Best African Cooking, Food & Wine
In Afro-Vegan, renowned chef and food justice activist Bryant Terry reworks and remixes the favorite staples, ingredients, and classic dishes of the African Diaspora to present more than 100 wholly new, creative culinary combinations that will amaze vegans, vegetarians, and omnivores alike. Afro-Vegan shows us how to be proud of our storied, vegetable-rich foodways.”. —Hugh Acheson, chef and author of A New Turn in the South “ Afro-Vegan animates the cuisine of the African diaspora with the detail, reverence, and passion it deserves. He inspires us to celebrate and explore.”. —Dayo Olopade, author of The Bright Continent: Breaking Rules and Making Change in Modern Africa “If A People’s History Of The United States and Joy of Cooking had a baby, Afro-Vegan would be it!”. —Isa Chandra Moskowitz, author of Veganomicon and Isa Does It “In this beautiful, casual collection of recipes from across the African diaspora, Bryant Terry brings to life a vegetable, grain, spice-based culinary heritage too often ignored.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"In addition to over 100 intriguing recipes (I’ve made about six since getting the book last week, and they were amazing), Chef Terry shares his obvious passion for life and food, for music and art, for high culture and down-home good times, for gourmet appetites and raw-knuckled activism. At one level, this is a cookbook for African Americans, showing the way back to a traditional, healthy, local, seasonal, and plant-centered diet that speaks of community, resilience, innovation, and love. It’s full of appreciation for the heroes - sung and unsung - of the various movements of liberation and exploration whose efforts have paved the way for Mr Terry’s considerable accomplishments. Chef Terry's encyclopedic knowledge of techniques and ingredients from all over the world allow him to synthesize and fuse artistically: North African chermoula sauce meets tempeh (fermented Indonesian soybean cake); Jamaican patty filled with Lousiana maque choux; Brazilian vatapa informed with Southern okra, corn, and tomatoes."
"I feel like vegan cookbooks can sometimes be repetitive, they always contain some type of "cheeze" recipe, and they all contain complex versions of traditional meat-based entrees."
"I'll roll up my sleeves again some day and really give some of the recipes a go."
"bought as a gift...it was well received."
"Purchased for a friend and she LOVED it!"
"Wonderful book , The most beautiful cookbook i ever bought ."
"New look at food and very creative."
"Now this cookbook is very useful and has recipes I love!"
In Ghillie Basan’s collection of deliciously authentic recipes you will find some of the best-loved classics of the Moroccan kitchen, such as the sumptuous Lamb Tagine with Dates, Almonds, and Pistachios, and the tangy Chicken Tagine with Preserved Lemon, Green Olives, and Thyme. Her food and travel articles have appeared in the Sunday Herald, Scotland on Sunday, and BBC Good Food Magazine.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Emile Henry Flame Top 2.6-Quart Tagine Red. Harissa Paste 8.0 Oz By Zamouri Spices. Ras El Hanout 4.0 Oz By Zamouri Spices."
"The aged butter recipe though, did not work out and I had to start over using another recipe that required melting the butter instead and then adding the salt directly to the melted butter, straining the foam through a cheesecloth and diffusing the butter with 2 teaspoons of oregano wrapped in a bit of cheesecloth to the melting butter."
"I gave this as a gift to my Moroccan son-in-law and he was thrilled with it."
"I love the recipes in this book, and really appreciate the full color photos that accompany each one."
"Beautiful pictures and clear instructions."
"My first tagine cookbook, and I recommend it if you're like me...just getting started."
"Tried each recipe...all are keepers."
"Now that my preserved lemons are ready to use, I am having great difficulty trying to decide which recipes to cook first, because each one in this collection is top shelf."
