Customer Reviews

On Cooking: Techniques From Expert Chefs, Trade Version (3rd Edition)

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I'm a culinary arts student at the Art Institute of California, and total foodie, and I take my cooking very seriously. This book goes into explicit detail for each and every ingredient and cooking method. I'm not kidding when I tell you that there are three paragraphs and a chart to tell you how to boil water. That may seem like overkill, but now that I've been following the various guidelines of food preparation, I notice a subtle improvement in everything I make. If you're the kind of person who walks down the spice aisle of the grocery store for fun (like me!), or if you can't get enough kitchen gadgets (like me!) then you'll enjoy this book. Caution: don't read this one on an empty stomach!

One of the many neat features of studying at Cornell University is that, even if you're not enrolled in its famous School of Hotel Administration, you can attend one of the cooking and wine tasting classes organized especially for non-Hotel School students, and get at least a flavor of the five star culinary instruction provided by the chefs teaching at that school. (That is, you can do so if you're willing to get up an extra hour or two early on the morning of non-Hotel School student enrollment, and if you're lucky enough to beat the crowds or at least slip in as a substitute participant.) In addition to numerous recipes and pieces of valuable advice, information and memories - particularly of the last night, on which we had to put together a four-course meal, fine dining style, complete with menu, garnishments and perfectly laid table - Cornell's "cooking class" has enriched my kitchen by two items I have since found it very hard to do without: A professional grade chef's knife, and Sarah Labensky's and Alan Hause's "On Cooking," which we used as our textbook.

Much more than that, however, "On Cooking" is in fact a near-complete reference on everything related to the culinary arts, from the history of cooking to new foods developed in the 20th century, from sanitation and safety to nutritional values, from recipe writing to menu composition, from knifes and other pieces of equipment to edible kitchen staples, from the principles of cooking to various techniques and food presentation - and of course, on every conceivable kind of food, from coffee, tea, spices and condiments to dairy products, stocks, sauces, soups, red and white meats, charcuterie, fish and shellfish, eggs, vegetables, potatoes, grains, pasta, salads, fruits, sandwiches, hors d'oeuvres, canapes, breads, pies, pastries, cookies, cakes, custards, creams and frozen desserts. Along the way, numerous tables, diagrams and pictures illustrate and exemplify the given information, making it easy to digest and memorize. The book concludes with an extensive bibliography and recommendations for further reading, and a detailed glossary of essential culinary terms.

Recipes are chosen to match individual chapters, and provide both a practical application and a more profound understanding of the respective chapters' subject matter. They include everything from American and international classics (assorted muffins, scrambled eggs and eggs benedict, focaccia, club, Reuben and other sandwiches, minestrone, French onion soup, gazpacho, New England clam chowder, Cesar, Roquefort, Thousand Islands and other dressings, various mayonnaises, coleslaw, cobb salad, Asian chicken salad, salade Nicoise, potato salad, Thai noodle salad, spanakopitta, grilled portabella mushrooms, carpaccio, lemon curd, hummus, various salsas, guacamole, pesto, hollandaise, bolognese, barbecue, bordelaise, bearnaise, Madeira, mornay, tartar, bechamel and other sauces, various stocks, broths and consommes, polenta, various kebabs, pilafs and risottos, paella, falafel, quiche lorraine, pizza, cannoli alla siciliana, macaroni and cheese, fettuccine Alfredo, clams casino, gravlax, oysters Rockefeller, fillet of sole bonne femme, matzo balls, duck confit, chorizo, chicken cacciatore, coq au vin, chicken curry, pico de gallo, chicken and veal fricassees, osso buco, chili con carne, Swedish meatballs, assorted burgers, meatloaf, T-bone, pepper and other steaks, cassoulet, chateaubriand, tournedos Rossini, beef Stroganoff, entrecote bordelaise, boeuf bourguignon, Hungarian goulash, ratatouille, baked beans, spaetzle, gnocchi, hush puppies, roesti potatoes, gratin dauphinois, baked potatoes, crepes, applesauce, New York cheesecake, sabayon, frangipane, assorted pies, tarts and tortes, various meringues and sorbets, creme brulee, chocolate mousse, chocolate angel food cake, sponge cake, brownies, ladyfingers, Madeleines, toll house cookies, gingerbread cookies, buche de noel, and spiced cider) to more unusual dishes such as:

