Cookbook Review Thread

[KJS]

The mention of a cookbook in the other book thread here made me revisit a 2p2 idea I have had for a while: a thread all about reviewing and recommending cookbooks. Like many others here I love to cook. I am by no means an expert (or even intermediate, to be honest) but cooking is my main creative outlet and I am very enthusiastic. I have not amassed a great collection of cookbooks but am willing to review what I do have. I hope others are willing to let us know their favorites (and duds if they know them) too.

I'll start:

Fish: A Complete Guide to Buying and Cooking by Mark Bittman

I absolutely love this book. If you like seafood, I think it is a must have. I say this because it has what I find to be a great combination of cookbook essentials: tips on how to get the best ingredients, tips on techniques for cooking those ingredients and great recipes. Bittman points out very early on in the book that the key to good seafood cooking is in buying good fish. Therefore, he starts with a section on what to look for in your fishmonger as well as how to identify good products. I found this information extremely helpful when I started venturing out to markets all over Seattle in search of great seafood. I now have my favorites and can tell anyone why I think they are the best. He then moves into sections on over 70 varities of seafood, giving alternate names for each, a bit on how to choose the best product and some recipes. There is an emphasis on simplicity in the recipes and many come with a list of worthwhile substitutions if that variety of seafood is not readily available. The goal is to turn you into someone who feels confident buying good fish and preparing it well in your home without fancy techniques and ingredients that are not readily available to home cooks. I have on several occassions taken this book to the fishmonger, gotten the freshest seafood they have available and then gone to the supermarket to get whatever I need to make a recipe he has for that (or a similar) fish. I have had great results every time.

The New Best Recipe: All-New Edition with 1,000 Recipes

This massive tome is an amazing book for all levels of cooks. The recipes are great but even better are the explanations on why they are so good. Very much a study in applying testing to cooking recipes, this book goes to great length to show by trial and error why certain techniques result in the best results. Would you ever fry an egg in 4 different pans at 8 different temperatures using 3 different fats to find the best? No need; these guys have done it for you (small skillet on very low heat, with a tbs of butter, add egg after butter foams, cover for 3 minutes, if you want to know). They also test cookwear and products (best supermarket bacon anyone?) which can take tons of guesswork out of cooking. I find this invaluable as I am new but also impatient and want to quickly hone in on the best methods and products so I can get right into eating great food.

KJS

Edited to add: I did not see the OOT Thread on this topic before posting this. If anyone thinks this is too redundant, feel free to lock this and I will just move this post as a response in that thread.

[El Diablo]

KJS,

No reason to lock or move. If people want to post more extensive stuff here or pop it back up later, that's fine.

For the time being I'll link two threads:

Current OOT cookbook thread

Older OOT cookbook thread, see my post there for links to other good recommendations

[Ron Burgundy]

[ QUOTE ]
The mention of a cookbook in the other book thread here made me revisit a 2p2 idea I have had for a while: a thread all about reviewing and recommending cookbooks.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've had this idea for a while too, I'm just too lazy to make long review posts. I guess I should just do them 1 or 2 at a time. I have like 15 cookbooks so this will take some time.

I think this thread has much potential for greatness. The other thread currently in OOT is just for recommending basic books. I think it would be awesome if people posted very detailed reviews of all their cookbooks.

There's so many cookbooks at bookstores now that it would take a few hours just to take a quick glance at all of them. There probably a bunch I would want to get, but don't have the time to discover them on my own.

[Dids]

I've mostly stopped using cookbooks, because the internet is just a more functional resource.

At one point I bought 3 Rachel Ray cookbooks, because the concept of a 30 minute meal was appealing.

Her books are horrible. She makes up for a lack of cooking time by just throwing a fuckton of seasoning at her dishes, which means that a lot of what you're cooking is 1- expensive 2- pretty over seasoned. Also a lot of the recipies in the ones I had were (for lack of a better term) pretty white trash. A lot of pretty in-elegant stuff.

[dylan's alias]

Dids, you are right. Rachael Ray makes nasty food in 30 minutes. I mentioned this in the OOT thread, but the NYTimes 60 Minute Gourmet by Pierre Franey is an excellent source for a wide variety of fairly easy to make meals. Most can be completed in well under an hour. This was the first cookbook I bought for myself and pretty much taught myself to cook from it.

[Dids]

BTW-

www.epicurious.com GOAT (not goat) site for this stuff. It has dones of stuff from older magazines. Really really good, especially if you want to get fancy.

www.cooks.com is a decent resource for online stuff. A lot of kinda tuna-surprise trashy stuff, but some good basic ideas that you can work with.

[turnipmonster]

aside from generalized cooking manuals like the professional chef and joy of cooking, I think there are two cookbooks I have that really stand out for me by covering their topics really well as well as providing outstanding recipes.

1) the breakfast book by marion cunningham. I love most breakfast foods, this book has tons of amazing recipes in almost every category of breakfast items (quick breads, cereals, eggs, pancakes, sweet stuff, etc).

2) daily soup cookbook is a really great book if you love soup. they go over the basics (stocks, spices, etc), but the great thing is many of their recipes start the same way and after making a few of their soups you can be creative and branch out. plus there are lots of high quality soup recipes and variations thrown in.

[KJS]

[ QUOTE ]
I've mostly stopped using cookbooks, because the internet is just a more functional resource.


[/ QUOTE ]

But what about all the crap that gets splashed on your laptop?

Seriously though, for finding a certain recipe to go with an ingredient in a hurry, I do love the Internet. For prolonged study, I need books. I gotta sit at a computer all day for work; don't need my hobbies to add to my online time.

KJS

[KJS]

2) daily soup cookbook is a really great book if you love soup. they go over the basics (stocks, spices, etc), but the great thing is many of their recipes start the same way and after making a few of their soups you can be creative and branch out. plus there are lots of high quality soup recipes and variations thrown in.

[/ QUOTE ]

This sounds pretty good. As a pretty novice cook, I love the idea of getting books that can add to my general knowledge as I progress through the recipes. Sounds like this book can do that. Thanks.

KJS

[El Diablo]

Experienced cooks,

Any of you guys have How to Cook Everything by Bittman, or were you already advanced enough by the time that came out that it was too basic? If any of you have it, would love your opinion on how that stacks up against other basic cooking books. When I want to know how to cook something new, I just head to the net, most often to Williams Sonoma Recipes. But I'm thinking it's about time for me to have a book in the kitchen.