information on brunch ingredients, like bacon, eggs, fresh juices and coffee. In the Coffee 101 section, Ron Silver explains how to pick the right grind for your coffee machine. If the grind is too large, water flows through too quickly, resulting in weak coffee. If the coffee grind is too fine, the filter may clog, creating muddy coffee. He recommends a coarse grind for coffee makers with flat-bottom filter baskets, a slightly less coarse grind for French press coffee makers and slightly finer grinds for cone-shaped filters.
In the center of Bubby's Brunch Cookbook, 14 full-page color images depict delicious baked goods, lobster pecorino frittata, huevos rancheros and other dishes from Bubby's menu. Photo captions identify the pages with the recipes.
Brunch menus
A Bubby's Signature Dish icon denotes favorite brunch recipes, like roasted pear and goat cheese omelet, pork belly cured in maple syrup, blackberry compote and raisin challah bread.
A list of brunch menus suggests recipe combinations for special occasion brunches, including New Year's Day brunch, Easter brunch, Mother's Day brunch, Father's Day brunch, family reunion brunch, Christmas Day brunch and even a vegetarian brunch.
Ron Silver gives home cooks answers to common questions about brunch food, such as: 'How many dishes should I serve for brunch?' and 'What brunch dishes are best for a crowd?'
An entire chapter is devoted to brunch drinks. Recipes include non-alcoholic drinks, like watermelon lemonade, alcoholic brunch drinks, such as pink grapefruit and Champagne cocktail, and hot drinks, like warm eggnog and hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps.
Sample brunch recipes
Orange chocolate chip muffins. Zucchini bread with zucchini flowers. Asparagus and white cheddar omelet. Spinach and brie omelet. Caramelized onion and red pepper torta. Sausage and mushroom casserole. Orange ricotta pancakes. Sourdough pancakes. Pecan waffles. Mom's blintzes. Open-faced grilled chicken, Maytag blue cheese and toasted pecan sandwich. Homemade corned beef. Venison sausages. Smoked salmon and goat cheese roses. Maple butter. Port syrup.
Contents
- Introduction
- Menus for Special Occasions
- How to Plan and Pull Off the Perfect Brunch
- Baked Treats: Quick Breads, Muffins, Scones and More
- Eggs of All Kinds
- From the Griddle
- Sandwiches and Salads
- The Meat of the Matter: Brunch Meats and Fish
- Starters and Sides
- Juices, Cocktails and Other Libations
- Toppings and Sauces
- Index
Authors
Ron Silver is the chef and owner of Bubby's in New York City (Tribeca and Dumbo, Brooklyn), with branches of Bubby's in Oradell, New Jersey and Yokohama, Japan. He is also the author of Bubby's Homemade Pies.
Rosemary Black is the food editor at the New York Daily News and the author of several cookbooks.