Customer Reviews

The Breakaway Cook: Recipes That Break Away from the Ordinary

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My cooking -- and cookbook purchasing -- usually fall within French and Italian traditions. When I want Asian food, I head to restaurants, and when I hear the word "fusion" I run rapidly in the opposite direction.
But as Gower writes in the introduction, "breakaway cooking is fusion that actually makes sense."


Simple to execute and bursting with flavor, Gower's recipes produce food that is light, healthy and, most of all, delicious. I own hundreds of cookbooks but it's been a long time since I've bought one that made me want to start with the first recipe and cook straight through to the end.

I've never been a very adventurous cook so weird food combinations and complicated recipes give me The Fear. This book is so entertaining and interesting - it made me want to try all sorts of new things! And everything was really easy and straightforward to prepare.

With only a few basic purchases i was able to try all sorts of cool new dishes and even my very boring traditional midwestern husband loved loved LOVED the food from this book. Its a whole new way to approach cooking, very simple, very fresh, and not too complicated for the average housewife who's just trying to get a nice meal on the table. Buy this book, it will rock your world!

The title says it all...Eric absolutely "Breaks Away" from the norm with this book and these recipes. "The Breakaway Cook" reads like a fun novel,too. His writing makes it entertaining to learn about cooking with tips on what you need, don't need to cook really good food. I've always been a cookbook reader, altho was raised by probably the best "chef", my Italian mom who, to my knowledge, has never used a "recipe" in her cooking. "You know honey, just a little of this and that like grandma used to do". And honestly, I never cooked growing up because it was mom's passion.(she would only allow us near the stove to "steal" a meatball or 2 from the pot!)But, I've always enjoyed reading about using different spices, herbs and other ingredients in cooking. Now, as an adult and mom not living here to cook for me, I've HAD to learn to cook and find I love it.I watch all the cooking shows on TV, but find lately that it's the "same old, same old". Eric not only uses some of the usual ingredients in unique ways, but also some very unusual(to me) which I'm dying to find and try. The photography is simply amazing. I've heard it said, "the picture looks so real, it's af if you can pick it up from the page and eat it". These are so incredibly clear and detailed, my mouth waters from their sight. Bravo, Mr. Gower. Keep 'em coming!

Eric Gower's new book is a fantastic followup to his The Breakaway Japanese Kitchen: Inspired New Tastes. Like his first book, he delivers dish after dish of his "breakaway" style of cooking - experimental, unconventional and not fussy at all. In this book, Gower expands on what he means by breakaway cooking, by describing the foundations of his "breakaway" recipes: starting with the primary colors of his flavor palate - tangy (citrus/vinegar), savory (herbs and spices) and sweet (complex sugars), to his nine global ingredients from carrot juice to Asian ingredients like fine green tea and ginger to blasts of heat and flavor from the habanero chile; and the key "Breakaway Flavor Blasts" that he uses with great effect in the recipes to follow. Though many of his ingredients are influenced by his having lived for 15 years in Japan, his bottom-line philosophy is a playful one, encouraging the reader to even break away from his own Breakaway Cooking to create something wonderfully tasty.

His philosophy is not unlike "The Elements of Taste" by Gray Kunz and Peter Kaminsky, and equally effective, but where Gower truly succeeds is in the simplicity and non-fussy approach to cooking. Rather than fuss for hours over the specifics of complicated culinary technique, Gower's approach is to transform the food with a breakaway blast to come up with a simple (yet complex tasting) winner of a dish.

This is a fantastic book, that belongs in the kitchens of anyone interested in food and cooking. Furthermore, the photography in the book is incredibly gorgeous, very lush and appetizing. If I didn't know better, I'd try to lick the food right off of the page!

I have a lot of cookbooks (I mean a lot) and I am forever searching for something new. I had heard about soy-brined turkey on the Splendid Table and sought out the man who had invented that. It's ingenious. Eric Gower's cookbook surpassed my hopes.

