Flavor [Hardcover]

Rocco Dispirito (Author)

Book Description

Release date: November 5, 2003

"Knockout dining" leaves fans breathless at this Gramercy New American "paragon" where "rock star" chef Rocco DiSpirito produces "sublime," "synergistic" dishes. --Zagat, on Rocco DiSpirito's restaurant Union Pacific

He runs one of the most successful restaurants in New York City. He is seen everywhere from David Letterman to Good Morning America to the Food Network. He has graced the cover of Gourmet magazine as "America's Most Exciting Young Chef" -- and Zagat calls him a "rock star." Now, Rocco DiSpirito unleashes his culinary magic with Flavor.

In Flavor, DiSpirito shows readers how to create bold, intriguingly delicious food through combinations of ingredients both mundane and exotic. The cuisine is sophisticated but surprisingly easy for home chefs to replicate. Using the four flavors (sour, sweet, bitter, and salty) as basic building blocks, Rocco demonstrates how to combine and commingle flavors to create one-of-a-kind dishes.

Some recipes included in Flavor are:

-- Lemongrass Lobster Salad
-- Baby Lettuces with Pickled Squash Blossoms and Yogurt-Tahini Vinaigrette
-- Calamari with Coconut Curry and Green Papaya
-- Braised Veal Roulade with Root Vegetables
-- Cinnamon Glazed Duck
-- Lavender Creme Brulee
-- Peach-Phyllo Strudel with Goat Cheese Cream and much more

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Before he was a television star (not just on the Food Network, but as the central character in the NBC reality show The Restaurant), DiSpirito was a rising star chef in New York with his high-end restaurant, Union Pacific. As Tom Colicchio did so ably in Think Like a Chef, here DiSpirito details the theory behind his cooking. In a nutshell, he seeks to balance sweet, sour, salty and bitter tastes in savory dishes such as Ceviche of Tuna, Sweet Onions and Lime, and Pomegranate and Cinnamon-Lacquered Duck. Each recipe has colored dots to indicate which ingredients provide which flavors; they also bear prep times, level of difficulty, yield and a brief wine suggestion: e.g., Black Sea Bass with Chestnuts and Blood Oranges is paired with a "medium-bodied Chardonnay with no oak." As at Union Pacific, DiSpirito works magic with seafood in particular, with such dishes as Charred Spanish Mackerel with Pear and Sweet Spice, and Calamari with Coconut Curry and Green Papaya. DiSpirito translates a few restaurant techniques for the home cook, as with a suggestion for using plastic wrap instead of the vacuum-sealed packaging used for sous vide cooking when making Chicken with Eggplant Carpaccio and Turmeric Marmalade. Desserts such as Mango and Papaya Carpaccio with Cilantro Candy are in the same lively spirit as the rest of the book, and photographs are also energetic. DiSpirito has considerately cordoned off the more advanced recipes in their own chapter, and a guide to ingredients helpfully includes photographs. Some stars can still relate to the little people.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Dare I whisper, genius?" -- Gael Greene, New York magazine

"I have yet to taste anything on Mr. DiSpirito's menu that is not wonderful. I was moaning as I ate." -- Ruth Reichl, New York Times

"Part of Dispirito’s brilliance is his ability to make a few, seemingly disparate elements come together in something bold." -- Gourmet

"Rocco DiSpirito rules." -- Zagat

"The best creative chef in America today under 35." -- Departures

"Top 10 Best New Chef." -- Food & Wine

"[Flavor] celebrates the fundamental notions of taste, and the depth created by toying with sweet, salty, sour, and bitter flavors." -- Detroit Free Press

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion; 1 edition (November 5, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786868562
• ISBN-13: 978-0786868568
• Product Dimensions: 1.3 x 8.7 x 9.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #636,919 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

ABOUT ROCCO DISPIRITO
Rocco DiSpirito is a chef and the author of nine award winning books including the back to back # 1 New York Times bestsellers NOW EAT THIS! And NOW EAT THIS! DIET. Rocco's NOW EAT THIS! series: features healthy makeovers of America's favorite comfort foods, from fried chicken to apple pie, all with zero bad carbs, zero bad fats, zero sugar, and maximum flavor. Everything you've always loved ... well, now you can enjoy it without worrying about what it will do to your waistline. All under 350 calories.

Chef Rocco DiSpirito is on a mission to change people's perception of healthy food by making delicious low-fat, low-calorie dishes easily accessible. To that end, he launched the Now Eat This! Truck, which features meals created from his wildly successful series of cookbooks of the same name.

Chef DiSpirito personally visits city schools to educate the students on the massive benefits of eating healthy foods. As part of that program, he will serve free lunches to the participating students paid for by the generosity of other New Yorkers who buy their lunch from the "Now Eat This Truck."