Paula Wolfert, the undisputed queen of Mediterranean cooking, provides food lovers with the definitive guide to The Food of Morocco . A labor of love four decades in the making, The Food of Morocco is a once-in-a-lifetime book of uncommon scope and authenticity, an essential work for every serious cook, anyone interested in Moroccan cuisine, and discerning armchair travelers alike.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This book gives the ambitious American home cook all the info needed to create stunningly delicious Moroccan meals. Of the nine recipes I've made in the month I've owned it, eight--the almond milk drink, the cucumber and orange water salad, the crushed spiced carrot salad, the basic couscous recipe, the chicken tagine with apricots and pine nuts, the chicken smothered in tomato jam, the lamb tagine with toasted almonds and hard-cooked eggs and the tangier-style chickpea-lentil soup called harira--were lick your chops 'can we make this again tomorrow' amazing. The last one, a carrot salad with cumin, cinnamon and sweet paprika, was pretty good but given all the other amazing recipes in this book I probably won't make it again. You can buy much of what you need at a regular supermarket, but the recipes are better if you follow the advice on ingredients at the beginning of the book. One confusing spot in the Tangier-Style Harira recipe, for example, is the instruction to put beef marrow bones and diced lamb in a deep pot "without any added fat, cover and steam over medium-low heat." I puzzled over it with a friend who is a professionally trained chef; at first she, too, was confused and then she finally told me to just cook it on medium-low and let it steam in its own juices. But for those considering the pros and cons of this book carefully, here are a few other criticisms--and collectively the main reason I knocked off a star. My friends taught me that, when sharing a tagine with others at the table, you eat the veggies first, exposing the meat---and then the small piece is divided into equal parts so everyone gets a bite. **Too few practical photos/Too many fun photos** This 500+ page book is full of gorgeous color photos, making it you know, heavy enough to use for bicep curls in a pinch. But unless it is summer and you have your own garden or access to a farmer's market, the tomatoes you will get will be tasteless plasticey industrialized orbs that were picked green and gassed to make them look red before they put them on supermarket shelves. For example, for the Harira, Ms. Wolfert has you soak chickpeas at least ten hours, then peel them (by running over them with a rolling pin). ** Granted that Harissa, this spicy chili-garlic paste, is actually from neighboring countries and has gained popularity in Morocco. But I don't have a corner souk and while yes, I can find it in Boston or order it mail-order from one of the sources helpfully listed in her book, it's faster to make it than schlepping all over town--and given the quality available here, likely better and fresher. My skill level has increased, and I'm in the habit of always pre-making basic ingredients--such as tomato magic, kama spice mix etc, and as a result I now find many of the recipes fairly easy. Compared with other cookbooks which can be hit or miss, this one has a great track record with me: Everything I made has been at minimum very very good, and at least half of the recipes in here are exceptional to my palate at least. The chicken-apricot tagine, mentioned at the top of the review, has become a regular on my dinner table, and I often make several of the easy flatbreads in the book as well, my favorite being the Bread with Sesame and Anise seeds. It's refreshing to work with a book where I know in advance that the results will be good, even if it is the first time I'm making a recipe. No way does this work for me...maybe I'm a klutz, but I end up with such an ugly, unappetizing design I just smooth it out to make a layer of almond paste."
"The pictures are stunning, and Ms. Wolfert descrbes the dishes, how she came to find them, and the cooking process so beautifully, you want to try all of them (well, maybe not the ones with organ meat)."
"I actually haven't tried any of the recipes yet as I just received it earlier this week, but the recipes and methods seem to be authentic as well as reasonable to adapt in a western kitchen."
"The Food of Morocco is such an exceptional cookbook."
"I love Moroccan food."
"A beautiful book of recipes and information about Morocco."
"i served the carrot salad to family and friends on Memorial Day and the comments were very interesting--my guests who passed when the bowl came around the first time and after people started oohing and aahing, everyone eventually tried them and loved them."
"Paula Wolfert is the ultimate go-to on Medterranean, and especially Moroccan, cuisines outside of the region."
