Steeped: Recipes Infused with Tea by Annelies Zijderveld

Steeped: Recipes Infused with Tea by Annelies Zijderveld

Steeped: Recipes Infused with Tea by Annelies Zijderveld is a book of recipes that focus on cooking with tea as the main ingredient. Steeped infuses your normal cooking routine with special recipes that will make your meals interesting as well as healthier. Zijderveld begins her book with an introduction to the world of tea. She talks everything about the nature of tea: where it comes from, how it is made, and how it is normally used. She describes tea culture, the different kinds of teas, methods of cooking with tea, and introduces the idea of tea cooking. As she states: “What would it look like to invite tea into every meal of the meal?” Zijderveld describes the different tools that are used to cook with tea. She also encourages the reader to stock the kitchen certain ingredients to help make cooking with tea easier.

Then the real fun begins. Zijderveld shares a wide variety of recipes. She starts with recipes for “Morning Tea” – or breakfast (1-22). Recipes for lunch are under the title “Midday Tea” (23-42). She continues with supper recipes with “Afternoon Tea” (43-60). Her next set of recipes, entitled “High Tea” include soups, side dishes, vegetarian main dishes, and a provision to help with all of these dishes – Green Tea stock (61-86). Her final set of recipes, entitled “Sweet Tea” are all about desserts (87-113). Zijderveld has a nice catalog of recipes that are arranged by tea type (114-115) and tea provisions (116). She ends the book with a list of resources, which come from a variety of websites (117).

Zijderveld maintains a blog entitled “The Food Poet”, and she has a set of social media accounts on Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter.

The angle for this recipe book was interesting to say the least. I found the fact that tea could be added to many everyday recipes useful. Zijderveld does a good job of introducing the reader to the world of tea and how it can be infused into a normal cooking diet. I thought that using tea in jelly making (18-22) was the most inventive idea. Using Green Tea to make vinegar would also be a great element for most meals (42).

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the author and/or publisher through the Speakeasy blogging book review network. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR,Part 255.