In her book, Nosh, Micah Siva, present over 80 plant forward recipes that combine traditional Jewish cuisine with a modern, healthy approach to cooking. She draws from many sources and provides guidance and suggestions for meatless meals that can be served everyday or on days significant to the Jewish tradition. Blending history and personal stories with recipes, she shows that food is more than just sustenance; it is a way of connecting with other people.
Drawing from Sephardic, Mizrahi, and Ashkenazi cuisines, the recipes are varied, and are grouped into seven categories: breakfast and brunch, soups, salads spreads & sides, mains, baking and desserts, cocktails and beverages, and essentials. Each recipe includes an introduction relating the food to Jewish heritage and the author’s own life, serving size, preparation time, list of ingredients, step by step instructions and a full page photography of the finished dish. In addition, numerous cooking tips are given such as substitutions and variations, and icons are used to indicate dietary considerations such as vegan and Passover friendly. Siva creates innovative recipes for falafel, hummus, and baba ghanoush, and reimages classic Jewish dishes like lox and chicken soup. Try her heart of palm “whitefish” salad for a Yom Kippur breakfast , or her savory pulled mushroom and tofu brisket for Rosh Hashanah. Serve Siva’s vegan gefilte cakes for passover seder or her red wine-braised beets with creamy mamaliga for an autumn shabbat dinner. Every dish is meatless, tasty and rich in tradition.
Other parts of the book make the transition to plant forward Jewish cooking easier. Especially helpful are general directions for substituting ingredients to make recipes vegan, a shabbit matrix for meal planning, menu suggestions for everyday as well as holidays, and a Jewish food glossary. Siva has thought of everything!
With her warm, personable, informative style of writing, Siva makes Jewish cooking fun as well as exciting. Her many anecdotes throughout the book takes the reader on a culinary journey as she remembers her Jewish heritage, family traditions, and beloved grandmother. The intimate style makes the subject more relatable and plant based cooking more approachable for both the novice and the expert.
To buy Nosh from Amazon.com, click here.