Customer Reviews

The Cook's Book: Techniques and tips from the world's master chefs

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"Techniques are the key to good cooking. The Cook's Book provides the most comprehensive guide to all you may ever need in the kitchen." ~Jill Norman

Jill Norman, editor of the Elizabeth David classic cookbooks, has created a celebration of cooking that is bursting with knowledge and techniques. There are over 1800 full-color photographs and the recipes cover all major cooking styles, including Thai, Mexican, French, Indian and Chinese. Top Chefs from around the world present cooking methods you can master at home. They also include many of their signature dishes. Each Chef has their own chapter:

Sauces & Dressings - Paul Gayler, UK

All the basic saucemaking techniques are covered from deglazing to using a paste of butter and flour to thicken a sauce. Classics are covered in step-by-step beauty as mayonnaise, Hollandaise and Béarnaise are created and then varied to suit all occasions.

Foams - Ferran Adrià

We all know the types of foams we don't want, like when making food and a pot boils over or when making strawberry jam, but how do you make foams on purpose and with a sense of perfection. Here they take the form of Pistachio foam, frozen chocolate mousse and cappuccino almond foam with truffle juice.

Stocks & Soups - Shaun Hill, UK (All the basics for soups and heartwarming meals)

Flavorings - Peter Gordon

An especially exciting chapter filled with freshly crushed spices and herb mixtures. How do you dry-roast spices or grind them in a mortar and pestle? The recipes include sexy offerings like Saffron-Poached Peaches or Coconut & Palm sugar sauce.

Latin American Cooking - Norman Van Aken (Classics like caramelized plantains served with Mojo marinated chicken.)

Eggs & Dairy Products - Michael Romano

Fish & Shellfish - Charlie Trotter (He goes to great lengths in this chapter to show you how to prepare every type of seafood imaginable. This is Seafood 101.)

Japanese Cooking - Hisayuki Takeuchi from Paris (Sushi fans will adore this chapter.)

Poultry & Game Birds - Shaun Hill (A special section on how to cut up poultry into eight pieces - useful for all sorts of recipes.)

Indian Cooking - Atul Kochhar
Meat - Marcus Wareing, UK (Techniques that will take roasting meats to unexplored levels.)

Chinese Cooking - Ken Hom

Vegetables - Charlie Trotter

Charlie Trotter's chapters are highly detailed, showing you ever way to slice and dice vegetables or prepare tomatoes and peppers. He even shows you how to pickle cucumbers and create gourmet Asparacus & Goat Cheese Terrines.

Pasta & Dumplings - Michael Romano (Pasta from scratch!)

Asian Noodles & Dumplings - Christine Manfield from Australia

Thai Cooking - David Thompson

Grains & Beans - Paul Gayler (Secrets for cooking rice or turning lentils into smooth perfection in a Dal.)

Breads & Batters - Dan Lepard (The first recipe I've ever found for Crisp Rye Bread.)

Mexican Cooking - Rick Bayless from Chicago

Pastry & Sweet Doughs - Pierre Hermé (Unique crisp Arlettes and even a recipe for Croissants.)

Middle Eastern Cooking - Greg Malouf (Turkish Coffee)

Desserts - Pierre Hermé (The basics of sugar syrups, candied fruits and nuts, Crème Pâtissière, Rose Ice Cream and unimaginably beautiful Italian Meringue.)

Cakes - Stephan Franz (Essential information on how to cut and fill cakes.)

Fruits & Nuts - Shaun Hill (Figs in cinnamon and lemon, baked apples, steamed orange puddings and even Nougat with almonds, pistachios and candied cherries. Perfect for Christmas.

"Cooking is like a language in which I can communicate my emotions and the love I feel for life and nature." ~Hisayuki Takeuchi

Each chef is featured in the contributing chef's section which gives background information and current projects. This is followed by a section on the equipment you will need to prepare the recipes. There is a focus on accurate measuring and finding high-quality ingredients.

As you read this book from cover to cover you may feel a great sense of accomplishment as you see how many techniques you have already mastered just from cooking for years and years.

I can't think of a more perfect book to give a new cook and if you are just starting to delve into this magical world of flavors and experience, this book will take you into the world of step-by-step instruction. This will make following just about any recipe much easier because you will have seen the techniques and you can also refer back to this book through the index to find just about anything you need to know.

I had barely made it to page 45 when the need to cook up a steak dinner complete with garlic sauces, broccoli in a plum wine sauce and crisp herbed potatoes fried in olive oil overtook me. You may find yourself creating new recipes just because you learn a new technique or it could be an infusion of inspiration born of the pure celebration of cooking itself. Either way, this book will not be only for reading in bed, this is a cookbook you won't be leaving on the counter for long because of the inspirational recipes, excellent glossary and complete index.

Have you ever imagined recipes like this?

Streusel Tart with Pistachios & Cherries - Beautiful simplicity
Tarte Au Citron (Lemon Tart) - So smooth and creamy you may faint with pleasure.
Milk Chocolate Truffles with Passion Fruit
Lime Ice Cream with Cajeta

Some of the classic recipes include:

Sachertorte - The chocolate cake topped with a chocolate glaze
Dresden Stollen - Perfect for Christmas gifts.

