An NPR Best Book of the Year from New York Times Cooking contributor Colu Henry, Colu Cooks: Easy Fancy Food is a collection of sophisticated recipes for everyday dinners.
Colu Henry has been working in food for more than 15 years, and from her time at publications from Bon Appétit to the New York Times, she’s learned that what resonates with her readers is her always unfussy and empowering recipes. In this cookbook—a nod to home cooks who are happy to do everything but pastry—Henry helps readers assemble an amply stocked new-American pantry so that they can perfect (and build upon) classic everyday meals.
With 100 recipes and photographs, Henry offers ideas and solutions to get you out of your weeknight routine, explore new ingredients and techniques, build your confidence, and have a sophisticated meal on the table in around 45 minutes. These dishes include:
- Lemon Anchovy Toast with Radishes and Herbs
- Cherry Tomato Confit
- A Summer Corn Salad with Shrimp
- Crispy Lamb with Cumin, Leeks, and Celery
- Creamy Risotto with Crispy Wild Mushrooms
- Nutella Fudgsicles
- Peach Tart with Five Spice Honey
- and so many more!
“Colu makes food I want to eat. Like, all of it: the smoked trout with capers and pickles, the green beans with harissa butter, the broccoli rabe toast with gooey provolone. These are recipes that remind me that sophisticated doesn’t need to be complicated.”—Food 52, Emma Laperruque
Praise
“Easy and fancy don’t often end up in the same sentence—after all, if something is easy, can it be fancy? And if something is fancy, can it be easy?—but Colu Henry put them both in the title of her beautiful new book. A New York Times contributor and cookbook author (of the also-wonderfully-titled Back Pocket Pasta), Colu makes food I want to eat. Like, all of it: the smoked trout with capers and pickles, the green beans with harissa butter, the broccoli rabe toast with gooey provolone. These are recipes that remind me that sophisticated doesn’t need to be complicated.”Food 52, Emma Laperruque
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“This beautiful, stunning book is so core and magically unpretentious while still being uppermost crust. The font, the whole design; it’s so timeless--of the moment and yet historical. I cannot wait to make everything in this stylish book.”#1 New York Times–bestselling and award-winning author of Three Women and Animal and the forthcoming, Lisa Taddeo
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“Henry’s book delivers taste and panache with achievable results, whether entertaining friends or experimenting with the contents of one’s pantry. Perfect for her fans and for libraries looking to add some hipster style to their cookbook collection.”Library Journal
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“Henry (Back Pocket Pasta), a recipe contributor to the New York Times and Food and Wine, delivers her sophomore cookbook, which she conceptualized during COVID self-isolation while playing in her pantry and dreaming of future dinner parties. The book focuses on entertaining and includes recipes (desserts in particular) contributed by Henry’s friends. Infused by Henry’s Brooklyn roots and her present life in New York’s Hudson Valley, the recipes are uncomplicated, simple to execute, and original, and create complex flavors using ingredients that are widely found in US grocery stores. The dishes are unique and designed to impress, while Henry’s tone encourages experimentation. Turn to the chapter ‘For Embellishment’ for recipes for oils, salsas, tapenades, and other building blocks to employ in Henry’s creations, plus guidelines for inventing your own condiments and flavor bases. The highly stylized photography is inspired by 1970s issues of Gourmet magazine, minus the aspic.”Library Journal
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“If you’re like me, you’ve been yearning to have friends gather once again for dinner. But as we bring loved ones back to our tables, it can be hard to know what to make. Luckily, Colu Henry’s cookbook is warm and inviting and will inspire the well-seasoned cook (try the Crispy Fish with Quick Tomatillo and Jalapeño Confit) and also the neophyte in the kitchen (check out her viral hit My Cec). The recipes are full of fresh herbs and staples from the pantry; they’re simple yet elegant and delicious and perfect for lingering over a meal.”Senior Director & Executive Producer, NPR Events & Experiential Programming, Jessica Goldstein
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“Back Pocket Pasta seemed designed to relax the reader, to show them that with the right staples and a few lessons in how to read the kitchen, dinner can be unintimidating. It’s a trick she repeats to grand effect in her new cookbook, Colu Cooks: Easy Fancy Food. Henry’s creative spirit and wholesome glamour come through in these new recipes, which play up the simple sophistication she brings to cooking. Henry’s dishes are modern and refined, but they draw on a legacy of comfort cooking and laid-back entertaining. That, along with the charming, approachable prose in this book, makes readers feel like they’ve snagged a coveted invite to a dinner party (casual, of course) at Colu’s.”Departures, Nina Renata Aron
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