The Wine Lover Cooks with Wine: Great Recipes for the Essential Ingredient

Wine/food lover Goldstein offers yet another excellent collection of wine recipes, this time though emphasizing wine as ingredient, even the likes of mirin, marasala, et al. It is the perfect marinade, braising liquid, deglazer, etc. Wine has thus become the essential ingredient, and this book has the recipes to prove. With each recipe there is wine to drink with selection as well as alternative, many times not the wine ingredient used. Most every recipe has its own wonderful full color photo, sometimes two. There is even delightful side dishes and desserts as well. This is sophisticated, creative and balanced for max flavor: Pork Chops Stuffed with Stilton, Currants and Pistachios with Port Sauce; Monkfish Tagine; Goat Cheese and Roasted Garlic Timbales; Maytag Blue Cheese Polenta Cylinders; Spiced Berry Martinis with Pinot Noir Syrup and Star Anise Ice Cream. Beautiful volume to give or use.

I bought this cookbook a while ago, but postponed its review until I'd made several of the recipes. As you can see from the rating I've given it, The Wine Lover Cooks With Wine is a winner. In his earlier book, the Wine Lover's Cookbook (which I also like a lot), the author's premise was that you had a special bottle of wine and wanted to make a dish that would complement it. This one is similar, in that wine is an inextricable part of the meal. Primarily it's an ingredient, though each recipe also has two what-to-drink recommendations to accompany it, which may not be the same as the wine used in cooking. (For instance, the Asian eggplant salad, which I'm apt to make as "what to take to the Fourth of July BBQ," suggests serving either sake or riesling.) I think the author was stretching his definitions in a few places, because some recipes use only a little wine; that is, don't expect that you'll neccesarily be pouring 2 cups of expensive stuff into your dinner. However, the "about wine" portion of this book isn't the key ingredient, so to speak. It's about cooking, and this is a REALLY nice cookbook. Some of the recipes sound fancy, as though you'd be likely to find them in the kind of white-tablecloth restaurant where the waiters speak in hushed tones and begin by asking, "Would you like sparkling or still water with your meal?" However, most of the recipes are, if not dead easy, simple enough for you to make on a weeknight for the family, and delicious enough for them to say "Wow!" For example, I made "Roasted Pork Tenderloin with Spicy Orange-Port Reduction," served with his recommendation of cinnamon-scented couscous. (But not the wine, which happened to be Zinfandel or Merlot; as it turns out, I've made most of the recipes at lunchtime, when I have to go back to work afterwards. Darnit.) This is essentially a "marinate and then brown the meat, create a pan sauce, and reduce" recipe. You've done that plenty of times, but with less interesting liquids. Best of all, this is an inexpensive cookbook; at least half the recipes have useful and attractive photos, too, which are rather inspiring.

Organized by technique - Sauces, Steaming, Marinating, Braising - Goldstein's ("The Wine Lover's Cookbook) colorful book encourages wine lovers to jump from the glass into the pan with Seared Peppercorn and Spice Crusted Rib-Eye, Portuguese Steamed Clams with Sausage, Asian Eggplant Salad, Grilled Quail in Red Onion Escabeche, Monkfish Tagine and Drunken Chocolate Cake with Port. The classics are here too: Coq au Vin, Onion Soup, Braised Beef short Ribs, Port-Poached Pears, and the blend of modern international dishes and homey classics strikes a charmingly sophisticated note. Each chapter begins with tips on technique and each sparely designed recipe includes suggestions for the accompanying wine. Close-up photos stimulate the palate and offer presentation ideas. An inspiring collection.