Pears swim in syrup poaching to perfection. Lamb is infused with rosemary and orange juice. Sliced carambola drowns in zabaglione. Chocolate marries pumpkin pie and settles into a cheesecake with a splash of country cream.

Such perfection! This is the type of cookbook you can fall in love with, instantly. Looking through this book all at once might leave you a little heady.

~The Rebecca Review

The Cook's Book is an extensive, gigantic compendium filled to the brim with not only 650 recipes, but also instructions for 350 essential cooking techniques and tips from the world's top chefs. Techniques discussed range from basic egg cooking to carving and roasting wild duck to how to prepare a coconut to how to poach fruit. Dishes incorporating styles from around the world, including Chinese, Thai, Latino, Indian, and more cuisines are presented alongside classic favorites and signature dishes from famous chefs. Due to the extensive detail The Cook's Book uses in discussing kitchen techniques, this is a top-notch resource for the aspiring to intermediate chef. Highly recommended.

Today I found it on borders. I compared it to the professional chef (7th ed) and I was blown away by this book. Don't get me wrong professional chef is a good book but I was more in need to learn "techniques" and this book delivered it with beautiful step by step color photographs. I especially loved the seafood section. I don't know how to skin or filet a fish and this book showed it. If you are more into techniques like me this should be the first book for you. I can't comment on the recipes as I only brushed through them and this book has plenty of color photographs to give you guidance (I do mean plenty unlike most cookbooks). It's a good book for both new and experienced cooks.

`The Cook's Book' by Editor-in-Chief, Jill Norman is a VERY heavy book, both literally and figuratively, as it's 647 pages weigh at least as much as a five pound sack of potatoes. And, the authors are a Who's Who of major chefs. Ferran Adria of Spain did not even make the front cover, edged out by Rick Bayless, Ken Hom, Michael Romano, Charlie Trotter, and Norman Van Aken.

A quick glimpse at the book and a consideration of the noted English publisher made me skeptical of what I was to find in this volume, in spite of the star power of the contributors. `DK', short for Dorling Kindersley, Limited is the publisher of glossy picture books on all sorts of crafty and cleverly educational subjects. As I started reading the introduction and the first chapter on `Sauces & Dressings', I got a sinking feeling that the quality of the text did not do justice to the high quality of the photography. This is especially surprising, as Jill Norman is one of only two behind the scenes publishing types (the other is Judith Jones of Alfred A. Knopf) who has gained some celebrity, primarily as friend and executor for the great culinary writer, Elizabeth David. I ran into statements such as the one recommending that a custard be whipped over a water bath to keep it from curdling, with no clue given to whether it is too much heat or too much cold which will cause the custard to curdle. I also took issue with `Sauces...' author Paul Gayler's calling `beurre blanc' an emulsified sauce, putting it somehow in the same category as mayonnaise and hollandaise. `Beurre blanc' is much more similar to vinaigrette than to an egg based sauce. But, these were only some early stumbles, magnified by my initial suspicion of the book.

The air cleared and the value of the book grew immensely in my eyes when I turned to the next chapter on Foams by Ferran Adria. Adria's experiments with foams is becoming more famous with each day, but aside from one or two uses of foams by some of the `Iron Chef America' contestants, I have seen nothing about this technique. Adria's twelve-page chapter on the subject is almost single-handedly worth the hefty price of this book. One drawback to this chapter, which it shares with all other chapters, is that there is neither a bibliography of printed sources nor a list of suppliers. But, Adria give more than enough information to track down the goods by Googling the Internet. The two high points of Adria's essay is that he links foams to their natural precursor, mousses, and shows how the technique can be used to make some otherwise tricky procedures very easy, such as in the creation of a meringue.

There are, depending on how you wish to slice it, two or three main types of articles in this book. By far the least interesting are the eight essays on regional cooking styles. These chapters are very short and give a uniformly cursory overview of their subject. How, for example, can Rick Bayless, who has written at least five books on the subject, cover Mexican cooking in ten (10) pages? And, why not articles on Spanish, French, and Italian cuisines to join the ones on Japanese, Thai, and Chinese cuisines?

The other articles can be divided into those on techniques or types of dishes such as `Stocks & Soups' by Shaun Hill and those on important ingredients such as `Eggs & Dairy Products' by Michael Romano. Except for the Adria article on Foams, all these articles are satisfyingly long and all contain excellent discussions of important techniques. At the least, I can find no important technique missing. More importantly for those of us who already own a gazillion cookbooks, I find things in these articles which are truly new. My favorite example is Pierre Herme's section on how to make pate brisee. I have read at least a dozen descriptions of this technique, and aside from a few variations in ingredients, virtually everyone does it about the same, with some making it a bit easier than others. Herme does it different from all these others, AND, I can see where his technique is a genuine improvement. Instead of adding the cold butter to the bowl of flour, he slowly adds the flour to the cut up butter, which makes coating much of the flour with the fat a lot easier than what you get with your trusty pastry cutter. The pictures for Herme's technique also make it clear that he works the dough a lot more than you may gather from narratives of the technique. Half the time, I end up with barely integrated crumbles of buttery flour. Herme's oval of worked dough looks as smooth as a round of pizza dough. If the author had been anyone less than Pierre Herme, I may not have given this technique much credence, but it is impossible to argue with his reputation as on of France's greatest pastry chefs.

