Mostly I wear my cookbook-editor hat anonymously. A well-edited cookbook is seamless, and looks like it just popped itself between the covers of the book. That’s what I aim for — smooth and invisible.
This winter I edited a cookbook that was so thrilling, so different, that I want to come out from behind the pages. Flavors of My World: A Culinary Tour Through 25 Countries by Maneet Chauhan has some of the most innovative recipes and exciting flavor combinations I’ve come across in 25 years of food writing.
I’m talking about ropa vieja made with seasonings used for rogan josh. Fish and chips flavored like masala aloo. Doro wat with Mangaloran spices.
In Nashville, Chauhan is getting attention because of her announcement that she's planning to open her first restaurant here: a gastropub with Indian-inspired cuisine, called Chauhan Ale & Masala House. (She's partnering with local restaurateurs Moni Advani, London Parfitt and Austin Ratliff, who co-own Anthem and Revelry in the Gulch. The new restaurant's site isn't determined yet, but it's expected to open by the end of the year.)
Nationally, Chauhan was probably best known as one of the judges on the Food Network show Chopped. Before that, she was executive chef at Vermilion in Chicago and New York for eight years, serving Latin-Indian fusion food that won loads of recognition and awards.
The cookbook is based on that fusion ethic, blending Indian flavor profiles with already interesting “ethnic” foods like spanokopita, risotto, soda bread, Spanish omelets and goulash. I was so bowled over that I kept an electronic copy of the edited document, with its original title, Indie Culinaire.