Best African Cooking
In Afro-Vegan, renowned chef and food justice activist Bryant Terry reworks and remixes the favorite staples, ingredients, and classic dishes of the African Diaspora to present more than 100 wholly new, creative culinary combinations that will amaze vegans, vegetarians, and omnivores alike. Pointing out the high incidence of African Americans with diet-preventable diseases, such as hypertension and type 2 diabetes, Terry sets out to help correct that situation one meal at a time, jumping right into specific dishes and their preparation. Afro-Vegan shows us how to be proud of our storied, vegetable-rich foodways.”. —Hugh Acheson, chef and author of A New Turn in the South “ Afro-Vegan animates the cuisine of the African diaspora with the detail, reverence, and passion it deserves. He inspires us to celebrate and explore.”. —Dayo Olopade, author of The Bright Continent: Breaking Rules and Making Change in Modern Africa “If A People’s History Of The United States and Joy of Cooking had a baby, Afro-Vegan would be it!”. —Isa Chandra Moskowitz, author of Veganomicon and Isa Does It “In this beautiful, casual collection of recipes from across the African diaspora, Bryant Terry brings to life a vegetable, grain, spice-based culinary heritage too often ignored.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"In addition to over 100 intriguing recipes (I’ve made about six since getting the book last week, and they were amazing), Chef Terry shares his obvious passion for life and food, for music and art, for high culture and down-home good times, for gourmet appetites and raw-knuckled activism. At one level, this is a cookbook for African Americans, showing the way back to a traditional, healthy, local, seasonal, and plant-centered diet that speaks of community, resilience, innovation, and love. It’s full of appreciation for the heroes - sung and unsung - of the various movements of liberation and exploration whose efforts have paved the way for Mr Terry’s considerable accomplishments. Chef Terry's encyclopedic knowledge of techniques and ingredients from all over the world allow him to synthesize and fuse artistically: North African chermoula sauce meets tempeh (fermented Indonesian soybean cake); Jamaican patty filled with Lousiana maque choux; Brazilian vatapa informed with Southern okra, corn, and tomatoes."
"I feel like vegan cookbooks can sometimes be repetitive, they always contain some type of "cheeze" recipe, and they all contain complex versions of traditional meat-based entrees."
"I'll roll up my sleeves again some day and really give some of the recipes a go."
"bought as a gift...it was well received."
"Purchased for a friend and she LOVED it!"
"Wonderful book , The most beautiful cookbook i ever bought ."
"New look at food and very creative."
"Now this cookbook is very useful and has recipes I love!"
Best Caribbean & West Indian Cooking & Wine
In Afro-Vegan, renowned chef and food justice activist Bryant Terry reworks and remixes the favorite staples, ingredients, and classic dishes of the African Diaspora to present more than 100 wholly new, creative culinary combinations that will amaze vegans, vegetarians, and omnivores alike. Afro-Vegan shows us how to be proud of our storied, vegetable-rich foodways.”. —Hugh Acheson, chef and author of A New Turn in the South “ Afro-Vegan animates the cuisine of the African diaspora with the detail, reverence, and passion it deserves. He inspires us to celebrate and explore.”. —Dayo Olopade, author of The Bright Continent: Breaking Rules and Making Change in Modern Africa “If A People’s History Of The United States and Joy of Cooking had a baby, Afro-Vegan would be it!”. —Isa Chandra Moskowitz, author of Veganomicon and Isa Does It “In this beautiful, casual collection of recipes from across the African diaspora, Bryant Terry brings to life a vegetable, grain, spice-based culinary heritage too often ignored.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"In addition to over 100 intriguing recipes (I’ve made about six since getting the book last week, and they were amazing), Chef Terry shares his obvious passion for life and food, for music and art, for high culture and down-home good times, for gourmet appetites and raw-knuckled activism. At one level, this is a cookbook for African Americans, showing the way back to a traditional, healthy, local, seasonal, and plant-centered diet that speaks of community, resilience, innovation, and love. It’s full of appreciation for the heroes - sung and unsung - of the various movements of liberation and exploration whose efforts have paved the way for Mr Terry’s considerable accomplishments. Chef Terry's encyclopedic knowledge of techniques and ingredients from all over the world allow him to synthesize and fuse artistically: North African chermoula sauce meets tempeh (fermented Indonesian soybean cake); Jamaican patty filled with Lousiana maque choux; Brazilian vatapa informed with Southern okra, corn, and tomatoes."
