Garlic, olive oil + everything Mediterranean

Daen's Kitchen blogger Lia debuts with an appetizing assortment of classic Mediterranean dishes divided into six parts by key ingredient. The opening section, on garlic, features both building blocks--including garlic confit and intensely garlic-infused butter--and more elaborate dishes that put these fundamentals to use, among them garlic and sour cream puff pastry, clams with chile and anchovies, and slow roasted lamb shoulder. The olive oil chapter includes a salad of grilled peaches and burrata with basil-infused dressing, a baked pasta dish with eggplant fit for a crowd, and pan-fried salmon served with rich tomato confit. In the butter chapter, Lia instructs home cooks on how to make their own in a stand mixer before serving up fennel and lemon risotto, and mussels cooked in white wine and butter. A section focused on bread includes instructions for foccacia and, oddly, bagels with helpful step-by-step photo guides, while the section on bread crumbs features "popcorn eggplant" and chicken parmesan. In the brief final chapter, on eggs, there's spinach feta quiche and homemade pasta dough. The organizational scheme becomes a bit murky as ingredients bleed from one chapter to the next, but Lia's enthusiasm is infectious and the rustic photography appeals. Anyone looking to expand their Mediterranean repertoire will find this a handy resource. (May)

With her debut cookbook, Lia, whose digital platform Daen's Kitchen is wildly popular, stays true to her culinary roots by championing traditional Mediterranean dishes with a dash of Australia thrown in for good measure. Focusing on six simple ingredients--olive oil, garlic, butter, bread, crumbs, and eggs--the recipes range from building-block items (garlic confit, basil oil, mom's famous bread crumbs) to full dishes, such as onion and goat cheese galette and pesto Genovese with ricotta gnocchi. The cookbook's recipe formatting is especially praiseworthy, with warm and personable headnotes and an easy-to-read layout that encourages new cooks to follow along with Lia, who frequently includes helpful tips and "used in" notes, which indicates what other dishes in the cookbook employ that recipe. Generously sprinkled throughout are bits of Lia's own hard-earned kitchen wisdom, such as creating an extra-creamy egg salad by separating hard-boiled egg yolks from the whites and then mixing them into mayonnaise. VERDICT Adopting a similar ingredient-centered approach to Anna Jones's Easy Wins and written in the same engaging tone as Nigella Lawson's beloved books, Lia's comfortable and comforting brand of home cooking will be a welcome addition to any cookbook collection.--John Charles