Perhaps my favorite sentence in all of Chef David Neyfeld and writer Joshua David Stein’s fun dad cookbook, Dad, What’s For Dinner?, is in the Introduction: A family meal has to be delicious, it has to be cheap, and it has to be easy enough to cram into the time between finishing prepping your station and before service.
Extrapolate that to any family’s dinner table and you have the essence of this cookbook: make plenty of food with what resources you have and Chef will help you make it into something delicious. Cooking good food does not have to be your calling, but with a few tips and tricks, you, the home cook, can make an excellent meal.
Good Food Yes, but Not Always So Fast
Nayfeld has cooked at high-end restaurants like Atelier Joel Robuchon in Las Vegas and Eleven Madison Park in New York City but is best-known for Che Fico, an Italian taverna in San Francisco, where, Chef says in the same Introduction, “the focus was on lusty flavors and high-quality ingredients.” That is also true for Dad, What’s For Dinner?. A bit of basil, some in-season tomatoes, a scrape of lemon peel will elevate your dishes from “will my kids eat this?” to “my kids asked for seconds!” This translates to some effort on the part of the chef; basil to be blanched, chicken to be marinated, fresh peas to be shelled. Chef suggests short-cuts (store-bought tomato sauce, frozen peas).
Nayfeld also offers a Mess ratio for each recipe (1/4 for one-pan meals, or 4/4 for multi-pan, batch-cooked meals). As a mom, recipe testing during the 100 Days of May/end of school year madness, I chose only ¼ Mess recipes for this review. Ha.
Recipes I Made
Lemony Butter Beans (I used cannellini)
Shrimp Fra Diavolo
I felt I had to start with a pasta recipe – Nayfeld is famous for his pasta. Basil Pesto Pasta (p. 96-97) involved warming walnuts, garlic and chile in oil before whipping it wi
th blanched basil. I loved the soft flavor of garlic that infused the sauce. Even better was the garlic oil, a quarter cup of which I now had available for whatever I cooked next.
I didn’t have time for Turkey Chili’s mess (Mess rated 2/4) but did make Miso Honey Mustard Baked Chicken (p. 140-141) to serve at a Ladies Game Night I hosted. Huge hit, so big, that I’m planning to give the cookbook as a holiday gift to each of the three ladies who attended. The chicken was savory and sweet from its marinade of Kewpie mayo, miso and lemon, a side of cabbage with furikake so simple and so delicious, I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner.
Bitter complaints were uttered when I told my 13-year-old that I was making One-Dish Halibut with Summer Vegetables (p. 128-9) for dinner. I did not have time to shell the fresh peas I had from the farmers’ market but no matter, the shishitos, tomatoes and zucchini I layered into my Le Creuset lasagna pan offered more than enough veg for the dish. Seasoned only with S&P, lemon juice, and fresh basil, the flavors were simple – I sprinkled fresh thyme for added oomph and served with tartar sauce on the side. The pre-meal complaints from said 13-year-old were silenced after the first bite.
I used store-bought Arrabbiata sauce for Shrimp Fra Diavolo (p. 131-2) with much success. The secret to this one is the fresh-minced parsley and thinly sliced lemon peel. Nayfeld employs sliced lemon peel with equal success in Lemony Butter Beans (p. 202-3). When paired with cooking’s “holy trinity” (garlic, onion and celery), the resultant dish is deeply flavored and delicious. I ended up whipping the leftovers into puree to use as a dip for vegetables. There was nothing wrong with Crispy Roasted Sweet-and-Sour Mushrooms (p. 211-12) – roasted maitakes are a toasty, crispy delight. Mixed as intended with caramelized, vinegared onions, the dish tasted fine, but not as fun or unique as Nayfeld’s other creations.
Who Would Like This Cookbook
While Nayfeld wrote this cookbook from a personal perspective as a dad, the book is geared towards anyone who needs to get dinner on the table without always relying on takeout. Chef leans into batch cooking (I did not test those recipes), utilizing the mantra of ‘cook once eat at least twice’ by emplying the freezer to great effect. Food can be fun and everyone can participate in making dinner (if not every day). And cooking is not just for moms – it is an incredibly important way to support your family. Why not make it delicious?
I was provided a preview copy of Dad, What’s For Dinner?