"I feel like vegan cookbooks can sometimes be repetitive, they always contain some type of "cheeze" recipe, and they all contain complex versions of traditional meat-based entrees."
"I'll roll up my sleeves again some day and really give some of the recipes a go."
"bought as a gift...it was well received."
"Purchased for a friend and she LOVED it!"
"Wonderful book , The most beautiful cookbook i ever bought ."
"New look at food and very creative."
"Now this cookbook is very useful and has recipes I love!"
Best General Georgia US Travel Guides
In this enchanting book, Robinson presents the delicious, robust dishes of her native Sea Islands and offers readers a taste of the unique, West African-influenced Gullah culture still found there. Beautiful photos of island life and a relaxed attitude toward cooking ("these are recipes, not rules") make for accessible additions to anyone's Southern repertoire, with homespun dishes like Tada Salad, Sea Island Okra Gumbo and Fuskie Crab Patties. Pot Full O' Coon and Fried Squirrel may not be the next trendy item on a Manhattan menu (Robinson admits she doesn't cook possum anymore), but these are the recipes that give the book its unique, almost anthropological intrigue.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Since I already taught myself Cajun/Creole/Caribbean cooking 33 years ago, I ordered this book to better prepare for my upcoming trip to the Low Country. Call it bland, but limited budgets and kids who complain of spicy food tends to keep cooking very simple. Once one starts experimenting and getting fancy, they risk cooking disasters that will never make it to the finest tables in gourmet restaurants."
"There is so much history of the area and of great home cooking Gullah dishes."
"Wonderful recipes and history."
"I loved the story prior to the runaway fried chicken recipe."
"excellent."
"I loved learning about what it was like growing up on Daufaskie, but it had a lot of recipes starting with onion, bacon grease, etc."
"Again, easy to read."
Best Mexican Cooking, Food & Wine
Your friends and family will enjoy Tomato and Mozzarella Salad with Pickled Ancho Chile Vinaigrette; Crab Cakes with Jalapeño Aioli; and Chicken Tinga — (you can use rotisserie chicken), which makes a tasty filling for tortas and tostadas. Pati also shares exciting dishes for the holidays and other special occasions, including Mexican Thanksgiving Turkey with Chorizo, Pecan, Apple, and Corn Bread Stuffing; Spiral-Cut Beef Tenderloin; and Red Pozole (“a Mexican party in a bowl”), which she served on her wedding day. Your friends and family will enjoy Tomato and Mozzarella Salad with Pickled Ancho Chile Vinaigrette; Crab Cakes with Jalapeño Aioli; and Chicken Tinga (you can use rotisserie chicken), which makes a tasty filling for tortas and tostadas. Pati also shares exciting dishes for the holidays and other special occasions, including Mexican Thanksgiving Turkey with Chorizo, Pecan, Apple, and Corn Bread Stuffing; Spiral-Cut Beef Tenderloin; and Red Pozole (a Mexican party in a bowl), which she served on her wedding day.Desserts like Triple Orange Mexican Wedding Cookies, Scribble Cookies. (sandwich cookies filled with chocolate), and little Apricot-Lime Glazed Mini Pound Cakes are sophisticated yet simple to make.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I preordered this book the day Amazon offered it, expecting a collection of recipes from Pati's PBS programs. There are about 60 green-highlighted sidebars, most of which describe a Mexican ingredient and how it is prepared and enjoyed: tamarind, corn versus flour tortillas, several varieties of chiles, hibiscus flowers, cinnamon, and buying avocados. The recipes are flexible and you can substitute pork for beef or adjust the chiles and other flavors to taste. One tip: It's efficient to prepare meals from the book over consecutive nights so you can re-purpose the food as Pati does -- salsas, beans, meats, tortillas. If you want to cook Mexican for your family, order this book and buy an avocado and a few chiles."
