Chef, Interrupted: Delicious Chefs' Recipes That You Can Actually Make at Home [Hardcover]

Melissa Clark (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 11, 2005

For anyone who aspires to restaurant-chef-type food but not the long ingredient lists and interminable cooking directions, here’s the perfect book. Melissa Clark retains the spark of genius in the chefs’ original time-consuming recipes, but pares them down (interrupts the chefs) to their most essential, simple elements, allowing any cook to create four-star cuisine at home without a staff of sous-chefs, an unlimited budget, and an entire weekend to fritter away. Chef, Interrupted is like taking a cooking class from not one or two but more than fifty world-renowned chefs across a broad spectrum of expertise, including seafood with Eric Ripert and dessert with Claudia Fleming, American standouts like Tom Colicchio and Wylie Dufresne, and the international flavors of Norman Van Aken, Bobby Flay, and Marcus Samuelsson.

For the past decade, Melissa Clark has made a name for herself by doing one thing very adeptly: making chefs’ recipes accessible to home cooks, whether through coauthoring books with the likes of David Bouley and Daniel Boulud or writing “The Chef” columns and other articles in the New York Times. Melissa is a genius at discovering what’s really great about a chef’s recipe, then simplifying it—keeping the part where the recipe is inventive and delicious, and then interrupting the chef when it gets out of hand.

The result—this book—is a remarkable combination of creative cuisine and real-life practicalities, and Chef, Interrupted offers a fantastic panoply of mouthwatering dishes. From salads like Suzanne Goin’s Arugula-Mint Salad with Apricots and Cumin to fish like Christian Delouvrier’s Roasted Cod with Brandade Potatoes, from Jonathan Waxman’s Pollo al Forno with Panzanella to Tom Douglas’s Citrus-Braised Pork Shank with Bread-Crumb Gremolata, from Bill Telepan’s Heirloom Pea Pancakes with Smoked Salmon and Crème Fraîche to Claudia Fleming’s Goat Cheese Cake with Thyme-Macerated Raspberry Compote—this is restaurant food that you can really and truly make at home.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Chefs' cookbooks are notorious for enticing recipes that home cooks can't hack. In Chef, Interrupted, Melissa Clark betters the situation. She's taken recipes from leading chefs like Mario Batali, Daniel Boulud, and Alain Ducasse and pared them down--interrupted them, as she puts it--for home use. Included are the attractive likes of Heirloom Pea Pancakes with Smoked Salmon and Crème Fraîche; Spaghetti with Preserved Tuna, Lemon Zest, Hot Pepper, Capers, and Olives; Tagine of Lamb Shanks with Prunes, Ginger, and Toasted Almonds; and Chocolate Peanut Butter Parfaits with Caramelized Bananas.

Clark has the technical smarts (and taste) to know where and how to nip and tuck, usually by removing ancillary preparations or unnecessary steps. If her conscientious work often makes otherwise inaccessible dishes more approachable, readers should also know that many of the dishes, which can call for special ingredients, are still not for everyday cooking. But food-loving readers interested in last-word creations will undoubtedly want to try making this standout fare. To further ease the way, Clark and the chefs provide copious notes that help explain ingredients and techniques while recipe intros offer even more elucidation. With photos that depict the dishes and multiple shots of the author with the chefs on the job, the book should bring top-drawer dining closer to home. --Arthur Boehm

From Publishers Weekly

A prolific cookbook coauthor and food writer, Clark revises the innovative recipes of top restaurant chefs, hoping to make them easier for nonpros. Her tweaks generally consist of replacing hard-to-find or difficult-to-manage ingredients with more available and user-friendly ones, then condensing steps to reduce preparation time and carefully clarifying more advanced techniques. By deconstructing each dish into its most necessary elements and bypassing fussy flourishes, Clark succeeds in keeping the essence of most of the famous chefs' foods. Home cooks will be delighted by Mushroom Risotto with Truffle Tea Foam based on Marcus Samuelsson's Aquavit recipe, or the Charlie Trotter–inspired Five-Spice-Crusted Tuna with Roasted Carrots and Rutabaga Purée, or a streamlined version of Eleven Madison Park's Chocolate–Peanut Butter Parfaits with Caramelized Bananas. Though simplified, these are sophisticated dishes that require planning ahead. Prep times are generally an hour or more, and that doesn't include the many ingredients that require chilling overnight, marinating a day ahead of time or a few extra hours of baking. Despite these obstacles, the promise of being able to prepare dishes made famous by the likes of Mario Batali and Alain Ducasse is indeed alluring. Photos. (On sale Sept. 20)
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Clarkson Potter; First Edition edition (October 11, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400054400
• ISBN-13: 978-1400054404
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #655,859 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very nice execution of a risky concept. Buy it if you have few cookbooks., November 11, 2005

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B. Marold "Bruce W. Marold" (Bethlehem, PA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Chef, Interrupted: Delicious Chefs' Recipes That You Can Actually Make at Home (Hardcover)

`Chef, Interrupted' by leading cookbook co-author, Melissa Clark is a better than average collection of recipes from a very large number (more than the 26 named on the cover) of prominent chefs from around the country, ranging from Batali, Bouley, Boulud, and Colicchio in New York City to Judy Rodgers in San Francisco to Norman Van Aken in Miami to Charlie Trotter in Chicago to Tom Douglas in Seattle.