Romano's treatment of my very favorite subject, eggs, is a similar exploration of some of the further reaches of good egg cookery. Here, we don't get the usual fare, but excellent pictorials and descriptions of French style scrambled eggs, plus the French method of deep frying eggs and baking eggs.

Imagine my surprise when I read that Paul Gaylor cooks rice like it's pasta, especially since I just dissed Sara Moulton for doing the same thing.

My only lingering complaint about the book is the arrangement of articles. It seems it would have been much more useful to put the chapters on stocks and eggs ahead of the chapter on sauces, which uses stocks and eggs.

In all, this may be the first book capable of rivaling Jacques Pepin's great `Complete Methods' in value as a culinary education.

Very highly recommended for the foodie and amateur cook.

Beautiful book and great "techniques" depicted. Have still not cooked from it, but I collect cookbooks and unlike "America's Best Recipes" type books which ponder on and on about what they don't like, this one shows you "how to do it" but also have some "lux" meals that you can try. the el bulli master decomposes foams. you can make that "foam soup" you tried at haute restaurants. the japanese section is mouthwatering and taste good just from the recipes. the pasta and dairy section written by Union Square grill master. the recipes seem doable.

Cons? Chinese section is mediocre in recipes. A bit too English in the meat section. (kidneys and beef wellingtons?) but still great way to learn meats.

The one book to have for techniques and recipes - this one shows you in pictures.

"The Cook's Book" by Jill Norman is a text that has increased my kitchen skills by leaps and bounds. Regular pizza became stuffed pizza pie, ordinary chocolate chip cookies took on a cappuccino flare, and maduros were added to our realm of savory side dishes. (See site for photos.) More than these particular dishes, "The Cook's Book" expanded my knowledge of cooking techniques. I learned, for example, how to make an array of sauces, ranging from velouté to berbere and many places in between. But before you are even given a specific recipe the first page of the "Sauces and Dressings" chapter takes you step-by-step through the terms used when making sauces (skimming, sieving, deglazing), then explains the various ways in which sauces can be thickened (roux, butter, arrowroot, etc). All this is done through the use of clear explanations and - get this - photographs for every step. By page 57 an entire world of possibilities had opened before my eyes, and I hadn't even reached the "Foam," "Soups" or "Flavoring" sections, not to mention the remaining 537 pages of the book! It's astounding what a well-written, beautifully photographed cookbook can accomplish. The Editor, Jill Norman, collaborated with some of the world's best chefs when putting it together, including Rick Bayless, Pierre Hermé and Greg Malouf. I have to say that while working through this book you feel as if you are learning directly from the chefs you admire.

In addition to the chapters mentioned above, "The Cook's Book" includes sections on eggs & dairy products, fish & shellfish, poulty & game birds, vegetables, pasta & dumplings, breads & batters, and pasty & sweet doughs. The list goes on. These topical chapters are supplemented by sections on Indian cooking, Chinese cooking, Thai cooking, Mexican cooking and Middle Eastern cooking - each presented by a chef who has mastered the area and has created a menu for you. Hence, the Mexican cooking chapter written by Rick Bayless includes recipes for squash blossom-filled corn masa boats; tortilla soup with chili, cheese & avocado; braised pork in red chili sauce and lime ice cream with cajeta. Chapters in "The Cook's Book" are relatively short and by no means comprehensive, but that's alright because the point of this text is to teach you essential skills that will enhance your overall ability. Recipes range from simple (how to cook rice perfectly), to challenging (how to make frankfurter kranz), to difficult (how to make croissants), but I appreciated this fact. This is a cookbook that engages you, the cook, on every level. I had to make the stuffed pizza pie referenced above twice before it came out the way I wanted, the same goes for my gnocchi from semolina flour. Yet the end results were delicious and I gained a tremendous sense of accomplishment from learning such tasty new skills.

There isn't much that can be said about this book that would fall into the negative category. It is a huge text and hence a bit cumbersome, but that is to be expected from a book that transmits such a monumental amount of knowledge. At times the ingredients are a bit esoteric, yet I don't see how this can be avoided in a book that truly tackles the gourmet side of cooking and baking. Most of the less-common ingredients can be found at Whole Foods or your local speciality food store, and if those avenues fail there is always the internet. Overall I strongly recommend this book to cooks and bakers of every level.

I ordered the wrong edition. if your are not familiar with this book, it has two editions. The "Concise Editon" lacks 150 pages found in the regular edition.

Good cookbook for those trying to improve their technique. This book covers a wide range of food types. Just don't expect too many recipes.

Gave this as a gift. Has lots of recipes and kitchen tips for non-cookers as well as seasoned vets. Nice quality hardcover edition with lots of details and pix. Great gift for your anyone who wants to learn how to cook or improve kitchen skills.

Gave it to a chef as a gift and she says it's the best so that's the expert's opinion. Describes detailed techniques of all cooking procedures.