"Very easy to follow delicious Mexican recipes with ingredients you can easily find in any super market in the US."
"She is great!"
"Can't wait to use these recipes."
"Love Pati and her book is great."
"great , simple recipes that taste great!"
Best European Cooking, Food & Wine
With five bustling restaurants in London and two stellar cookbooks, Ottolenghi is one of the most respected chefs in the world; in Jerusalem, he and Tamimi have collaborated to produce their most personal cookbook yet. The book’s leisurely pace picks up with the introduction of dishes, some familiar but many not, that include fattoush, latkes, mejadra, clear chicken soup with knaidlach, pan-fried mackerel with golden beetroot and orange salsa, and helbeh (fenugreek cake).
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This cookbook is approachable and the recipes are actually something you will make...and then make again. ****Edit****I would just like to say, that one of the reasons, I think, that this is so doable for a Middle Eastern cookbook, is these are the recipes that regular people make."
"This cookbook offers both; the recipes work (I should note I have the UK edition without US conversions)--many of the techniques are new to me and they work well--and the flavors are amazing. The first recipes I made from this book were the roasted cauliflower salad with celery, hazelnuts and pomegranate and the sofrito chicken. I am adding this cookbook to my top 10 list because a) it's a beautiful, well-written book, b) the recipes work very well when followed to the letter, but there's lots of room for improvisation, c) the flavor and texture combinations are complex, subtle and well-balanced, and d) the dishes are delicious."
"The recipes are well described so you can successfully create a great diverse table full of beautiful plated food."
"This is a wonderful cookbook to read - lots of content, stories, reminiscences, with pictures that are worth a thousand words, all in addition to some great recipes."
"Such a wonderful cookbook!"
"Some of these recipes were more beautiful on the pages of this book than in reality...some odd preparations but a good creative source for cooks looking to expand their usual fare."
"I thought my mom had plenty of cookbooks already."
"This book is a classic."
Best Canadian Cooking, Food & Wine
Discover 250 Keto Recipe for Instant Pot Recipes for breakfast, dinner, lunch, snacks, desserts Save you time, money and energy: all recipes are easy to cook Improve your health: all recipes are healthy and well balanced Increase your happiness: happiness and food are highly connected.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I would recommend this cookbook (Informational guide) to anyone who is hoping to eat better, feel better and look healthier."
"This book deals with all sorts of recipes for pot cooking."
"That’s by far the best book on instant pot cooking I now have, out of the five I recently purchased."
"Simple, easy to follow recipes with ingredients you have on your shelf or pantry."
"I love this book!"
"Not only are the recipes amazingly easy and delicious, the other half of the book is packed with information on how the diet works, tricks and tips for fitting it into your every day life, and lots of encouragement from someone who has been there, done that when it comes to food addiction."
"I thought that the recipes we're good and do able but why switch sweeteners from solid to liquid?"
"SOOO many interesting options and simple recipes and they need only a few simple ingredients!"
Best Latin American Cooking, Food & Wine
“Elemental, fundamental, and delicious” is how Anthony Bourdain describes the trailblazing live-fire cooking of Francis Mallmann. Francis Mallmann is the reigning star of food television in the Spanish-speaking world, and the most famous and popular chef in South America.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I want to eat every page in this book."
