I have been a long-time admirer of Andrea Gentl’s photography and so when she announced several months ago that she was working on a cookbook on mushrooms, I knew I had to pre-order this.

The book arrived in the mail a couple weeks ago and almost immediately (like I do so with all my cookbook purchases) I flipped through the cookbook to get a general sense of the food photography. Upon first glance, I have to admit I was a little disappointed. Firstly, most of the images were shot in hard light, which is a current trend these days, but something I don’t particularly love. Secondly, I noticed just how light this book was, which seemed to lack the heft of other cookbooks this size. The paper used had a matte finish, which I absolutely love for photos (See Aran Goyoaga’s cookbooks) but unfortunately I felt the images just fell flat on the page. But putting aesthetics aside, the recipes in this book however are INCREDIBLY delicious and innovative and more than makes up for the fact that I didn’t love the photography, which is really the main reason I buy cookbooks! I’ve made three recipes from this book already – a mushroom lasagna, the Mushroom Parm (like eggplant parm, but with mushrooms) and the Enoki Alfredo. Both the Mushroom Parm and Enoki Alfredo were really innovative for different reasons. For the parm, the mushrooms were dusted with breadcrumbs and baked in the oven until crisp (no frying involved) and then assembled as you would an eggplant parm dish. The Enoki Alfredo treated the mushrooms very much like noodles and was tossed in a cacio e pepe like sauce, resulting in a dish that came together in about 8 minutes and lapped up in about 2 !

So, if you love mushrooms. this is definitely an excellent book to get. Many of the recipes are new takes on standard dishes with a mushroom twist (like Mushroom Ragu) but Andrea Gentl does have both a section on mushroom powders, to add to things like breakfasts and smoothies, as well as mushrooms in dessert. I’ll definitely be referring back to this book often for hearty vegetarian dinners with a lot of depth and flavor.