Gizzi Erskine is a cookbook author you may not have encountered. I only discovered this exciting culinary guru last fall when I got a preview copy of Gizzi’s Seasons Eatings, a book offering dishes for the fall and winter holidays. You must try her Gingerbread Latte Cake!
Gizzi now has five cookbooks in her portfolio and this one, from 2010, was her very first. It’s a grand book and clearly showed she would have starlight trajectory.
How grand? Well, Suzi and I used this book for the entire Superbowl weekend. On Saturday, as we worried the Patriots would win again [what did we know], we indulged in comfort food: Coq au Vin with Herby Dumplings. On Sunday, our optimism was up so we did her Sticky Barbeque Chicken Wings with Blue Cheese Dressing and Celery. Dessert was Victoria Sponge Cake with Gizzi’s fabulous idea for flavor transformation: out went the whipped cream and strawberry jam, and in came was expresso powder and pecans. Just indulgent with a mascarpone frosting.
It was a meal to remember, just like the actual Superbowl! Over the coming week, I’ll post all three recipes, ones we will make over and over. And, for her cooking school Cooking by the Book, Suzi is looking at several more of the recipes:
Crispy Skin Salmon with Wasabi Soba Noodles
Lamb Chops with Green Peppercorn Sauce
Milk Roasted Pork Loin with Cinnamon, Orange, and Lay
Sticky Thai Chicken and Mango Salad
Peach, Raspberry and Almond Slump
Gizzi is eclectic and the ideas here come from Britain, the US [that slump] and around the world. The dishes are well balanced in flavor elements but not subtle. This is full-frontal food.
The ingredient lists are necessarily a tad long, because Gizzi is an advocate of layering flavor, colors, and textures. Her ideas work. She’s British so how the devil could she write a good chicken wings recipe and, and, have the audacity to label it “sticky.” Well, sticky it surely is and wonderfully so. The wings and blue cheese were a totally satisfying meal. Yes, I had to use paper towel to pick up my beer and, yes, I still had to wash the bottle during a third-quarter commercial.
Gizzi’s talent is much more than simply creating recipes. Her recipe titles are long, really long. You get the whole concept in that title phrase, like Roasted Pork Belly with Black Vinegar and Asian Greens. There’s no “mystery” here, although you might not be sure quite how it will taste. You surely want to experiment.
What next to try? Well, there is this Chocolate Brownie Ice Cream using her fabulous Black‑and‑White Marbled Brownies. Or the Parma Ham and Sage-Wrapped Veal with Tomato Spaghetti. I can’t decide. But, then you don’t have to with this book. Just make everything and make a meal of Gizzi’s kitchen magic. Really. Magic.