'The recipes are not out of anyone's cooking realm'

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 15: Ever enjoyed a restaurant meal so much that you picked up the courage to ask the recipe — only to be told “chef’s secret”?

Well Waterlot Head Chef Barry Cohen has spared you the embarrassment by bringing out a book stacked full of recipes taken from restaurants the island over. 

What’s Cooking Bermuda  is a “best of the best” selection of recipes he has cooked with local and international chefs as part of his VSB programme of the same name.

The book includes a total of 350 recipes taken from Beau Rivage, Bone Fish Bar & Grill, Cambridge Beaches, Elbow Beach Resort, Tom Moore’s Taverna and Grotto Beach Resort as well as restaurants from the MEF Group and the Island Restaurant group.

The celebrity chefs include Hell’s Kitchen’s Rahman ‘Rock’ Harper and The Food Network’s Bobby Flay.

Cohen told the Bermuda Sun: “There is a whole beautiful section on celebrity chefs. ‘Rock’ Harper is one of those down home kind of chefs — a Southern style and he includes a spicy shrimp and sausage recipe. Bobby Flay brings a lot of flare — he’s showy with the things he brings like his Jambalaya.”

The book also features Michael Lomonaco, the lauded executive chef and director of the former Windown in the World in the World Trade Centre. Cohen said he was “the luckiest man alive” as he did not go to work on the day of the September 11 attacks. 

He includes a tasty sounding linguini with Manila clams and spicy chorizo sausage.

Cohen also has a section dedicated to his own recipes.

“All I wanted to do here was have some fun with food.

“We have some set menu items that are considered Bermuda cuisine and I just wanted to play with them and take them up a little notch. There are takeoffs on pork and beans and cod fish and potatoes – I made a perogie out of it — that is oval shaped dough — and we stuff it with the cod fish and potatoes and pan fry it so its crispy on the outside and nice and oozy on the inside and then I made a beautiful avocado puree. I wanted to keep the components there but dress it up and make it different.”

Other island favourites include a Dark and Stormy créme brulee from the Island Restaurant Group, potatoe crusted rockfish with mustard leek sauce from Tom Moore’s Tavern and the seafood casserole from Elbow Beach.

The book includes sections on appetizers, soups and salads, beef and veal, pork, poultry, lamb, seafood, vegetarian, pasta and desserts.  Cohen promised that all the recipes are easy to make and all the ingredients avaiable on the island.

“The most important thing about a cookbook is that can you reproduce the recipes. We know we can because we have done it on TV in five mins . None of the recipes are not out of anyone’s cooking realm.”

The majority of photos in the book were taken by Nicholas Comber.

What’s Cooking Bermuda is on sale in bookstores around the island and retails at $48.