Healthy cooking has made a strong comeback over the past years and one steadfast believer in its benefits is cookery author Karmen Tedesco. Well into her umpteenth year of creating ever-inventive recipes around traditional Maltese ingredients and dishes, Mrs Tedesco has recently launched her ninth book in the Ikel Bnin ma’ Karmen Tedesco series.
The great surprise is that, finally, after eight editions, Tedesco has succumbed to the lure of red meats. Although she had fleetingly included meats, mostly white, in just a handful of recipes previously, this ninth edition has its bulk dedicated to a variety of meats - chicken, turkey, rabbit, lamb, pork and beef. The author instructs aspiring cooks on how to select these meats, how to prepare and how to cook them.
The book hones in on specifics. New and seasoned cooks will be pleased to find, in the section dedicated to beef, illustrations and detailed descriptions of all the different cuts of this meat, coupled with expert advice on what is best used for what, what comes cheaper and what recipes can be adopted. True to her firm belief in healthy nutrition, Tedesco proceeds to provide traditional recipes of what could easily be waist-thickening foods, in slim-line versions that allow the meats to be prepared in easy-to-follow detail, cleverly illustrated and explained. The same attention is dedicated to pork. An added bonus are the detailed guidelines on typical cooking times for all meats, thus solving some of the most quizzical problems facing cooks who need to time their dishes and get applauds at the table.
What is also particularly helpful in this edition is the wealth of tried and tested information in relation to the safety of storing meats. Karmen Tedesco describes how one should store meat, when refrigeration is enough and when freezing is indicated. She also advises on the ideal number of days and months one should store meats in order to keep them in optimum condition.
And then comes a firm favourite, the rabbit which Karmen Tedesco cooks in aromatic or spicy sauces, providing in the meantime indications on nutritional values. The volume is complemented with a section dedicated to ricotta, with guidelines on the bottling of fruit, with recipes on fresh and fruity punches – just the thing to end off that summer BBQ. This ninth edition ends off as is the tradition in this series of Tedesco’s cookery books, with a selection of menus but not before proffering a selection of soups, so that would-be soup makers will have plenty of time to practise well ahead of the coming winter.
Id-Disa Volum Ikel Bnin ma’ Karmen Tedesco is on sale at all leading booksellers.