Cook This: 3 recipes from Bright Cooking

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Our cookbook of the week is Bright Cooking: Recipes for the Modern Palate by chef, food stylist and recipe developer Camille Becerra.

Jump to the recipes: cucumber, plum and ricotta with citronette, stuffed crispy grape leaves with curry leaf yogurt and pine nuts, and smoked fish and squash blossom pancake with crispy honey chili oil.

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Camille Becerra has cooked in disparate places — from a Zen centre in New Mexico to the Top Chef set in Miami. The chef, food stylist and recipe developer was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, raised in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and is based in New York City. During the nearly 20 years she’s worked in the culinary industry, Becerra has held residencies in Paris and Talum, Mexico, and led restaurants in New York, most recently as chef-partner of the Ace Hotel Brooklyn’s As You Are.

Her debut cookbook, Bright Cooking (Chronicle Books, 2024), encapsulates it all.

“It’s my life’s work as a restaurant chef, brought into a space where it’s for the home cook. It took so many years of doing what I do,” says Becerra. She wrote most of Bright Cooking before the pandemic, but spending more time in her home kitchen over the past several years helped shape it. With sun-drenched photography, cobalt blue endpapers and the edges of the pages painted lemon yellow, the book has layers of brightness. The title refers to the vibrant colours and flavours featured in its more than 140 recipes — but also, “bright as in smart.”

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Presented in two parts, Elements and Dishes, Becerra illustrates how to channel a chef’s expertise to cooking at home. The first is a condiments section, where she gives readers the components to assemble their own dishes. “The idea is to inspire people to freestyle and not be so harnessed to recipes.” The second shows how to use these elements in finished dishes, with the goal of cooks riffing off them.

Becerra built the opening Elements section on a foundation of “modern mother sauces.” Instead of the five French mother sauces she learned in culinary school — béchamel, espagnole, hollandaise, tomato and velouté — Becerra spotlights yogurts and cultured creams, vinaigrettes, citronettes and mojos, seed and nut sauces, egg-based sauces, herb sauces and pestos, and butter sauces. She likes to make one or two of them every week, which “creates an ease in the kitchen.”

Learning how to use these foundational elements — which also include pickles, ferments and cures, stocks, broths and dashis, flavour pastes, fruit sauces and tonics and finishings — to create a meal is where the smartness comes in, says Becerra. “I want people to start communicating with themselves and understanding what they’re craving as a means of understanding what their body needs, and then be able to go to the market, shop for what’s local and what’s super peaking and what’s just catching your eye, and bring it back and have these sauces and flourishes. Because, ultimately, a dish — especially a restaurant dish — is formulaic. You have your star ingredient, and then you have your supporting cast: your sauce, finishings and flourishes.”

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A believer in “pantry prep instead of meal prep,” Becerra initially intended Bright Cooking to be a pantry book. But as it materialized, she realized it would benefit readers to see examples of how she uses these accoutrements. Becerra has made many of the dishes in restaurants over the years. Others stem from cravings she’s had at particular moments in time. “It doesn’t come from any place outside of my hunger to have these things. When you pare it all back, it’s just that.”

In Bright Cooking, Becerra distills her cooking to four tenets: “Cooking is sensorial, eating is intuitive, be responsible in your sourcing, and adventure is essential.” Among the many benefits of sourcing local, seasonal ingredients is the connection it brings, she says: “There’s something beautiful about following the seasons, anticipating things and connecting with the things around at any given time.”

Deciding what to make can be overwhelming in and of itself. More than a collection of recipes, Bright Cooking goes beyond individual dishes to teach how elements work together and the many ways to build a meal. Above all else, Becerra hopes readers cultivate a new awareness of the seasons and the ability to cook by instinct — not by following recipes.

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“Even as a trained chef, a career chef, whenever I have to follow a recipe, I get a little (anxious). I’m like, ‘Did I miss an ingredient? Did I miss a step?’ And so it becomes more of reading and following a recipe than actually cooking and understanding how things are progressing because you’re so focused. And so, I thought it would be wonderful for people to have the invitation to have what they want, and here’s a sauce and a little flourish, and that’s it. It doesn’t have to be so complicated.”

