Poppy Cooks: The Potato Book

British chef O’Toole (Poppy Cooks: The Actually Delicious Slow Cooker Cookbook), who turned to TikTok when Covid shuttered the restaurant where she was working and went viral with a crispy potato recipe, delivers a playful collection focused entirely on spuds. O’Toole mixes technical knowledge (like helpful tips on deep frying) with groan-worthy puns (offering a “mashterclass” on mashed potatoes) and follows instructions for classic potato dishes with a series of innovative riffs. A recipe for hasselbacks, for example, is followed by versions with onions and cream cheese or honey and mustard. Baked potatoes are stuffed with everything from chorizo to fried shrimp. Yukon golds are cooked in bouillon (made with a cube or concentrate) and coated in beef, lamb, duck, or goose fat or tossed with soy sauce and sesame oil before roasting. A chapter on fries includes batons that resemble those “from the Golden Arches,” thinner matchsticks, and British “chip-shop chips.” The “15-hour potatoes,” inspired by chef Thomas Keller’s pavé, incorporates only four ingredients in its original form and is followed by eight variations, including a version with bacon and another with garlic butter. The recipes are universally appealing, but the repetition occasionally leaves this volume feeling thin. Still, diehard potato lovers will be pleased. (Apr.)

Correction: A previous version of this review incorrectly described this book as the author’s debut.