Customer Reviews

Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook: Strategies, Recipes, and Techniques of Classic Bistro Cooking [ANTHONY BOURDAINS LES HALLES C]

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I like Bourdain's humor and lightness in the approach to writing. I love that he is deadly serious about writing a great cook book which has luxiruous recipes that can be cooked at home. His ingredients, ratios of ingredients, and cook times are exact and infinatly repeatable.

But his ideas and practice of preparation really can bring ones cooking up to a higher plain. He discuss shopping equipment and prep in the introduction before the recipes. This section is helpful to anyone who wants to increase there technique and preparatory skills. Then the recipes help one practice these ideas. This kind of prep allows one to serve dishes hot to your guest and still have time to chat with them over dinner. He often has recipes that have small steps which may be excuted the day before cooking which breaks up the prep of dishes and make the final excution of dishes easier and less time consumming.

He also presents a few items in the kitchen that are essential such as butter and shallots and FRESH HERBS. He stresses good ingredents, a good knife and shoping where you can score the good stuff. He has lots of variations for the various dishes and incourages varitation. He states all you really need is a good knife, a few decent pans good ingredents and preparation to cook good as a Line Cook I believe he is right. He has given me great recipes but just as important was more time with my friends as we eat, because things are prepared and ready to go. He takes away the unexpected in your cooking which allows more time for variation. He stresses preparation a day or two before may make a lovely dinner more peaceful and fofilling for you and your guest.

The recipes are truelly high end bistro fare. I have made variations on his Pate de Champange I used his technique but added venison or rabbit to the base recipe. His blood sausage and french apples are out of this world. I have also made the Rillettes and they were fabulous. I have used his garlic confitt recipe and also make Shallots confitte based on his recipe. His candied orange (or any citris ) peel recipe has added a lot to my cooking also.

This is an excellent French cook book with great technique which is easy to follow. His recipes work and allow for variation. They can easily be used as is or you can take off in new directions.

The first chapter was enough to make the price of the book (hardback! not cheap!) worth it. Boudain explains what is means to get your 'mise en place.' I never heard this before and certainly never did it. Today I served banana pancakes with canadian bacon to three friends. Because of Bourdain and my mise I wasn't rattled and everyone ate well.