Paleo, if you please

Quick look: America’s Test Kitchen revamped 150 favorite recipes using paleo-friendly ingredients.

What’s inside: With no grains, no sugar, no dairy and no processed foods, a paleo diet can be tricky to navigate. Home cooks have to rethink their basic methods without staples such as milk, cream, butter, flour, rice, corn, oats, legumes, even potatoes.

Good thing the first section of this 344-page page softcover guide is geared toward getting started on the paleo diet. There’s a guide to restocking your pantry along with a substitution chart, listing and explanation of alternative flours, and a short feature extolling the virtues of a spiralizer. The intro also includes recipes for staples such as broth, mayo, nut milks, cashew cheese, ketchup and mustard.

The next seven chapters are filled with recipes, generally organized by meal type or protein. Look for appetizers and snacks (spiced nuts, kale chips, spinach and bacon-stuffed mushrooms), breakfast (wild mushroom frittata, nut and seed granola, energy bars), vegetable mains (zucchini fritters, creamy cauliflower soup), and vegetable sides (Brussels sprout salad, cauliflower rice, celery root puree).

Here’s a sampling of what the proteins look like: poultry (Thai chicken lettuce wraps, nut-crusted chicken breasts, roast chicken with mushroom pan sauce), seafood (salmon cakes, shrimp ceviche, oven-steam mussels with coconut curry) and beef, pork, lamb and more (ultimate beef stew, bison chili, osso buco).

What’s not: Nutritional info isn’t listed with recipes, but it is in there. It’s just listed in a chart at the back of the book.

Zucchini Fritters

From “Paleo Perfected” by America’s Test Kitchen

Crispy and full of flavor, these fritters are easy to make and come together quickly. Onion can be used in place of the scallion. And if you aren’t a cilantro fan, that ingredient is easily left out; the cumin, coriander, garlic and jalapeno punch up the flavor plenty. America’s Test Kitchen suggests serving these crispy fritters with a tomato salsa.

1 1/2 pounds zucchini, shredded

Kosher salt and pepper

1 small sweet potato (8 ounces) peeled and shredded

3 large eggs, lightly beaten

7 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 scallions, minced

2 tablespoons minced fresh cilantro

1 jalapeno, stemmed, seeded and minced

1 clove garlic, minced

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon ground cumin

3 tablespoons arrowroot flour

Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 200 degrees. Set wire rack in rimmed baking sheet. Toss zucchini with 2 teaspoons salt and let drain in fine-mesh strainer for 10 minutes. Wrap zucchini in clean dish towel and squeeze out excess liquid.

Combine dried zucchini, sweet potato, beaten eggs, 1 tablespoon oil, scallions, cilantro, jalapeno, garlic, coriander, cumin, 1 teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper in large bowl. Sprinkle flour over mixture and stir until well combined.

Heat 3 tablespoons oil in 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium-low heat until shimmering. Drop 1/3-cup portions of batter into skillet and use back of spoon to press batter into 3-inch-wide fritters (you should fit about 4 fritters in skillet at a time). Cook until golden brown and slightly crisp, about 4 minutes per side. Drain fritters briefly on paper towel-lined plate, then transfer to prepared rack and keep warm in oven. Repeat with remaining 3 tablespoons oil and remaining batter. Season fritters with salt and serve.