CUCUMBER, PLUM AND RICOTTA WITH CITRONETTE

Serves: 2 to 4

2 cups (160 g) cucumber, sliced on the bias
1 tbsp lemon juice or light vinegar, such as apple cider or champagne
1/2 cup (120 g) ricotta
2 cups (160 g) halved or quartered plums
1/4 cup (60 mL) Citronette (recipe follows)
2 tbsp toasted pine nuts
Flaky sea salt, for serving

Step 1

In a small bowl, add the cucumber slices and lemon juice and toss. Let sit for a couple of minutes to absorb the acid.

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Step 2

Spread the ricotta on a platter or large plate. Arrange the cucumbers and plums on top and drizzle with the citronette. Sprinkle with the pine nuts and flaky sea salt. Serve immediately.

CITRONETTE

Makes: 1/2 cup (120 mL)

1/4 cup (60 mL) fresh lemon juice
1 1/2 tbsp sweetener, such as maple syrup, honey or agave
1/4 cup (60 mL) neutral oil, such as sunflower, grapeseed, safflower or rice bran

Step 1

In a medium bowl, whisk together the lemon juice and sweetener until the sugars have dissolved into the lemon juice. The mixture should taste like sweet lemonade. Gradually whisk in the oil; when it thickens and has the density of dressing, stop adding the oil. When making it for the first time, it’s helpful to follow the measurements above, but try to take note of the key sensorial markers within the process. It’s a great way to develop your instincts, making it easier to scale to how much is needed or how much of each ingredient you have on hand. Use immediately or store at room temperature for 1 week or in the refrigerator for 2 months.

Uses

A salad dressing at any time of the year: summer salads with melon, onion and spicy almonds; autumn salads with endives, roasted root vegetables and roasted hazelnuts; winter salads of beets and oranges with pickled onion and yogurt or crumbled feta; and spring salads with peppery arugula, dates and roasted walnuts.

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STUFFED CRISPY GRAPE LEAVES WITH CURRY LEAF YOGURT AND PINE NUTS

Serves: 2 to 4

2 tbsp dried barberries or currants
16 brined grape leaves
1 cup (120 g) cooked rice
1/4 cup (30 g) crumbled feta
2 tbsp toasted pine nuts
1 to 2 tbsp neutral oil, such as sunflower, grapeseed, safflower or rice bran, for frying
Curry Leaf Yogurt (recipe follows), for serving

Step 1

In a small bowl, cover the barberries with hot water to rehydrate them and let sit for approximately 10 minutes. Remove the grape leaves from the brine and rinse under cold water. Lay them flat on a rack or a clean towel to dry.

Step 2

In a medium bowl, add the rice, feta and pine nuts. With a slotted spoon, scoop out the dried fruit, reserving the liquid, and add the fruit to the rice. Mix well. Press the mixture tightly together with your hands; if it doesn’t stick together, add a little of the dried fruit liquid, 1 tablespoon at a time, until it does.

Step 3

On a clean work surface, lay two grape leaves, one pointing up and one pointing down, overlapping at the base by 1/2 in (13 mm). Place 2 tablespoons of the rice mixture in the centre. Fold in half. Carefully transfer to a baking sheet, repeat with the remaining leaves and refrigerate the stuffed leaves for 1 hour.

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Step 4

Add the oil to a skillet or sauté pan over medium heat. Add the stuffed grape leaf pouches, being careful not to crowd the pan. Let crisp up undisturbed for 3 to 4 minutes and then flip and cook for 3 to 4 minutes longer, until crispy on both sides. Serve with the yogurt.

Note: If you don’t have or like grape leaves, this filling can also be used to stuff a whole fish, calamari body or hollowed-out zucchini and baked.

CURRY LEAF YOGURT

Makes: 1 cup (240 g)

1 tbsp neutral oil, such as sunflower, grapeseed, safflower or rice bran
2 sprigs fresh curry leaves (approximately 15 leaves)
1 cup (240 g) strained yogurt (see note)
1 tbsp vinegar or fresh lemon juice
Drizzle of natural liquid sweetener, such as maple syrup, honey, agave or date syrup
Couple grates of citrus zest (optional)
Pinch salt
Pinch chili powder

Step 1

In a small pan over medium heat, warm the oil. Very carefully add the fresh curry leaves to the oil. They will pop, so stand back when doing so. Pull them out 30 seconds after the first pop is heard — they should be translucent. Let drain on paper towels until cool.

