The New Alaska Cookbook, 2nd Edition

Book excerpt: Out-of-this-world ingredients (consider the King crab and the salmon from the Copper River) combined with creative chefs makes for adventurous and sophisticated eating. This much-lauded cookbook profiles a dozen Alaska chefs who are developing and perfecting the tastes and flavors of the Last Frontier. Whether they are located in downtown hotel restaurants or remote lodges or far-flung towns, these chefs are finding wonderful local ingredients and either inventing new dishes or re-interpreting classics. The traditional Alaskan Seafood Chowder is a hearty and malleable recipe that takes advantage of the fact that Alaskan kitchens usually have a good supply on hand of various kinds of fin- and shellfish. Naturally, the book offers up a good half-dozen other fish recipes as well. The Wild Mushroom Tart reflects the bounty of the many forests&—and fortunately excellent foraged mushrooms are showing up at farmers markets in the lower-48. Alaska is famous for its long summer days that produce bumper crops and outsized vegetables. Cream of Alaskan Summer Squash and Fresh Sweet Basil Soup is a terrific solution to too many zucchinis (an issue for many home farmers). Roast Cornish Hen with King Prawn is a perfect and unexpected marriage of fish and fowl&—a combination that perhaps could only have been invented in Alaska. With over 120 recipes, this second edition of The New Alaska Cookbook reveals that the culinary world up north has continued to evolve in many new and delicious directions