Kindred

By Maria & Eva Konecsny

Published by Pan Macmillan

ISBN 9781761262678

As a foodie, a healthy foodie, who loves, no passionate about cooking and constantly creating new recipes and has bought numerous items at the Gewürzhaus spice shop I was pleased to see this cookbook by the two sisters who own the business.

If you have visited or shopped at the amazingly aromatic spice shop Gewürzhaus in Sydney's Strand Arcade or the Melbourne shops by the same name, you are bound to appreciate the variety of spices they stock. As many at 350 single origin spices.

The sisters Maria and Eva who own the spice shops have written Kindred to share their recipes and several of their age-old family recipes with spices that are the key ingredients for their cooking and flavourful meals. In Kindered, Maria and Eva use and discuss spices that make their cooking special.

Thumbing through the book when I first received it, made me want to go back to their spice shop as I have done many times.

Included are helpful hints with a whole section on "Useful Things", plus chapters with recipes for special events and holidays such as Easter and Christmas, recipes for main dishes, cakes and even breakfasts. Plus their recipes for making fermented food such as sauerkraut.

The chapter on How we Spice is interesting for cooks and aspiring cooks who want to know how to give every day food a lift, to make it more interesting at home without having to go out to eat. You will find useful guidelines for buying spices, how to retain their freshness and how often to replace them. What happens to those older spices that most of us have in the pantry and why not to use them.

How to store spices and at what temperatures, what can go into the fridge and what shouldn't. Which spices blend well together and ideas to try. Using herbs, dried vs fresh and even several paragraphs on salt. Most of us know there are various types of salt, I favour pink Himalayan crystals, but they are sea salt flakes, flavoured salts and more in this explanation and reasons for using different salts.

The comprehensive, easy to use charts for mixing and matching spices with a variety of vegetables, legumes, meat, game, different types of fish, seafood, plus grains, fruit and dairy makes interesting and helpful reading. These charts can be used at glance when preparing a meal. The guide for herbs and spices and how much to use is helpful.

Turning to the recipes for bread, semolina dumplings with a family recipe for a 24 hour soup, the hearty bean soup, tray bakes, stews, roasts, recipes for mushrooms, salads, chocolate bread, biscuits, chutney, roast duck - a favourite of mine, mulled wine, schnapps and liqueur, all look and read mouthwateringly good.

If you enjoy good hearty, comfort food you will find quite a few in Kindered, but there are many recipes with red meat, pork and potatoes used, which are ingredients I do not eat and eliminated years ago for enjoying better health. However, there are several other recipes to make and enjoy.

Kindred's large format with close to 300 pages are beautifully presented with easy to follow pages, useful information and handy conversion charts would make a good gift.

This is independent review, I am not paid by the publishers, so.If you Liked this review, Buy me a coffee