Citrus: Recipes that Celebrate the Sour and the Sweet

Phipps (The Pressure Cooker Cookbook), a London-based food writer for the Guardian, offers an exciting tribute to all things citrus in this sweet and tangy collection. Phipps consider citrus to be the most helpful ingredient in the kitchen. Its use is transformative, enhancing the savory qualities of some ingredients and bringing out the sweetness in others. She provides a thorough description of citrus fruits, including vibrant blood oranges, the versatile lemon, the intense limequat, and the increasingly popular yuzu. In addition, she provides guidance on drying, freezing, juicing, and zesting citrus fruits and making citrus oil. Recipes include an array of soups such as lime and chicken tortilla soup; chicken, chard, and giant couscous soup; and orange, melon, and ginger gazpacho. Phipps also includes tantalizing small plates such as preserved lemon hummus and sprouting broccoli with blood orange hollandaise. Fish, a natural companion to citrus, is front and center in the entrée section; highlights are whole baked fish with lemon and ouzo, and salmon fillets with mandarin and ginger. Meat dishes include beef short ribs with lemongrass and lime, and pork stir-fried with grapefruit or pomelo. Phipps’s desserts are spectacular and unusual, including blood orange and cardamom tarte tatin, orange and pistachio cake, and lemon curd slices. Beautiful color photos of nearly every dish enhance this alluring new book, making it an essential addition to every cookbook collection. (Apr.)