An Edible Mosaic by Faith Gorsky

My rating: 4 of 5 spoons
gggg

Though a long time fan of ethnic cuisine, my education in Middle Eastern fare has been sketchy at best, so I was delighted to get a chance to cook from and review this cookbook. The cover photo alone made my mouth water and made me want to dive in! I was somewhat surprised that the cover photo was of chicken kebabs--not something you'd necessarily expect from a book like this. I would have expected beef or lamb, but not chicken! My girls thought it looked amazing, so I thought I'd make some for supper--until it came to the spices. I don't have a Middle Eastern store handy, so I headed to the front of the book to make the Chicken Spice Mix myself. I ended up sitting there laughing as I would have to make 5 different batches of spice mix to finally get the Chicken Spice Mix!! While the spices weren't necessarily hard to find, they aren't necessarily spices I have right at hand, either. Therefore, the Chicken Kebabs still sit on my "to make" list, and we moved on.
Meat Sautéed with Leeks (Bellasia) gets a definite thumbs up as does the Zucchini Fritters, and Sesame Seed Breads. The Spiced Shawarma Chicken Wraps have gone the way of the Chicken Kebabs for now as I haven't been able to find the fenugreek yet, and I'm not willing to purchase online and probably pay more for shipping than the spice itself. However, it is definitely on my "to make" list as well.


Overall, this is a great book. I did lower the rating a bit as there are definitely some harder-to-find ingredients that make cooking some of the recipes a bit of a challenge. However, I do highly recommend this book.


I received a copy of "An Edible Mosaic" from Tuttle Publishing for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.