Menu No 7: Smoke, Passion Fruit, Cilantro, Lime, Lemon

This is one of an imaginative series of small books, each of which offers a charming seasonal dinner menu. There is a confident, thoughtful unpredictability about them which we greatly admire. It’s not every cookbook which cites Sol Lewitt, Leon Trotsky, and Mario Vargas Llosa, but they all have a place here.

They truly are small (5" x 7", 36 pages), but composed with care. Author Brian Voll is a home cook who enjoys having friends over to give himself an excuse to step outside his usual boundaries.

That said, Voll is not the inconsiderate type of recipe writer who demands a ¼ teaspoon of an ingredient which will otherwise sit unused on your spice shelf. He composes his menus with respect for your time and ingredients, to say nothing of your budget.

Menu No. 7 invites you to prepare:

• Mezcal and passion fruit cocktail
• Polvo à lagareiro, in which octopus replaces the more common cod in bacalhau à lagareiro
• Grilled sweet potatoes
• Cherry tomato salad
• Grilled chicken with green sauce
• Preserved lemon bars
• Fina estampa, a pisco-based drink inspired by a visit to Lima

Paperback.