"His rustic and unfussy, but uncompromising and deeply considered, approach to live-fire cooking shows that grilling can be sophisticated and gourmet, and I've fallen in love, as he has, with the bittersweet, rich flavors of food charred over live fire. He elaborates on the incredibly strong foundation established in Seven Fires, incorporating the regional ingredients and influences of the locations he visits throughout the book while making the approach a bit more practical. Mallmann explicitly rejects elaborate grills and excessively fussy prep and technique here - the whole message is to resist the urge to overthink and overdo, and simply to get outside in beautiful surroundings and cook good food over fire. Some may feel that this is a compromise, but I think it's more a nod to the reality that a towering hardwood bonfire is not an everyday undertaking - whether you're a revered Argentine asador or a tired new dad making dinner after work - and that the perfect is often the enemy of the good. It's a little bit disappointing not to see recipes for lamb on iron crosses and salmon cooked in the infiernillo (a double-decker bonfire that forms the oven from hell) - simply because those approaches are so heroic and awesome."
"Did Mallmann meet my expectations?"
"Beautiful photography and easy to follow recipes."
"We cook a lot over our outdoor fire pit and when we go camping."
"The illustrations are inspiring."
"Beautiful photos and stories."
Best Native American Cooking, Food & Wine
In his breakout book, The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen , Sherman shares his approach to creating boldly seasoned foods that are vibrant, healthful, at once elegant and easy. Chef Sean Sherman was born in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, and has been cooking in Minnesota, South Dakota, and Montana for the past twenty-seven years.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I recently cooked a whole dinner, from the book and everyone (including my kids) ate every bite and we had in depth conversations about Native American history and how life was like before the Europeans arrived."
"It would take some dedication and access to ingredients to make some of the actual recipes, but it's definitely one of the most exciting cookbooks (and the only non-digital) that I have bought in the past few years."
"Great text, excellent recipes."
"A great resource full of both functional instructions and detailed explanations to provide additional cultural context to a given ingredient or preparation method."
"Some of the most interesting dishes and so yummy!"
"Tasty recipes and good information."
"This was a gift and it has been well received on its content."
"I love the book, and it arrived on time!"
Best International Cooking, Food & Wine
This impressive go-to kitchen resource also includes helpful tips for cooking success including: How to integrate the Mediterranean diet into your diet; “Why This Recipe Works” educational notes from our chefs on why a particular ingredient or technique worked best; Recipe variations for creative inspiration; Nutritional Information; Helpful conversion charts for both volume and weight; A detailed index to quickly find the recipe you’re looking for. The highly reputable and recognizable brands of America’s Test Kitchen, Cook’s Illustrated, Cook’s Country, and Cook’s Science are the work of over 60 passionate chefs based in Boston, Massachusetts who put ingredients, cookware, equipment and recipes through objective, rigorous testing to identify the very best.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Second, this is much more than a book of recipes."
"It's helped us shift our eating habits away from meat, potatoes and pasta - although all three are included here - to healthier options."
"The table of contents in each section lists special indicators (little colored squares) after dishes which are either fast (45 minutes or less) or vegetarian. And then there are little "notes" inserted every few pages which go into a specific ingredient, what to look for, how it's used...things like sardines, pancetta, bay leaves...or else methods, like how to properly wash and dry a salad, or how to salt-soak beans. Many of the recipes also list further variations, such as pan roasted cauliflower...which then shows how to add capers and pine nuts, or spices and pistachios."
"It's a good cookbook, but if you're looking for manageable weeknight recipes and cook alone (no help in the kitchen) or work for a living, you may want to consider a different book...although I'm not sure what book that would be."
"I love to grill, love vegetables, grains and pasta, and this book will keep me busy for some time."
"Excelent book!"
"So far I have made the vegetable gratin, roasted artichokes, chicken kabobs, and a baked lemon fish potato dish. The potato lemon cod/hake dish was really good and it was very quick to make. The artichokes didn't come out as anticipated but this was also the first time I'd ever touched a fresh artichoke much less cooked one so I will take the blame on that."
