‘I Am a Filipino: And This Is How We Cook’
Although Filipinos constitute one of the largest Asian immigrant populations in America, cuisines like Thai, Japanese and Korean are far better known in this country. A desire to rectify that pushed Nicole Ponseca, a former advertising executive, to open the restaurants Maharlika and Jeepney in Manhattan. And it’s what inspired her to write her first cookbook, “I Am A Filipino” (Artisan, $35), with the chef Miguel Trinidad. “I want people to taste the pungent unctuous, real Filipino flavors,” she writes, which are confidently funky, highly acidic and coyly sweet. The recipes run the gamut from comforting pansits, noodle dishes filled with seafood, vegetables and crunchy pork rinds; to piquant piaparan manok, a haunting turmeric-spiced chicken-wing stew with ginger and chiles; to ginataang tambo, a mildly tangy shrimp and coconut milk dish ready in 15 minutes. MELISSA CLARK
Recipe: Coconut-Stewed Bamboo Shoots With Shrimp (Ginataang Tambo)
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‘Israeli Soul: Easy, Essential, Delicious’
In “Israeli Soul” (Rux Martin, $35), the follow-up to their 2015 cookbook, “Zahav,” Michael Solomonov and Steven Cook take a modern, accessible approach to the country’s specialties. Chapters are grouped thematically: “In the Hand” focuses on favorites like falafel, shawarma and sabich (an eggplant and egg sandwich), while “At the Table” includes salads, soups and stews, and, of course, hummus. Unlike the famed hummus recipe in their earlier book, this version embraces canned chickpeas and is packed with tahini (a whole 16-ounce jar, in fact). It’s packaged with two dozen toppings that can satisfy even the skeptics of serving dips for dinner. A broccoli and pine nut pesto, finished with quickly seared florets that have been spiced with paprika, coriander and Aleppo pepper, is especially delicious. KRYSTEN CHAMBROT
Recipe: 5-Minute Hummus
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‘Joe Beef: Surviving the Apocalypse: Another Cookbook of Sorts’
Will you make lobster pelmeni out of this fine cookbook from Frederic Morin and David McMillan, the merry pranksters behind the Joe Beef restaurant empire in Montreal? Will you make their recipe for soap, or burnt-ends bourguignon, or deep-fried brains over creamed peas? (“Definitely not a weekend dish,” the authors report. You need very fresh brains.) Will you wrap veal kidney in a duxelles of chanterelles, wrap that in caul fat and then cover it in salt crust so that you can make the finished dish look like “a young calf at rest on its flank, ruminating”? Possibly not. But there is an exciting, punk-rock aspirational hippie vibe to every page of their second cookbook, “Joe Beef: Surviving the Apocalypse” (Knopf, $45), written with Meredith Erickson, and the relationship between the authors and their readers is as madcap, loving and strange as ever. So absolutely make their compound butter with barbecue-flavored potato chips and use it on, what, a pan-roasted steak? You could assemble their brilliant crème de soya as well, delicious with snails. Once you’re really into it? Make marrow pilaf, which is a project but so what. It’s perfect with Halifax lobster curry. This sort of cooking is a way of life. SAM SIFTON
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‘Korean Home Cooking: Classic and Modern Recipes’
Korean cooking is long overdue for a “Mastering the Art” moment, and Sohui Kim’s “Korean Home Cooking” (Abrams, $35), written with Rachel Wharton, helps fill that void. Ms. Kim, the chef and an owner of two restaurants in Brooklyn, compares Korean food to the cooking of southern Italy: Both make good use of humble ingredients. She devotes nearly half the book to banchan, the small plates of pickled, fried and stewed bites, familiar to anyone who has ever eaten Korean barbecue. A pantry section, with photos of the packaging you’ll come across at a Korean grocery, is invaluable for novices, and the step-by-step photos show up when you need them. Her classics pass the test: I made kongjang, a banchan of soy-braised black soybeans, for my Korean mother-in-law. She asked for the recipe. SARA BONISTEEL
