Milk Street noodles

Kimball (Milk Street: The World in a Skillet) delivers a resourceful primer on noodles, a food that "charm and delight almost every kitchen in the world." Readers reap the benefits of his Milk Street team being dispatched to learn at the elbow of cooks across the globe. A chapter of stir-fries features a satisfying range of noodle varieties, including glass, sweet potato starch, udon, rice, and ramen. Sour soups of Eastern Europe, meanwhile, are represented in a recipe that calls for sauerkraut and its tangy brine. Dishes draw on widely available and pantry-friendly ingredients, and often result in pleasing mash-ups: a chicken noodle soup with turmeric and coconut milk relies on influences from China, India, Myanmar, and Thailand, while a Syrian-inspired pasta comes together with fettuccine, lentils, and pomegranate molasses. Innovative takes on Italian classics will help home cooks get dinner on the table quickly; the long-simmered, hearty zuppa forte of Naples, for example, becomes a 30-minute meal thanks to diced pancetta and Korean gochujang, and gnocchi is created "in an instant" using dried potato flakes. Even the humble tuna noodle casserole gets an upgrade with Gruyère, capers, and sautéed fennel. With handy tips and practical indexing, this welcome compendium does not disappoint. Agent: David Black, David Black Literary. (Apr.)

The latest book from Kimball (Milk Street: Cook What You Have) takes readers on a noodle-centric world tour. Many recipes showcase Asian noodle dishes, although Italy, Eastern Europe, Spain, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East are also well represented. The work starts with a few recipes for classic versions of homemade noodles of various sorts, but mercifully the rest of the book does not assume cooks will be making their own noodles. Recipes are grouped by type, moving from cold dishes and noodle soups to stir-fries, one-pot meals, and a section entitled "Fast & Saucy." There are 95 recipes (not counting the initial ones for the noodles themselves), so there is a tremendous variety of dishes. Based on the usual straightforward Milk Street style, the recipes are well organized and easy to follow, with a minimum of steps or complications. The ingredients should be easy to source for most readers, and there are often substitutions listed for harder-to-find options. Each recipe is accompanied by a full-color close-up photo. VERDICT Carbo-loading never looked so good. Highly recommended.--Susan Hurst