Globetrotting epicure Hetty McKinnon (Community) offers recipes inspired by her travels and her Brooklyn, N.Y., delivery service in Neighborhood: Hearty Salads and Plant-Based Recipes from Home and Abroad.
She begins with advice: always keep two types of soft herbs in the fridge. Stock the pantry with canned legumes. Leftover salad? Put an egg on it. Blend it into soup. Jazz up a grilled cheese. Make an Iranian frittata.
McKinnon then groups recipes by the regions that inspired them. In "Dear America," she honors the American South with a salad of shredded collard greens, baked sweet potato, pinto beans and paprika buttermilk dressing. In "So Frenchie," a highlight is cumin-spiced cauliflower with fried lentils and spinach yogurt. "This Is Australia" includes a green and gold medley of asparagus and golden beets with faro, crispy sage and lemony brown butter. "To Asia, with Love" provides show-stopping brussels sprouts with stir-fried lotus root, black fungus, five-spice tofu and hoisin-sesame sauce.
Each dish is vegetarian, many also gluten-free and vegan, and McKinnon offers substitution suggestions for hard-to-find produce--e.g., black fungus can be replaced with shitake mushrooms. And in the spirit of community, McKinnon calls on chefs from three continents to contribute desserts based on fresh fruits.
Neighborhood is one of those rare cookbooks with even more photos than recipes. The lush colors and textures shine while McKinnon spotlights flavors of neighborhoods the world over, with simple instructions and dishes bound to please. --Katie Weed, freelance writer and reviewer