In a world where we are lucky enough to have new kosher cookbooks popping up with delightful frequency, we are faced with an unusual challenge: making room on our shelves for these wonderful volumes, crammed with enticing pictures and recipes that practically jump off the page. The debut of ArtScroll’s latest cookbook, Daniella Silver’s The Silver Platter, should have you figuring out how to make another inch or two of space on that shelf because this is one cookbook you just don’t want to miss.
Subtitled “Simple to Spectacular”, The Silver Platter is Silver’s debut into the ever expanding world of kosher cookbooks and she is joined in this endeavor by Norene Gilletz, a well-known voice in the culinary world – food consultant, owner of the Gourmania food website, author of eight cookbooks and a contributor to Canadian Jewish News. Silver, a mother of three little girls comes from an artistic family and channels her creativity by using food as her palette; there are over 160 beautiful and tantalizing recipes.
Some of Silver’s culinary versatility was nurtured by necessity as two of her children have serious food allergies. Having to tweak her favorite recipes to accommodate those allergies forced Silver to think outside the box, leading her in new directions and giving her a greater appreciation for the nutritional components of different ingredients. Many of the recipes in The Silver Platter are either gluten-free or offer a gluten-free option, making it a wonderful resource both for Pesach and for those who are on gluten-free diets. Silver strikes gold with an appendix that lists nutritional facts for every recipe in the book, a real boon for those who are counting calories, carbs or otherwise analyzing the content of their food. And in a nod to busy moms (and dads!), recipes indicate if they can be prepared ahead of time and frozen. Like the most popular girl in your class who has stunning hair, aces all her tests and never seems to gain an ounce, The Silver Platter has it all: drop dead gorgeous photography, oodles of useful tips and, most importantly, incredible recipes that you will find yourself making again and again.
In what must have been a real challenge for the layout team, The Silver Platter begins with a two-page table of contents that clearly and concisely lists every recipe in the book, making it easy to find the recipe you are looking for at a glance, a particularly useful feature for those of us who have large cookbook collections and often find ourselves staring at the bookshelf wondering which book holds the particular recipe we had been hoping to make for dinner that night. Upping the fun factor here is a short intro by Silver at the top of each page and helpful tips from Gilletz at the end of each recipe.
And the recipes themselves? Wow, wow, wow, are you going to get hungry turning the pages here. With a full assortment of appetizers, soups, salads, fish, poultry, meat, dairy, grains, vegetables and two chapters dedicated to dessert, the best part of any meal, The Silver Platter may just turn out to be your new best friend. While the offerings here are very contemporary (think kale, edamame and quinoa), Silver recognizes that a good old-fashioned potatonik never goes out of style. Old favorites are updated to reflect today’s healthier eating habits and Silver’s picture-perfect vegetable egg rolls are baked, not fried. A two-page spread offers four different oven-baked snacks that are a far cry from fat-laden chips: spicy chickpeas with a kick of cayenne, garlic roasted lentils, roasted edamame and roasted corn niblets are all drizzled with olive oil before being spiced and baked at 400°, transforming those formerly humble ingredients into addictive protein-rich snacks that are both good and good for you. Of course, The Silver Platter doesn’t assume we all live on diets of tofu, whole grains and avoid sugar at all costs. Check out crunchy corned beef strips, brushed with ketchup, honey and soy sauce, and then baked to crispy perfection. While the recipe says it will keep for four to five days in a refrigerated, covered container, we all know that these fabulously crunchy deli strips are going to be completely demolished in a matter of hours, not days.