Persiana (2014)

The 2014 book that started Ghayour's run. Its more than 100 recipes are modern, accessible takes on food from around the southern and eastern Mediterranean rather than strict Persian tradition: lamb and sour cherry meatballs, a chicken, preserved lemon and olive tagine, Persian flatbread. It suits a table of friends as well as a weeknight, and it is less tightly organized around effort than her later books. It won Observer Food Monthly's best cookbook of 2014. If you want the same style sorted by how much energy you have left, Persiana Everyday and Persiana Easy do that job; if you want the dishes that made her name, start here.