His recipes are simple (4-5 ingredients) but are totally unlike anything I've ever read. He mixes asian flavors like yuzu, umeboshi and pomegrante molasses with old school western cooking. The book is beautiful as well, every other page is adorned with a photo of one of his creations.

A few examples...


*Maccha chocolate cake
*Salmon glazed with pomegrante molasses
*Tomato soup with smoked paprika and thai basil
*Butternut squash ginger fresh rolls


This is one of those cookbooks that could change your cooking forever.

Eric Gower's terrific new book The Breakaway Cook, like his previous, The Breakaway Japanese Kitchen, is stunningly simple in preparation, but extremely high in flavor and inspiration. He continues to show a flair for Japanese ingredients, but also goes far beyond these roots (Eric lived in Japan for a while, but now we've got him in the Bay Area - hooray!) to seek out the "global flavor blasts", playing with intensely flavorful ingredients like smoked paprika, habanero, lavender, maccha, maple syrup, and tangerine.

All through The Breakaway Cook, Eric demonstrates really simple ideas and preparations utilising these ingredients (e.g. umeboshi duck legs, maccha salt, they're fusion ideas without all the confusion) which are great for both weekend chefs and more serious cooks. Especially so for all of us time-challenged individuals who want interesting food without a whole lot of fuss. I find this inspiring volume now occupies a place on my all-time favorite cookbooks shelf next to Simple French Food, Japanese Cooking A Simple Art, and The Complete Meat Cookbook. I highly recommend this book.

I finally had a little time this weekend to dig into a recent addition to my cookbook collection, Eric Gower's The Breakaway Cook, which is a gorgeous and inventive cookbook emphasizing full flavors from around the globe and a pantry stocked with unexpected ingredients that quickly become staples. I've already become addicted to his flavored salts, which take about 30 seconds to make in a spice or coffee grinder (sea salt blended with lavender, dried tangerines, smoked paprika, or Japanese green tea powder).

Yesterday I made his Minty Boozy Chicken dish that is basically marinated and then sauced with a pureed mojito, with the addition of some onion, garlic, and cilantro, and it was just succulent and wonderful. This morning I followed his instructions for fluffy herbed scrambled eggs, where the tip of the day was to use a few spoonfuls of Greek yogurt where I otherwise might have used milk. Delicious. Even my picky husband and kids ate with gusto.

Don't feel intimidated by the sophistication of the flavors here -- once you've acquired a few new ingredients, Gower's instructions are simple and his techniques are adaptable to numerous dishes. The book is also beautifully illustrated to help guide you, and would make a great gift for novice and experienced home cooks.

I have had The Breakaway Cook for several months and love to look through it. I have made quite a few of the recipes and they all turn out fantastically. I have also become a Breakaway Salts convert. Because of reading the book I now have three little jars of flavored salts on my stove: Lavender Salt, Maccha Salt, and Smoked Paprika Salt. The next one I want to try is Citrus Salt. The salts are an amazing way to add unexpected flavor to normally dullish food. This book makes a great present. You could add to it a spice grinder and some good sel gris and have a fantastic-attention-to-detail kind of gift.

Eric Gower has, and that's the beauty of "The Breakaway Cook." Gower is courageous and creative when it comes to combining flavors, traditions and whole hemispheres. Why not put mole (from Mexico) on tofu (from Japan)? I love this.

The other great thing about breakaway cooking: It Does Not Take All Day. Combine green tea powder with sea salt and sprinkle it on a poached egg, boom, done. And you're left with something you've never had before. I love this, too.

Lovely photography and creamy, heavy paper make this a fine gift for any foodie friend.

I buy cookbooks as a hobby but this is one of the very few cookbooks that I have actually used more than a few times. The first recipe I tried was "Minty, Meaty Wontons". Sounds exotic and difficult, but it was actually easy to prepare and incredibly tasty. Then I went on to try "Minty, Boozy Chicken" and "Pizzettas". All were a hit with my family and friends. Eric's recipes are original, wake up your taste buds, and easy to prepare. And with each recipe I've become a much more adventurous cook. This is definitely a "must have" cookbook!!