Mashed Fava Beans and Mint Crostini

May 3, 2016 39 Comments

The Vegetable Butcher by Cara Mangini is a must-have cookbook for all of us. After playing with it for the past two weeks, I can firmly state that its flavorful recipes pull me into the kitchen and deliver on their promise. But this cookbook is much more than that. It’s a love letter to vegetables, instructing us how to welcome them into our homes, and treat them with the respect they deserve.

Cara opens the book with a flourish of Butchery Basics, focused on knife care, equipment, and various ways of slicing and dicing different shapes of vegetables – and yes, there are lots of photos to guide you. This intro section is intended to be somewhat general, as the meat (so to speak) of the book is an alphabetized abundance of vegetables, packed with oodles of information specific to each vegetable, such as:

Selection and storage tips
Best flavor partners
Butchery essentials with loads of photos with occasional butcher notes
Favorite cooking methods
More than 150 inviting recipes that praise vegetables

The book is very well organized and thorough, with every recipe made accessible to cooks of all levels. As a bonus, along with all the familiar veggies, it includes ones you don’t see used as much, like fava beans and kohlrabi, and some vegetables I haven’t had in years but now I’ve GOT to find, like salsify and cardoons. At least one, corsnes, I’ve never even heard of, and I live in the middle of one of the most varied farm areas in the country. You can be sure I’ll be looking for them at my farmer’s markets now.

A few of the recipes that caught my eye were Carrot Coconut Muffins, Provençal-Style Braised Artichokes with Creamy Parmesan Polenta (this one is fantastic!), and a Tomato Tart Tartin. I’m buying kohlrabi today to make the Kohlrabi Carpaccio with Collard Ribbons, Pears, and Pistachios with a Lime-Balsamic Vinaigrette. Oh my.

And Cara makes it all easy for you to make. She comes to her place in the sun honestly, as the latest in a long line of butchers of the more traditional sort, and sharpened her skills at the Natural Gourmet Institute in NYC. She has taught and cooked from Eataly to Napa, learning tips from top chefs along the way. As a note – for any of you living around (or traveling through) Columbus, Ohio, Cara is the owner/executive chef of the produce-inspired restaurant Little Eater, and Little Eater Produce and Provisions, a local and artisanal foods boutique in Columbus’s North Market. Go read an interview with her on the Sunday Supper Movement website to learn more about how she works with vegetables (and see lovely photos of dishes from the book), and then go visit Cara’s author site, and follow her on Instagram!

All of us at Sunday Supper are so excited about this book, we’re offering a GIVEAWAY on each blogger’s site participating in this campaign with Workman Publishing. Each of 10 of us will award one cookbook to 10 lucky winners. Just in case you’ve decided you want all 10, I totally get it, but please understand we need to spread the love to 10 different veggie lovers. All you need to do is leave a comment telling me your favorite vegetable to work with! It can be from any season – not just spring – but I want to hear from you!! And trust me, you want this cookbook 🙂

If you want to buy a couple more, say for Mother's Day, a birthday coming up, or a hostess gift, just click on the link to purchase them through Amazon (affiliate link)!

UPDATE! — A winner has been selected and notified. Huge congrats to Katie C for winning this truly great cookbook!!!! For the rest of you guys, my apologies – but you can still buy one by clicking on the book image above.

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5 from 6 votes