Burger Land USA

Americans love their hamburgers. This German import has been  a favorite in homes and in restaurants for well over a century. People love to eat the patties out in restaurants with innovative ideas. Which one has the best? It's not any fast food joints that's for sure.

Regular contributors Trjal Rao and  Priya Krishna compiled a list of the most original and best hamburgers in today's New York Times Wednesday Food section.Some  burgers reflect their surrounding areas such as Austen ,Texas' Camoechana restaurant with their cuantas hamburguesas recipe. This is a beef patty that chef Beto Robledo has added a carne asada sauce along with longaniza (a Mexican lanjager), chmichurri sauce cilantro and  a corn crusted Mexican cheese. For those wanting to try a different type of Asian fusion there's Seattle's Lao burger.It comes from Burger in Seattle and chef Khampeang Panyathong adds ingredients from his native Lao.  The burger is accented by toato jeow, a sweet earthy chili sauce  along with taro stems for lettuce and added pork belly.Brookly, always the birthplace of trendy has the tasty Made in Lagos burger at Akara House in Brooklyn. Chef Funso Akinya doesn't so much as create a meat patty but a bean based fritter, popular in his native Lagos.It's sandwiches between Ed tow plantains and is doused with the peanutty flavored suya dressing.

Chefs of other nationalities have made this simple dish all their own. There is the KRapow and Laab Smash burgers that Los Angelles; Ban Ban Burger . Sisters Katy Noochlar and Amanda Maneessilassan used their Thai roots to come up with a sandwich that has a thick smear of garlic holy basil and birds eye chilis on it while the laab is seasoned with an aromatic paste of lemongrass, makut lime chlis and toasted rice powder. Chef Eileen Andrade puts a fusion spin on hers at Amelia's 1931 in Miami. It reflects her Peruvian and KOrean roots. The patty is a beef and chorizo mix marinated in a blend of sesame oil, chili sauce and gochujang.. It's topped with Gruyere and served with shoe string potatoes. Yes there are American style burgers on the list as well. Abbas Dhananai whose family owns nine hundred Burger King and Wendy's franchises  creates a halal smash burger at Houston's Burger Bodega. Manhattan's own Haburger America has created the perfect smash burger.It a thin, crisp edged burger served on a buttered potato roll. Milwaukee has its' Lucy Goosy made at the Hot Dish pantry .This is a sandwich stuffed with a beef patty and slices of Wisconsin cheddar.Bozeman Montana gives us CHolms single from Cholms Burger a three ounce patty covered in gooey  American cheese on a potato bun it also has smoky bacon ends added to the meat thanks to Chef Cory Taber.

America has its' burgers. These are the places that make the best and the most original. Like America itself the patty is always changing , yet remaining true to itself.

New Cookbooks For A New Season

One of the best aspects about the colder weather coming is that home chefs feel like cooking and baking. The chillier temps also gets us curious and wanting to try all sorts of new recipes. What better way to try new dishes than a new cookbook. There are a slew of them recently published that will definitely expand a home chef's repertoire.

There are thirteen outstanding ones that the New York Times Food section writers recommend. Everyone from Tejal Rao to Melissa Clark and Julia Moskin weighed in. There are so many exciting and  different choices out there.If you're into international cooking then check out Maangchi's Big Book of Korean Cooking : From Everyday Meals To Celebration Cuisine (Rux Marten Publishing) written by Emily Kim, the YouTube cooking star who also goes by Maangchi. Occasional Food contributor, Martha Rose Shulman helped write this salute to Korean cooking with such dishes as tofu stews and dosirak - lunchtime meals for kids.Another stimulating one celebrating overseas cuisine is Sababa: Fresh, Sunny Flavors From My Israeli Kitchen (Avery Publishing) by former New Yorker, Adeena Sussman, an American food writer who moved to Tel Aviv, The cookbook came about thanks to her love of visiting the shuk or outdoor market.Middle Eastern flavors abound here. There are roasted carrots with a tahini and date syrup along with labneh with caramelized pineapple and sumac and baby lamb chops marinated in shug, a mix of green chiles, cardamon and cilantro sauce. Japanese cooking is also big thanks to Ivan Orkin and Chris Ying with their book The Gauin Cooking:Japanese Recipes From A Chef, Father, Eater and Lifelong Outsider (Rux Marten), There is the traditional gyoza dumplings and the not so traditional miso mushroom chili.