Step 2

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In a medium bowl, mix together the yogurt, vinegar, sweetener, zest (if using), salt and chili powder. Crumble the curry leaves with your fingers into the yogurt and discard the stems. Let the yogurt sit in the refrigerator for 2 hours so that the curry flavour and aroma can infuse. Store in a lidded container in the refrigerator for 10 days.

Note: To strain yogurt, place a fine-mesh sieve over a bowl and line with cheesecloth or a clean tea towel. Add the yogurt and allow it to sit and strain for 30 minutes, until thickened. The longer it sits, the thicker it will be. Discard the whey (or find another use for it).

Uses

Serve this with a summer tomato and white onion salad, or dollop it on dal, spicy curries and chili.

SMOKED FISH AND SQUASH BLOSSOM PANCAKE WITH CRISPY HONEY CHILI OIL

Serves: 2 to 4

1 cup (140 g) all-purpose flour
1 cup (240 mL) filtered water
1 tsp salt
3 oz (85 g) smoked white fish
2 green onions, thinly sliced
Neutral oil, such as sunflower, grapeseed, safflower or rice bran, for frying
6 squash blossoms (see note)
Crispy Honey Chili Oil (recipe follows), for serving

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Step 1

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, water and salt to make a batter. Add the fish and green onions and stir to combine.

Step 2

In a cast-iron skillet or sauté pan over medium heat, drizzle in some neutral oil. Pour enough batter into the skillet to coat the bottom. Dot with the petals of the squash blossom. Cook until golden brown, 3 to 5 minutes. Flip and cook the other side for 3 to 5 minutes, until golden brown. Transfer to a cutting board and cut into wedges. Serve with the chili oil.

Note: If it’s not squash flower season, you can substitute the blossoms with steamed cabbage leaves, cut into 2 in (5 cm) strips.

CRISPY HONEY CHILI OIL

Makes: 4 cups (960 mL)

2 cups (70 g) dried whole chilies, such as Kashmiri, árbol, Japones, Guerrero, ancho or a mix (see note)
1/4 cup (35 g) roasted peanuts, soy nuts or sesame seeds
2 tbsp mushroom powder or adaptogen mushroom powder blend
1/4 cup (30 g) fermented black beans, finely chopped
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp ground black pepper
1 tsp salt
3 cardamom pods
2 cups (480 mL) neutral oil, such as sunflower, grapeseed, safflower or rice bran
1 cup (50 g) thinly sliced shallots (see note)
1/4 cup (35 g) thinly sliced garlic (see note)
1/2 cup (170 g) honey
1/2 cup (120 mL) sesame oil

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Step 1

Place a wire rack over a baking sheet. Using gloves, remove the stems from the chilies with scissors and cut the chilies lengthwise. Place the chilies on the rack facedown. Shake the rack to sift out most of the seeds. Transfer just the chilies to a blender or spice grinder, working in batches, and process them to resemble commercial red pepper flakes.

Step 2

In a large heatproof bowl, mix together the peanuts, mushroom powder, fermented black beans, sugar, pepper, salt and cardamom. Mix in the blended pepper flakes and set aside.

Step 3

Place a fine-mesh metal sieve over a heatproof bowl and set aside. Add the neutral oil and shallots to a small pot over medium-low heat and allow them to come up in temperature for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking, until the shallots are golden brown.

Step 4

Once the shallots are done, pour the oil through the sieve and set the strained shallots aside in a small bowl. Allow the oil to cool. Wipe the pot clean and transfer the oil back to the pot. Repeat the same process with the sliced garlic. Wipe the pot of any residual garlic. Transfer the oil back to the pot and warm over medium heat until it reaches 375F (190C). Carefully pour the oil over the reserved chili and spice mixture; it will bubble up for a second or two. Add the honey and mix well. Allow this mixture to cool completely before adding the sesame oil and the fried shallots and garlic; this will ensure they stay crispy. Transfer to a glass jar and store at room temperature away from heat for 2 months.

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Note: Alternatively, you can use 1/2 cup (40 g) high-quality red pepper flakes. When
slicing shallots and garlic, use a mandoline; slices must be uniform to ensure even golden­ess throughout.

Uses

This condiment was essentially inspired by salsa macha, the Mexican chili condiment with peanuts, as well as Chinese chili crisp. This is literally a topping for all — I’ve even seen it on ice cream.

Recipes and images excerpted from Bright Cooking: Recipes for the Modern Palate by Camille Becerra, ©2024. Published by Chronicle Books. Photographs by Gentl and Hyers.

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