Book Review – Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge: The Official Black Spire Outpost Cookbook

Hi everyone!

We received Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge: The Official Black Spire Outpost Cookbook to review. The cookbook is from Insight Editions and recipes are “inspired by* Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge in the Disney parks. There are a few actual recipes from the lands, but for the most part, they are inspired by them. Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge: The Official Black Spire Outpost Cookbook releases November 5th, 2019 and is co-written by Chelsea Monroe-Cassel, who has a number of very highly rated themed cookbooks including World of Warcraft: The Official Cookbook. She wrote it with Marc Sumerak, who has written a variety of books that include Star Wars, Harry Potter and Marvel themes.

All book images supplied by Insight Editions

Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge: The Official Black Spire Outpost Cookbook is a beautifully designed, hard-cover cookbook with the font that is very familar from the park lands. There are about 75 different recipes. The 3-page introduction is by “Strono” Cookie Tuggs – those who have been to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge may recognize the name. The book is also written in his point of view. Before any recipes, there are pages about the Black Spire Outpost, including Docking Bay 7 Food & Cargo – told again by the point of view of Tuggs, in character with concept art (it isn’t done in a Birnbaum’s type of way). Ronto Roasters, Oga’s Cantina, the Milk Stand and Kat Saka’s Kettle also figure into these pages.

On to the recipes. Each one is introduced by Tuggs and there are professional photos of all the them. The chapters are laid out as to what type of food it is – including main courses, desserts and drinks. And information about each is also noted, including cooking time, yield and then also how hard it is to make – easy, medium or difficult.

Choosing a recipe or two to try was actually a little challenging for me (in part because I don’t eat seafood nor much fried food). Also, I chose a few “easy” recipes that I wanted to try to make, including Pitmaster’s Choice (jerky). The recipe calls for a pound of ground pork and includes 1 tablespoon of dark soy sauce, sesame oil and five-spice powder. I could not find dark soy sauce at my grocery store, nor did I see the five-spice powder. So while the prep time says 5 minutes on it, I spent more time on that trying to find ingredients. Some of them are harder to find than others and I ended up not making that recipe. I did settle on a recipe that looked easy and delicious, and that was the Rootleaf Stew.

Rootleaf Stew includes root vegetables – I added onion to the dish and did not use collard greens. The spices in here are ginger root, cumin, turmeric and cinnamon, with vegetable broth. I used extra vegetables (and then more broth) without adding extra spice so I didn’t get the full spice experience, but it is an easy and quick dish. I will make it again when the weather is a little cooler. This is my photo of it.

Photo by Denise Preskitt, Mousesteps

The ease of the recipes will depend in part on what you have in your cabinet and can find at your store. There are a lot of ingredients I don’t keep, so the Rootleaf Stew worked for me in that anything I bought that I didn’t have on hand is something I will use again (I was out of turmeric and cumin). I like vegetable soup too and this was a fast recipe to make. The Braised Shaak Roast will probably be the next recipe I try.

Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge: The Official Black Spire Outpost Cookbook is a beautiful book to commemorate the opening of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at the Disney parks, with a wide variety of unique recipes.

 

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