American cooking is also big in cookbooks this season. Toni Tipton-Marten's Jubilee: Recipes From Two Centuries of African-American Cooking (Clarkson Potter Publishing) is the follow up to The Jemina Code,an annotated bibliography of African American cookbook. Home chefs will love the recipe for pork chops smothered in caper-lemon sauce. Those who loved the famed San Francisco bakery, Tartine will go mad for Tartine :A Classic Revisited (Chronicle Publishing). Elisabeth Prueitt and Chad Robertson , creators of the baking empire have included a whopping sixty-eight new recipes along with their classic ones like the good morning buns. For those home chefs who love Tex-Mex cooking Ama :A  Modern Tex-Mex Kitchen (Chronicle Publishing) features vegan dishes such as cashew based queso with the flavors of charred onion garlic and  green chile. Chef Josef Centeno, used his recipes popular in his LA restaurants. Novice cooks will love such help books as Nothing Fancy: Unfussy Food For Having People Over  (Clarkson Potter) written by Food's Alison Roman. She offers labne with sizzled scallions along with pep talks.Other cookbooks feature Evan's Funk's American Sfoglino (Chronicle ) along with Diana Henry's From The Oven To The Table:Simple Dishes That Look After Themselves (Mitchell Beazley).Go to the Times Food section to see the entire list.

This is the season to test out  recipes.  Buy one or two of these cookbooks and expand your repertoire. It's a fun time to try new dishes and ingredients.

A Classic Cookbook Returns

 Indian food has always been misrepresented, There's either overly spiced curries or dishes , tinted in strangely bright neon colors. Luckily a classic cookbook ,Sameen Rushdie's Indian Cookery is coming to the States. This British classic shows Indian cuisine in its' true light, flavorful and subtly spiked with various curries and herbs.

Tejal Rao, a famed chef specializing in the cuisine herself, conducted this interview with Ms. Rushdie in yesterday's New York Times Food section.If her last name sounds familiar , it is. Her brother is Salman Rushdie,the amazing award winning writer of the controversial Satanic Verses. His book came out the same year -1988 - as her cookbook. Hers was just as groundbreaking as his. It combined recipes with history and politics.The Rushdie's decision to stay in the mostly Hindu India when fellow Muslims relocated to Islamic Pakistan  is reflected in their diet. They ate meat and Ms. Rushdie often brought it to school in a country where vegetarianism is part of the religion.It was confusing she admitted , and complex. Her tiffin, a compartimentalized lunch box had ,foods influenced by British colonialism. It was half Indian and half English, and it ruined an ancient and delicious cuisine.

It also provided the basic frame of her cookbook. Ms. Rushdie rebelled against those colonial era recipes and set out to write a cookbook that was about real Indian food. As a working mother in 1980's London she was outraged by the myths and cliches surrounding Indian cuisine which was established during colonial rule. She aimed to dismantle the stereotypes that shaped outsiders' perceptions of the Subcontinent.It was a monolith of mouth burning flavors or the stuff of cheap lunchtime buffets. Authentic Indian cuisine wasn;t all greasy, overcooked or tinted in bright colors The perception had to change. Influenced by such cookbook writers as Claudia Roden, Madhur Jaffrey and Elizabeth David, her book took on a clear , matter-of-fact tone  with a precise, unfussy approach. She reclaimed the story of Indian cuisine along with sharing her family's North Indian recipes.. There's one of her father's favorites, slow roasted lamb rubbed first with yogurt called sabut raan, Fragrant spices such as coriander,, cardomon and cinnamon are made into a marinade for the meat. It's served with fried onion, cilantro and lemon slices for a tasty, juicy dinner roast

Sameen Rushdie cookbookd is being reintroduced at the right time. Americans long for authentic recipes . Here they are, simple and ancient recipes with the purity of Indian heritage.