A Twist of the Wrist: Quick Flavorful Meals with Ingredients from Jars, Cans, Bags, and Boxes: A Cookbook

by Nancy Silverton, Carolynn Carreño

Discover quick, easy, and flavorful recipes that can be made with pantry ingredients you have on hand, from the brilliant mind of Nancy Silverton—star of Netflix’s  Chef’s Table  and the only person ever to win James Beard awards for both outstanding chef  and  outstanding pastry chef.
 
As one of America’s top chefs, Nancy Silverton’s restaurant dishes are legendary, innovative, and delicious. In  A Twist of the Wrist , she shares 137 quick and delicious gourmet recipes for home cooks—perfect alternatives to takeout or frozen food. Using her favorite pantry products that come in jars—and cans, bags, and boxes—Nancy has created easy-to-follow recipes that require less than thirty minutes to prepare. 

From salads to pasta to meats and desserts, here are new sure-to-be-favorites such as Cumin Shrimp and Chickpea Salad with Roasted Carrots; Orzo with Dried Porcini Mushrooms, Radicchio, and Aged Balsamic Vinegar; Boneless Pork Chops, with Creamy Polenta and Fennel Pollen; and Warm Brandied Prunes with Vanilla Ice Cream and Butter Wafer Cookies. In addition to Nancy’s own creations, she includes recipes concocted with prepared ingredients from other luminaries of the culinary world, including Gabrielle Hamilton, Tom Colicchio, Ruth Reichl, and Suzanne Goin.
 
A charming and utterly indispensable cookbook for any type of cook—whether you’re an on-the-go gourmand or you just love flavorful, accessible weeknight meals— A Twist of the Wrist  fits is the perfect book for cooking at home.

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Nonfiction, Food

272 pages, Hardcover

First published March 27, 2007

Reviews

[Liquidlasagna]

The recipes are highly interesting, but it's haute cuisine to many where you're just not doing everything from scratch

currant and pine nut relish
mustard dressing with almonds
caper stuffed crostini with soft-scrambled egg and black olive anchovy tapenade
caramelized asparagus

Chasen's Chili [the fave of Liz Taylor in the 1960s that she had shipped to the Cleopatra set]
cumin shrimp and garbanzo bean salad with roasted carrots
peppered skirt steak with spicy tomato-curry garbanzo beans and tangy greek yoghurt sauce
seared chicken breasts with asparagus, garlic mayonnaise and green olive sauce

key lime custards with creme fraiche and whole wheat crackers [crackers and custard?]
shrimp and jalepeno frittata with avocado and cilantro
bacon and cheddar with salted European-style butter, smoked sardines and peppercress [odd!]
bacon onion and gruyere frittata

spaghettini with tuna and V8 sauce [too weird!]
Strawberry Ice Cream Pie with Cinnamon-Black Pepper-Strawberry Sauce and Strawberry Sherbert
pulled barbeque chicken
Tarragon Chicken Salad with Avocado and Bacon over Arugala

blackberry yoghurt soup
sicilian-style swordfish with Tomato Sauce and Fresh Mint
pork chops with lamb puree
caper-raisin vinegrette

lots of strange stuff!

---

i'd say if you have Silverton's other books, and you love them, and you aren't scared off
then this book isn't going to intimidate you

it's more jacques pepin than campbell's soup casseroles

[Kelley]

I'm down with the idea of trying to combine pantry items with fresh items, however, it's rather gourmet and as much as I'd like to admit I'm gourmet, it's a little over the top, even for me. Lots of capers, anchovies, eggplant paste. I guess, those 3 flavors especially, I'm not on board with. But I'm determined to mark at least a few and whip 'em up.

[Susan]

i checked this book out from the library instead of buying it. i felt like it was a bit condescending as if we all were heathens who couldn't/wouldn't cook the right way, but she felt challenged to give us recipes that she wouldn't eat herself that all came from a can or jar. why couldn't it be a collection of recipes that she actually uses that were easy and fast? i guess because she doesn't eat that way? then what/how does she eat? i'm more curious about that. to be fair, the recipes from other people seemed like it was actually recipes that they actually used daily.

[Elizabeth Neal]

Not nearly slapdash enough to make it worthwhile -- these recipes run perilously close to actual cooking for my tastes -- but it did include a few useful ideas. One was to use a microplane grater when you need crushed garlic. It's a lot easier to clean than a garlic crusher (although you pretty much have to give up on the final nub that you're holding onto, unless there's some trick I haven't figured out) and the results are less fibrous.

Anyway, thanks for that.

[Sally]

I read a review of this book and thought it would make a nice addition to my collection. The premise is to create flavorful recipes using on-hand items in your pantry. So far so good, however, I don't keep farro, fennel pollen, passato, chestnut honey, ghee, ventresca, etc. as staples in my Mother Hubbard Cupboard.

[Emily]

Way too many anchovy fillets for my taste. I don't even know where to get those in my town. It may be one of those quick ingredients from a jar mentioned in the subtitle but it's not one I would use--particularly not in that many recipes. Many of the other ingredients throughout are similarly difficult to locate. Not one I'll keep.

[Catherine Woodman]

who can find these ingredients in Iowa--it is for people who have money and access to ingredients

[Beka]

Though I liked her idea of upscale food that utilizes pantry ingredients, none of this stood out to me. And the book really needs MANY more pictures to capture attention.

[C]

I wish this had more photos but I liked the sources in the back.

[Jenn]

Although the recipes promised to be easy and accessible, they were sadly pretentious and not particularly family friendly.

[Andee]

Beautiful book and the food sounds amazing. The only thing is, I’ll never make any of it. I’d rather just go to a restaurant and order it.