Best Middle Eastern Cooking, Food & Wine
With five bustling restaurants in London and two stellar cookbooks, Ottolenghi is one of the most respected chefs in the world; in Jerusalem, he and Tamimi have collaborated to produce their most personal cookbook yet. The book’s leisurely pace picks up with the introduction of dishes, some familiar but many not, that include fattoush, latkes, mejadra, clear chicken soup with knaidlach, pan-fried mackerel with golden beetroot and orange salsa, and helbeh (fenugreek cake).
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This cookbook is approachable and the recipes are actually something you will make...and then make again. ****Edit****I would just like to say, that one of the reasons, I think, that this is so doable for a Middle Eastern cookbook, is these are the recipes that regular people make."
"We ended up getting it for my father in law for Christmas and I think he read the whole thing cover to cover on Christmas Day."
"This cookbook offers both; the recipes work (I should note I have the UK edition without US conversions)--many of the techniques are new to me and they work well--and the flavors are amazing. The first recipes I made from this book were the roasted cauliflower salad with celery, hazelnuts and pomegranate and the sofrito chicken. I am adding this cookbook to my top 10 list because a) it's a beautiful, well-written book, b) the recipes work very well when followed to the letter, but there's lots of room for improvisation, c) the flavor and texture combinations are complex, subtle and well-balanced, and d) the dishes are delicious."
"Bought this book for my sister's birthday and my husband had me order one for him to take to work."
"The recipes are well described so you can successfully create a great diverse table full of beautiful plated food."
"I have it both as a book and on Kindle -- I usually don't buy cookbooks like this one on Kindle because I love the real book -- but I knew I would want to show off some of these recipes when I am visiting family and friends so I have them portable, too."
"Such a wonderful cookbook!"
Best U.S. Regional Cooking, Food & Wine
How to make homemade mac 'n' cheese that is as satisfyingly gooey and velvety-smooth as the blue box stuff, but far tastier? In hundreds of easy-to-make recipes with over 1,000 full-color images, you will find out how to make foolproof Hollandaise sauce in just two minutes, how to transform one simple tomato sauce into a half dozen dishes, how to make the crispiest, creamiest potato casserole ever conceived, and much more. “[Kenji] approaches recipe development with monomaniacal zeal, then shares the delicious results with the infectious enthusiasm of the coolest teacher you had in high school.”. - The Globe and Mail.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon""The Food Lab" by Lopez-Alt is a dense collection of science based tips, explanations, techniques, and recipes for the home cook. I really like the way this book has been laid out: - The introduction is a modest overview of the author and his background followed by some really helpful information on equipment (such as an explanation on techniques for holding knives, how heat transfers through metal for consideration in what type of pan to use, essential equipment to have in your kitchen, and how to store and organize your fridge and pantry). * Cooked Vegetables has a great range of side dishes such as Brussels sprouts, Mexican street corn salad, roasted cauliflower, mashed potatoes, glazed carrots, and quite a few more recipes. Recipes in this chapter include mac 'n' cheese, risotto, linguine with clams, lasagna, and spaghetti. - The front and back book covers insides have conversion tables to be opened or flipped to quickly as a reference."
"And this book is great, and beautiful, full of photos, his great sense of humor, and excellent instructions. I was just hoping to see more of that type of food, whereas this book is targeted towards beginners (not to say that experienced cooks can't get value out of this book, because it's full of great info) or more specifically, towards people who haven't been reading his column all this time. Though in the meanwhile, there are already recipes I've got bookmarked to try out, like his puttanesca, pot roast, oven fries, THAT MEATLOAF, not to mention his excellent egg salad, which I've previously made from the site…. I'm so glad to be able to pay Kenji back in some form for the years of free content on Serious Eats and I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in cooking and improving their skills, in particular beginner cooks."
"Like most cookbooks today, it begins with a background of the author, who is an MIT grad turned culinary scientist. There are some things which go contrary to cooking norms (flip your steak often, and searing does not lock in juice), but there are explanations for the methods behinds the madness. Even if you never bother to make a recipe from this book verbatim, it will greatly increase your cooking skills from practical knowledge of physics, chemistry, taste, and technique."