Chilled cherry soup
Perfumed shrimp consomme
Beet vinaigrette
Shallot curry oil
Walnut pesto
Nopal cactus salsa
Pink peppercorn beurre blanc
Crayfish butter
Zucchini bread
Potato cheddar cheese bread
Salmon and sea bass terrine with spinach and basil
Salmon croquettes
Grilled red snapper burger with mango ketchup
Tex-Mex turkey sausage
Sauted pork medallions with red pepper and citrus
Marinated loin of venison roasted with mustard
Roast pheasant with cognac and apples
Stuffed wontons with apricot sauce
Wild rice and cranberry stuffing
Goat cheese ravioli in herbed cream sauce
Spicy sweet potato and chestnut gratin
Grits and cheddar souffle
Potato-ginger puree
Cilantro puree
Grilled seckel pear with sherry bacon vinaigrette
Balsamic raspberries
Figs with berries and honey mousse
Kirsch mousse
Pistachio citrus cheesecake
Chocolate flourless cake
English muffin loaves
Oatmeal stout ice cream
Quince jam

At 1100+ pages a veritable brick, despite its size "On Cooking" has become as much a key part of my kitchen as my chef's knife, my tea infusers, and various other pieces of equipment. I don't harbor any intentions of becoming a professional chef (nor any aspirations to even remotely that level of culinary skills), but I love to cook, and this is one of the cookbooks I'd be least likely to part with - ever.

"Cookery is become an art, a noble science; cooks are gentlemen." - Robert Burton, British author (1621).

Also recommended:
Around the World Cookbook
Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home: Fast and Easy Recipes for Any Day
Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant: Ethnic and Regional Recipes from the Cooks at the Legendary Restaurant (Cookery)
Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian: More Than 650 Meatless Recipes from Around the World
Joy of Cooking: 75th Anniversary Edition - 2006

I view this book as one of the essential resource books any serious cook should have. If I had named it, I would have called the book "On Food" because it is not just about cooking food, it actually gives you encyclopedia type entries to describe an enormous number of items in each chapter (e.g. fish, vegetables, meats). It will tell you where your food came from, in which seasons it is freshest, how best to prepare it and will follow each of these up with a number of recipes. Do not look to this book to be a cookbook, though. Is is more important to view the book as a resource to help you figure out the best types of preparations for that item you found at the market but have never used before. It is a great tool to just sit down and learn about cuts of beef and why some parts of the animal are great for one type of preparation versus another. That said, there are recipes and they are good, but to focus on them would be to overlook all of the education you can get from this book. This is used as a textbook in cooking schools, and the set-up is like a textbook, but a lot more interesting than the ones you had in college or high school because you can eat after you learn.

I received the book today and haven't been able to put it down. I've loved to cook for over 30 years and I've never found one book filled with so much good information. I wish I had this book years ago. I told my wife it takes the place of at least 10 cookbooks. If you love, or even like to cook and want to improve your technique and knowledge, I don't see how you could beat this book! It's wonderful!

I'm a soon to be chef (I hope) and in school we used this book. Let me tell you, its good. I has lots of good recipies and color pictures. The best thing about it, is that is shows how and why you do things. I think that is very good for someone to know. One thing that might be a bad thing is that it is a text book with questions at the end of a chapter and things like that.

I have been in the restaurant business for over 20 years. Since it is impossible to remember every aspect, I use it for reference quite often, as well as send my cooks to it when I can't answer there questions. easy to follow and the steps are not over complicated for a beginner to follow. And to be honest the book blows away the CIA book and I went there.

I'm currently a culinary school student and this is my text book. I find the instructions to be informative and the sections on recognizing foods, grading foods and storing foods to be exceptional. The explanation of techniques is informative and cumulative; the techniques used in later chapters build on earlier ones. There are hundreds of classic recipes which help you exercise technique. My main complaint is the lack of a measurement standardization. Dry goods can be measured in weight or volume, sometimes in the same recipe! Some of the recipes occasionally need a taste "pick-me-up". Still, its an excellent reference and I would recommend it to any serious home chef or would-be professional.

If you are tired of cookbooks only offering recipies, not instruction, then this is the book for you. Literally a text book for cooking schools, this book is easy to use on your own at home. The organization of material covered is fabulous! I was looking for a book that would teach me the techniques I lacked, and this book couldn't have delivered more. Aside from instruction, the book features wonderful recipies from some very fine restaurants. THE ONLY DRAW BACK is recipies are offered in instiutional sizes. (When was the last time you needed to make 240 brownies?) Thus, you must be good at scaling recipies, or I would strongly suggest buying the PC based software offered (either as part of the combo or order separately) for recipie conversion

This book covers all major areas of modern food preparation and practice, albeit from an American perspective. One of the strengths of "Techniques from Expert Chefs" is why you do things, as well as how. The recipes form practical illustrations of each key technique and provide inspiration for other dishes. The descriptions of ingredients and typical usage are one of the most complete that I have seen in a book of this size.

As a collector of culinary texts, I can say that this is one of the better books that I have seen. Labensky and Hause are to be commended.

I use this book as a guide in my cooking school. This is a book with a professional focus, not for the home cook. Most of the recipes are made in large quantities. Great for chefs, culinary arts students, caterers or anyone running a food operation looking for excellent reference and techniques.