I'm really enjoying Tonia George's
Tea Cookbook: Sweet and Savory Recipes for Tea Lovers (Ryland Peters & Small, 2008). Beyond tea-time treats of Earl Grey Biscotti and Chocolate Oolong Tea Loaf, there are main course recipes like Green Tea, Tofu, Noodle and Cress Soup, Mint Tea Couscous, and a Tea-Smoked Sea Trout that uses the rich flavor of Lapsang Souchong, which is indeed a smoky leaf. There are quite a few other innovative recipe ideas as well, though it is a slim volume of just about 65 pages. But surely well worth the current price of $5.18 on Amazon, especially because it has what so many of us who love cookbooks crave, i.e., beautifully-styled photos, these in particular by Martin Brigdale. Another great thing about the book (besides the Chamomile Hot Toddy and Blackberry Tea Vodka) is that it puts you in the mindset of cooking with tea and using it in unique culinary ways, which truly does open up a whole new tea-flavored world. There are lengthier tea cookbooks to aspire to, like Cynthia Gold and Lise Stern's
Culinary Tea: More Than 150 Recipes Steeped in Tradition from Around the World, or Robert Wemischner's
Cooking with Tea, but as just a simple intro this is a good bet -- and my copy is already being coveted by friends and family, tea-drinking or not.
