What do you think?
Rate this book
Cured: Cooking with Ferments, Pickles, Preserves & More
Boost the flavor of any meal with this definitive guide on cooking with pickles, jams, preserves, sauces, and more—whether you make them from scratch or use store-bought ingredients—featuring 150+ recipes for everything from quick weeknight meals to Sunday suppers.
The secret to six-time James Beard Award finalist Steve McHugh's success comes down to one curing. To cure something is to transform it, allowing it to emerge as something new. Steve himself was transformed after battling lymphoma when he was just thirty-three; he came through that experience wanting to prolong moments of joy in everyday life. That philosophy extends to how he approaches food and cooking, sourcing the best ingredients when they are at their peak and then curing them to enjoy later. He intensifies their flavors, changing them into charcuterie, pickles, mustards, and more, making his seasonal favorites available year-round. And with Cured , you can have access to this arsenal of flavor as well, whether it's making your own preserves from scratch or using store-bought ingredients in your daily cooking.
An invaluable guide, Cured explains both how to easily preserve foods and why you should embrace this popular technique in your own home. Whether a beginner or seasoned preserver, you'll discover how to make preserved lemons, then use them in a bright, beautiful bowl of Israeli Couscous with Preserved Lemon, Bacon, and Greens . Learn to use sugar as your curing method to make Cherry Orange Marmalade , then use it later in the week to make yourself a Mix-and-Match Jam Cocktail . Or maybe make some Smoked Nuts to use in the Smoked Nut Chocolate Tart . The possibilities are truly endless.
Steve leads you through how to make preserves, and also gives you recipes for when you bought a jar or bottle at the market that you can't decide how to use. Filled with bright and colorful photography, Cured will make you want to experiment with whatever fresh produce you have on hand. Whether you dabble in making your own preserves from scratch or want to learn how to use what you already have at home, these 150+ recipes will become hundreds and thousands as you start to mix and match the ingredients with your own favorites, prolonging the joy in your everyday life and meals.
The secret to six-time James Beard Award finalist Steve McHugh's success comes down to one curing. To cure something is to transform it, allowing it to emerge as something new. Steve himself was transformed after battling lymphoma when he was just thirty-three; he came through that experience wanting to prolong moments of joy in everyday life. That philosophy extends to how he approaches food and cooking, sourcing the best ingredients when they are at their peak and then curing them to enjoy later. He intensifies their flavors, changing them into charcuterie, pickles, mustards, and more, making his seasonal favorites available year-round. And with Cured , you can have access to this arsenal of flavor as well, whether it's making your own preserves from scratch or using store-bought ingredients in your daily cooking.
An invaluable guide, Cured explains both how to easily preserve foods and why you should embrace this popular technique in your own home. Whether a beginner or seasoned preserver, you'll discover how to make preserved lemons, then use them in a bright, beautiful bowl of Israeli Couscous with Preserved Lemon, Bacon, and Greens . Learn to use sugar as your curing method to make Cherry Orange Marmalade , then use it later in the week to make yourself a Mix-and-Match Jam Cocktail . Or maybe make some Smoked Nuts to use in the Smoked Nut Chocolate Tart . The possibilities are truly endless.
Steve leads you through how to make preserves, and also gives you recipes for when you bought a jar or bottle at the market that you can't decide how to use. Filled with bright and colorful photography, Cured will make you want to experiment with whatever fresh produce you have on hand. Whether you dabble in making your own preserves from scratch or want to learn how to use what you already have at home, these 150+ recipes will become hundreds and thousands as you start to mix and match the ingredients with your own favorites, prolonging the joy in your everyday life and meals.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published March 26, 2024
27 people are currently reading
81 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 18, 2024
The author runs a restaurant of the same name, based on use of a lot of cured items but also because he is a cancer survivor. So if you are thinking this is a book solely focused on cured-type recipes, you will be surprised it is not. These are recipes that focus on preserving like ferments, pickles, confits, infusions, compounds, jams, marmalades and other cured products but these tend to be the base recipes listed at the start of each section, then what follows are recipes that incorporate these items.
Recipes are well written and easy to follow. I would have liked more pictures of finished dishes as there are photos for many but not all dishes. Cooks of all levels who are fans of cured products will appreciate the base recipes and the ways they can be used in other dishes. Stand out recipes for me were Cured's Pumpkin Chili (incorporating homemade mustard) and Sugar-Rolled Tahini Cookies (incorporating infused sugar).
Recipes are well written and easy to follow. I would have liked more pictures of finished dishes as there are photos for many but not all dishes. Cooks of all levels who are fans of cured products will appreciate the base recipes and the ways they can be used in other dishes. Stand out recipes for me were Cured's Pumpkin Chili (incorporating homemade mustard) and Sugar-Rolled Tahini Cookies (incorporating infused sugar).
April 21, 2024
Spectacularly delicious recipes while still being approachable for the non-chef.
May 2, 2024
This is a unique cookbook in that the focus is on curing/preserving food and then how to use those preserved foods in a variety of recipes. There are 8 chapters that each focus on a type of preserving - acid, ice, dry, sugar, fat, cure, ferment, and smoke. Each chapter starts with describing that type of preserving and gives a few base recipes and then several recipes using that base/ingredient. At the end is a page discussing charcuterie boards and also canning. Overall, I thought this was a really unique and interesting cookbook and there were a few recipes I'd like to try.
May 27, 2024
Fantastic book with a bunch of really cool recipes and ideas!!! Perfect for the chef that wants to test their limits and experiment
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews