Zippy, homey, satisfying, electric: The cooking of Sara Kramer and Sarah Hymanson at their Los Angeles restaurants, Kismet and various locations of Kismet Rotisserie, pings between those descriptives.
The duo’s 2024 debut cookbook, “Kismet: Bright, Fresh, Vegetable-Loving Recipes,” shows home cooks how to achieve the same effervescent effect at home.
Schmear and dip and repeat
Kramer and Hymanson are sauce-and-dip obsessed, which tracks, knowing the pair’s fondness for the food of the Levant and Middle East. So the book devotes an entire chapter to the topic.
You’ll learn how to ferment your own labneh with kefir grains, whole milk and heavy cream, then mix it with fresh horseradish and fish sauce to “up your roast beef sandwich game” or whir it in a blender with fresh bay leaves to understand firmly and with finality that, yes, bay leaves do indeed have culinary value.
Tahini sauce is mounded with honeyed kumquats. Or the sesame seed puree is blitzed with Tuscan kale and completed with tangy pomegranate molasses. Or it’s finished with chunks of Castelvetrano olives and Calabrian chiles. At Kismet, everything is fair game in the name of flavor.
On the dip front, there is a smoked trout dip, the fish luxuriating in a base of yogurt and sour cream, and garnished with fresh tarragon and Aleppo pepper. And in a delirious, inspired commingling of creamed spinach and artichoke dip, the Pickley Cheesy Greens’ star ingredient is half-moons of dill pickles.
Simple tricks, big results
Yes, the Kismet pantry is a many-splendored marvel. But the book is also filled with plenty of stripped-down recipes that reveal the liberating power of good cooking technique.
Kramer makes a case for throwing out the flour and eggs when making latkes and, most expansively, serving them year-round with everything from pickled chiles to loads of dill and basil, and, of course, labneh. Hymanson, being a born Chicagoan, warbles the praises of giardiniera, serving it alongside a recipe for chicken schnitzel but noting your fried egg might be keen on its presence too.
Even garlic gets the Kismet rethinking. The pair notes — and many of the recipes show — a finishing touch of raw garlic grated on a Microplane grater provides “pleasant sharpness and earthy funk.” A fine truth — and an apt alternate subtitle for the book.
The beauty and wonder of great ingredients and smart cooking
