Customer Reviews

Le Cordon Bleu's Complete Cooking Techniques

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I love this book. Every technique I have struggled to pick up from other cookbooks, every vegetable I have struggled to prepare, every mystery of French cooking that left me intimidated and terrified is demystified in this easy-to-follow guide to fine French cooking. The recipes are beyond excellent, make you feel like you are following directly in the footsteps of the great masters of grande cuisine. Which you are. It's a great feeling.

All the basics are here, as well as variations, as well as some more intimidating stuff which is made less so by lots and lots of bright pictures and snappy hint boxes. I never thought a cookbook by Cordon Bleu would be perky, but this one IS. Seriously, it's like watching a TV show, but in a book.

Definitely buy this book, especially if you want to become educated about the techniques of the masters, and have it become second nature. LOVE IT.

There certainly isn't a lack of illustrations in this book. It serves as a practical guide of cooking techniques and covers all aspects and indgredients of cooking, which includes sauces, vegetables, poultry, meat, seafood, herbs and spices, soups, desserts, bakery, dairy, fruits, and literally anything one can think of. However, do not expect to find many recipes, because as the title suggests, the book will be helpful if it used for cooking techniques. If you are eager to learn some basics, this is the book for you.

I love this book. As the others say, it is more for techniques and there are not very many recipes, but for beginners the recipes are perfect: broth, sauces, pancakes (from scratch!), etc. that are so basic that they are the basis for tons of other recipes. The illustrated techniques are great and everytime I do a new recipe I bring out the Cordon Bleu book to figure out what the recipe says!.

This book is NOT about following someone else's recipes, it is about explaining culinary knowledge and techniques which provide the foundation required to excel in the gourmet kitchen. Well-layed out format and photos eliminate the intimidation factor.

If you really want to learn to cook, this is perhaps the best cooking technique book there is. The instructions are clear, the photos are useful and this book covers a lot of topics. Strongly recommended. It also makes great gift.

This isn't a terrible book, in fact, in some ways it is a nice book. But I was a very disappointed in the level of the material. Based on the title, I expected an Escoffier, Larousse, or perhaps something on the level of James Peterson's "Sauces". What I got was strictly Time-Life or Reader's Digest. Don't misunderstand, it is a lovely book. And perhaps a few years ago I would have been pleased to have it. But it is long on nice pictures and recipes, and very short on the sort of advanced level teaching I expect of a book that claims to be the "complete techniques" of the prestigious Cordon Bleu. If you are a good home cook who is just getting started in broadening your horizons, you will probably like this book. If you have already begun to broaden them, I think you will find this to be a watered down pretense of what it claims to be, only slightly more than an Americanized coffee table book, intended more as a "gift book" to impress the uninitiated, than as a comprehensive treatise to educate serious cooks in the techniques the title purports to offer. It is really too bad, I would very much like to have a book which actually contains what the title of this book promises, but which its' contents fail to deliver. If the title were more honest, perhaps "Illustrated Cordon Bleu recipes for the American Kitchen" or some such, I would rate the book more highly. Instead, they chose to over promise, and under deliver, hence the low rating.

To put this review into perspective for you, it is written by an amateur cook that has been seriously studying cooking on her own for 25 years with the last 10 years spent mostly on Italian cuisine. My favorite cookbook is "The Professional Chef" by the Culinary Institute of America.

This book covers the basics of cooking from the tools of the trade, to chopping vegetables, and making stocks. If you need a good reference for the basics this is a nice and very thorough book.

The one oddity I did note in this book is the section on preparing a crab. According to Le Cordon Bleu, live crabs should be frozen for one hour and tied up like a roast of beef prior to boiling. That was a first for me. I caulk this up to French overkill.

This book does a wonderful job of photographing the various stages of the process they are describing making it very easy to follow their directions.

They have also included a number of recipes (they count them as 200) to use your new found culinary skills.

All in all (crab directions aside) this is a nice reference book. I purchased it prior to "The Professional Chef" which I referenced above. If I could have only one book on the basics it would be "The Professional Chef". However, this book is very nice, and doesn't take up nearly as much space on the bookshelf.

I absolutely love this book. Rather than giving a list of recipes, it tells you hundreds of techniques with which to create for yourself. Perfect for the budding chef or gourmand. It also has hundreds of illustrations of everything from food identification to hand motion. A great addition to any collection.

I found this book to be an excellent reference. It has found it's home in the office at the restaurant where i work so that the chef and i can consult it when we need a little inspiration. I highly recommend it to anyone, regardless or your specific interests in cooking. The guides for selecting and preparing everything from fresh seafood to vegetables are worth the price of the book.

I had one book of recipes of cordon bleu at home. The recipes are good, but what I loved from it was the techniques section.

This book is a techniques book which go farther in preparations for any kind of food... Must have if you are a low-medium level home cook who likes cooking but has not received lessons on how professionaly chop an onion, etc. You will get plenty of pages on basic techniques no one had talked to you about!

Like everything in life, if you master the basic fundamentals you will be good in something. Surprisingly, there are not many books that are deep dealing with the basics of things. This is one of rare exceptions who contains enough knowledge to talk a wise lot on the important things.