In Comfort Food Without Borders, Volume One: From Appetizers to Pastas, chef Sia Ayrom teaches home cooks how to make many of the international favorites they enjoy at restaurants.
The first of three volumes, it includes chapters on appetizers and hors d'oeuvres; brunch; sandwiches and burgers; soups; salads; and dumplings, noodles, and pastas.
Home cooks learn how to make starters such as mussels Provençal and sesame chicken satay, plus popular brunch dishes like eggs Benedict. Lunch favorites from other countries include the mortadella sandwich and the English pub burger.
In the soup chapter, Ayrom explains how to make the perfect stock before sharing recipes for comfort classics mulligatawny and borscht. Salad recipes cover common menu items such as Niçoise salad.
Home cooks get tips on elevating the dumpling, noodle, and pasta dishes they regularly make at home to restaurant-quality versions in the book's final chapter. Bucatini Bolognese as well as chicken and dumplings are among those detailed.
With each easy-to-follow recipe, Ayrom shares context from his twenty-plus years in the restaurant industry and from his personal life. His final offering, Korean barbeque tofu steak stir fry with flat rice noodles, pulls from the culture of his wife, Kim, the inspiration for this book.
About the Author: Sia Ayrom began cooking at a young age with his grandmother, who created a feast-like lunch for his large family every day. While studying to be a TV journalist at Florida State University, the home cook landed his first professional job in a kitchen.
While in Washington, DC, in pursuit of a journalism career, Jean Louis Palladin hired Ayrom to help reopen Jean Louis at the Watergate Hotel. His time with the master introduced Ayrom to new French cuisine, and subsequent positions with chefs Michel Richard and Michael Gettier allowed him to further expand his expertise in international cuisines, both from front-of-the-house and kitchen positions.
After moving to Houston, Texas, with his wife, Kim, Ayrom suffered a stroke and retired with more than twenty-five years' experience at prestigious restaurants behind him. Kim inspired him to create a series of cookbooks, and Comfort Food Without Borders, Volume One: From Appetizers to Pastas is the first.
