The Healthy Table: Simple, Delicious Home Cooking - Hardcover

Ratto, Luiz

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060088672 ISBN 13: 9780060088675

Publisher: William Morrow Cookbooks, 2003

Synopsis

For the past decade, Luiz Ratto, one of New York's most sought-after personal chefs, has won rave reviews for serving flavorful, healthy meals at intimate gatherings as well as at large dinner parties for the rich and fabulous. Using ingredients and techniques from his native Brazil, where color and presentation are important to eating enjoyment, Luiz has made both exotic and familiar cuisine simple for everyday cooks and healthy for their captive audiences.

By following his helpful tips and straightforward, uncomplicated recipes, you, too can transport your friends and family with the wonderful flavors of Seared Sea Bass prepared with ginger, gin, and cilantro; Green Grape Salsa; Caldo Verde; and Brown Rice with Cashew Nuts and Cranberries. Dazzle your guests with imaginative variations on tried-and-true favorites like chicken cacciatore, gazpacho, ceviche, pad Thai, and crunchy cole slaw. Luiz's dishes combine an abundance of fruits, vegetables, fresh herbs, and grains, so every delicious bite is packed with vitamins and nutrients.

But even the healthiest eaters enjoy a culinary splurge sometimes, so Luiz also shares with us some of his favorite weekend recipes. These dishes take a little longer to prepare and are less likely to slim your waistline, but they are well worth both the time and the extra calories! Enjoy Ximxim, a sublime stew of chicken, shrimp, grated coconut, lime, and white wine, or Thai Chicken Cups, made with crisp wonton cups and served with a tangy homemade plum sauce. To finish the meal with something sweet, delight your guests with Light Floating Islands accompanied by vanilla sauce, Egg White Flan, or Doce de Abobora, an intensely sweet pumpkin dessert.

Luiz believes firmly that food is more than just a combination of ingredients -- it is a product of inspiration and imagination. Now, with The Healthy Table, you, too can bring a world of color and flavor to your home.

About this title

About the Author:

Luiz Ratto was born in Brazil. He has been cooking professionally for ten years, the last seven of which he has spent as one of the premier personal chefs in New York. He lives in Katonah, New York.

From Publishers Weekly:

In this exceedingly straightforward cookbook, personal chef and Brazil native Ratto asks, "What if I told you that if you slightly change your eating habits you could add many-and healthier-years to your life?" The proposition is so familiar one wonders if Ratto's debut was written for an audience of dietary simpletons, who also need to be instructed to "examine fruits, vegetables, and herbs for freshness" and "check the meats and fish for smell and appearance" (though what sort of smells or appearances should raise red flags is left unsaid). Despite the dumbing-down, however, Ratto's cookbook offers many basic, heart-healthy and appealing dishes, ranging from the down-home (a mildly spicy Black Bean Soup; a hearty Vegetable Stew) to the almost exotic (the simple but flavorful Pistachio-Crusted Sea Bass; the Herbed Oven-Dried Tomatoes, an alternative to sun-dried). Easy enough for the most timid beginner, these recipes rarely require more than three steps, and yield fresh-tasting basics, sometimes, as in the Pudim de Coco (coconut pudding), flavored with Brazilian flair. In short, while this volume offers little in the way of culinary innovation or news for the health-conscious, it does offer some simple ways to cook healthfully and deliciously.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow Cookbooks
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0060088672
• ISBN 13: 9780060088675
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192