Pistachio Milk with Clove and Rosewater : A Book Review

Have you guys planned anything for the weekend, we haven’t decided on anything yet. Going out in sun will be harder as temperature going to be 100 F/37.8C. I get bad headache when I am outside in the sun. Only good thing about this hot sun is getting lot of stuff sundried. So we may stay indoors or do shopping in mall. When coming to cooling off, I made this delicious Pistachio milk. So delicious that it is going to in the menu of my kitchen for long time.
This Pistachio milk with clove and rosewater is from the book Street Vegan: Recipes and Dispatches From The Cinnamon Snail Food Truck by Adam Sobel.

I cook vegan recipes every other time, so when I got a chance to review the book I got excited. Author runs food truck called Cinnamon Snail in New York. They ranked #1 place to eat in New York and #4 in the entire US on Yelp for 2014 and have a plethora of other awards. Adam Sobel is a culinary genius, and I do not say this lightly.

In this the author starts off with 6 pages of introduction, then there is list of vegan pantry items includes non-meat proteins, alternative milk and cheeses and flours etc. about another 6 pages. Then comes b breakfast recipes which includes, blue corn pancakes, fresh fig pancakes. I would love to try Bourbon hazelnut pancakes and Almond milk French toast from the list. Second chapter is beverages, which has 19 recipes; I tried the Pistachio Milk recipe. And I do look forward to trying rest of the recipes especially the Hot Ragi recipe.
Third chapter is about appetizers, New-England style chickpea”crab “ cakes sounds interesting, along with Pan-Fried Kimchi Dumplings, Rosemary White bean Croquettes are few. Fourth chapter is about soups, there are 12 recipes including French lentil soup with capers and fried pine nuts, Thai coconut curry soup, Ginger Laphing , creamy roasted almond cauliflower soup , red wine minestrone with Swiss chard and pearl onions are few.
In the fifth chapter about sandwiches, I found Oyster Mushroom Bao buns, Gochujang Burgar Deluxe are very interesting. Sixth chapter is about cinnamains, author says he tried to make gourmet style food during beginning of his food truck, however it turned out to be not profitable for him. So he advice that these recipes (such as Raw pizza, Galangal pea pancakes with basial seitan and fried kaffir lime) can be made at home, as it takes great lot efforts and is not ideal for a food truck

Seventh chapter about veggies and sides, like Lemon garlic swiss chard, Maple roasted Kabocha, Horseradish mash potatoes etc. Dessert recipes are on the Eighth Chapter. Macadamia-white chocolate twinkies, Live pumpkinish pie, Jalapeno raw brownies, Rum pumpkin chiffon pie are few of them.
Ninth chapter is about Donuts, Chocoalte cake Donuts, Donut Shop style fritters, Vanilla-bourbon crème brulee donuts are few. Last chapter is the Saucy stuff include how to make syrup, butter, mayonnaise, salsa verde, tapenade, salsa, glaze etc.
My view on this book it has lot of recipes which you can make at home with ingredients in the pantry, however for making almost 50% of the recipes you need special ingredients, which you need to run to whole foods or Asian markets. Then for some recipes you need to work lot of steps end results will be good but working lot of steps for the recipe is not always practical.
If you are strict vegan/ occasional vegan or not a vegan but want to try delicious food at home, then this is the book for you. Buy it you will love it,

I have tried Pistachio milk with clove and rose water from this book. For that you need fresh pistachio, I bought the one with shells, then shelled at home. Soak and add extra good flavor boosting ingredients and sweetener and then enjoy. It is really easy if you buy pre-shelled ones. When told hubby about pistachio milk, he thought the one we get in India, milk with pistachio. I told him this one is without milk. While I taking my first sip I was like this Yes it is delicious, enough sweet and aromatic flavor from rosewater and cardamom. Give it try you will like it.

“I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.”

Swathi

This is Swathi ( Ambujom Saraswathy) from Zesty South Indian Kitchen who loves to explore cuisines from all over the world. Whenever possible I try to to give an Indian touch to several of the world cuisine, and has weakness for freshly baked bread.  All the recipes you see here are created by me and approved after taste-test by my family.