The factor which makes this better than a simple collection of recipes from famous chefs is the fact that the recipes are simplified and stated by a single expert culinary writer, backed by a single team of recipe testers. This immediately makes the book more valuable than your average collection from diverse sources such as the recent `Today Show' collection of recipes from the TV show talent and various `visiting fireman' chefs, including many of the same names such as Batali and Boulud.

But, one must ask, is this book really worth it. If I apply my `one good recipe' rule, it passes on the strength of a Bobby Flay recipe for the Spanish Tortilla (potato frittata). It's not as if I don't already have a good half dozen recipes for this dish, but Flay spices it up with garlic and embellishes it with bell peppers, a very traditional Spanish ingredient.

Daniel Boulud's blurb on the back of the dust jacket hits upon the primary value of the book. It contains lots of recipes whose innate values and high name recognition sources will easily impress. For a less than standard $35 list price, you get recipes from practically every recognized chef in the country without having to buy forty different books with forty different styles of presenting recipes.

This largely answers the question about the book for those who have three cookbooks, but what about those of us who already own cookbooks done by half the collaborators for this book. I checked `East of Paris', the book with which Clark collaborated with David Bouley and found that neither of the recipes in Clark's book were in the Bouley / Clark collaboration. This leads me to believe that most, if not all of the recipes in this book are new to this book, although the author makes no statement to that effect. At the very least, their statement is new to this book.

One problem with this book is that we loose some of the aspects that make the chefs' work original. Since we can still buy their books, this is a small concession.

While the cover announces that these are recipes you can actually make at home, no not take this as a claim of being `fast' or `easy'. Most take over an hour and most also take a fairly large ingredient list.

My only objection to the style of the book is that some recipe names should have been translated, as with Jonathan Waxman's `Pollo al Forno with Panzanella'. Foodies will recognize it as baked chicken with a bread salad, but the translation would have been good for the non-foodies, since it is that audience for which the book is best suited.

I like the fact that the author didn't feel compelled to add chapters on making stocks, dressings, or other pantry items, especially as every contributing chef probably does it in a different way anyway.

For what it does, this is a superior book, much better than any other omnibus book I can think of, such as some from the Food Network Kitchens, but you will have to carefully weigh whether it adds value to your cookbook collection.

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Chef Whisperer, November 12, 2005

By 

Bob Loblaw "Bob" (Coconino County) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chef, Interrupted: Delicious Chefs' Recipes That You Can Actually Make at Home (Hardcover)

This is a chef cookbook without the heartache. It's got at least two "wows" going for it - it's a very broad sampler of of great chef recipes, and it makes innovative dishes accessible to those of us who don't have 2 days to build a sauce. Chef Interrupted is full of inventive recipes that an employed person, with a decently-equipped kitchen and a good supermarket, can make with total success.

The recipes are startlingly delicious. Steak with spiced coconut sauce? Tomato and watermelon salad with ricotta?? Rosemary polenta pound cake??? I was attracted to the weird stuff first, and it was simple and delicious to make. I can tell you my girlfriend was delighted. I'm a good cook though not an adventurous one, and this book's an inspiration. There are more conventional dishes too, and I'm getting new ideas from each one. I thought the shortcuts might dull the food down, but generally they allow the core idea of the dish to come through even stronger. I haven't found a clunker yet. It's such fun to try the new stuff that I'm cooking at home more just so I can see what happens next.

When chefs do cookbooks they go to dizzy heights I can't always follow, and speak a language I only half understand. Clark teases out their passion and motives and translates them without dumbing them down. The notes are practical and amusing. She has a genius for catching the spark and essence of both the chef and the dish. Even the cover photo shows this (though you don't totally get it till you see the photo on page 265). If The Babbo Cookbook makes you the famished fly on the wall of Batali's kitchen, then Chef Interrupted flies you to forty kitchens where a charming and brilliant interpreter helps you get your hands on some real food.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One Great Recipe After Another, October 23, 2005

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R. Aronson (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Chef, Interrupted: Delicious Chefs' Recipes That You Can Actually Make at Home (Hardcover)

I just got this book as a gift from a friend and I've already made two of the recipes -- rack of lamb w/cumin and salt crust (YUM!) and pizza with garlic pesto and ricotto (more YUM!). i usually don't make pizza at home, but this was ttally doable -- and delicious - and the lamb was too easy and so sophisticated and wonderful. The tips from the chefs and the writer are really useful -- and there are drink tips that i found really helpful, too. It was a great gift and I'd highly recommend it for any enthusiastic home cook/foodie.