Cook Selden Standard dishes at home with help of videos, cookbook

Since opening in 2014, Midtown's Selden Standard had been one of the city's most popular dining destination. 

 The high level of hospitality and the quality of cuisine  has gotten the attention of food lovers and critics on both local and national levels.

During the stay-at-home order, the Selden kitchen is closed, but the owners are offering perks for customers who can afford to open their wallets and help their staff fund. A website has been set up where customers can purchase Selden Standard T-shirts and a digital cookbook. The recipes are simple, employ readily available ingredients and include some of the restaurant's most popular dishes, such as fresh pasta, lamb ragu and vegetable carpaccio. 

The digital cookbook can be purchased for a minimum donation of $15. It is on sale for a limited time at https://selden-team.company.site. 

Tickets for an intimate, fine wine dinner to be held once the restaurant can reopen have already sold out at $175 a head.

To further assist the home chef, Selden Standard pastry chef Lena Sareini has posted a series of videos to YouTube instructing how to make sourdough, cultured butter and a yogurt panna cotta with a pomegranate granita. The latter is one of the recipes in the cookbook. 

"It's a super easy, no-skill-involved dessert," said Sareini in the video, adding that you could make the frozen granita with a lot of other things if you don't have pomegranate, like coffee or another type of fruit juice. "It is kind of a low-effort, high-impact dessert that you can impress your friends with." 

Other recipes in the e-book include carrot hummus, lamb stew, roasted cauliflower, flour-less chocolate cake and a series of craft cocktails. 

The Cass Corridor favorite isn't the first to publish a digital book to help keep staff afloat during the virus pandemic. Last month, popular cocktail lounge and restaurant Standby in downtown Detroit came out with a drink recipe book, "Standby at Home," which is sold on its website. 

More:You're the bartender now: Detroit's craft cocktails made at home

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mbaetens@detroitnews.com

Twitter: @melodybaetens