In September 2012 Rocco's weekly Show Now Eat This! With Rocco DiSpirito began airing in syndication across America. In each episode Rocco will challenge, guide and encourage a family and their children to make healthier lifestyle choices.

In September 2012 Rocco published The New York Times best-seller Now Eat This! Italian. Rocco traveled to Italy to learn how to prepare our favorite Italian dishes from the inside the kitchens of the real Mama's of Italy -all under 350 calories.

In 2012 Rocco founded Savory Place Media, his production house and its first project is Now Eat This! Italy for AOL Originals.

In January 2014, Rocco will publish The Pound A Day Diet featuring all new 5-ingredient easy to prepare recipes that produce rapid, safe weight loss.

Rocco began his culinary studies at the Culinary Institute of America and by 20 was working in the kitchens of legendary chefs around the globe. He was named Food & Wine Magazine's Best New Chef and was the first chef to appear on Gourmet Magazine's cover as America's Most Exciting Young Chef. His 3 Star Restaurant Union Pacific was a New York City culinary landmark for many years. Ruth Reichl said of her experience at Union Pacific, she "moaned as she ate" in her famous New York Times review. His reality series Rocco's Dinner Party aired during the summer of 2011 on Bravo.

Rocco is a frequent guest on Good Morning America, Rachael Ray, The Talk and The Dr. Oz Show and has appeared on The View, Today, The Doctors, Ellen and many other programs.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent coffee table book and useful cookbook March 1, 2005

By J. Berendzen

Format:Hardcover

I have to agree with the general thrust of many of the reviews that highlight the look of the book. It looks really cool (at least after you take off the dustjacket that over-displays Rocco's goofy mug--the one negative about buying the book is the connection to Rocco), and I in fact have it sitting on my coffee table. Many of these review are wrong, however, in claiming that the book is only for looks and not for use as a real cookbook. I have made several of the dishes with excellent results, and have also culled some very helpful and practical tips and techniques (like using vegetable purees instead of starch or flour as a thickener) from the book. Granted, it is not on the level of a book like Joy of Cooking in this regard, but it doesn't have to be. One thing that it does display is that good cooking is not out of the average person's reach, and that the average kitchen can benefit from some "advanced" techniques.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Knock-out Flavor April 10, 2004

By Dezi's Creative Space

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This cookbook is a real knock-out. Visually as stimulating as the recipes are for the taste buds, the minute I opened it, I couldn't bear to close it. Its foundation is Rocco's exceptional palate, incorporating elements from all over the world and combining flavors that stimulate the taste sense in new and different ways. It's haute cuisine all the way, but accessible. Simple elements, the basics, fish, meats, vegetables, side dishes, desserts are combined with herbs and spices beyond the usual. The recipes are quite simple and easy to prepare, and the book is laid out very well to help you do so. Being an aromatherapist, I'm always seeking aromatic stimulation, and these recipes fit the bill.

In addition, the book gives you suggestions for wines that go with each recipe.

I've eaten at Rocco's first restaurant in NYC, Union Pacific, on East 22nd Street, and this book makes me feel that I can prepare the same type of food at home, simplified. I treated my cousin to a meal at Union Pacific and we both moaned and groaned through the entire meal in delight. If you want to do the same thing at home with your friends and loved ones, get this book.

18 of 24 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Flavor November 10, 2003

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

Flavor is everything you'd want in a cookbook. Hundreds of great color photos, amazingly simple recipes, plenty of resources like a pictorial guide to all the ingredients used in the book as well as plenty of style and substance. My wife hates cooking and loved the book-go figure.
This guy Rocco delivers on all levels.
Buy Flavor now.

13 of 17 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Great For Inspiration.... May 16, 2005

By K. Wong

Format:Hardcover

I am a professional Chef with a soft spot for cookbooks. Sometimes I follow the recipes sometimes I don't. Mainly, I like to look at the pictures for ideas and inspiration. My frustration with most cookbooks is there are too many words and not enough pictures. cooking is a sensual/visual experience and less science. If you want science then start baking! But with cooking there aren't too many linear paths to the end, rather many routes to the same place. So if you are a chef and like to see new ideas then at least check this book out. There are a lot of good flavor ideas. If your are a home cook looking for a trusted recipe then stay away. You will have a hard time with recipes in this book. They obviously weren't tested and will be frustrating for you.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Overwhelming, but some great recipies within November 12, 2003

By Misty K. Turner

Format:Hardcover

I love cookbooks, but I admit that my cooking endevors usually lean towards the mundane. With that in mind, this book overwhelmed me with it's color coded flavor information for each meal, with the seeming exoticness of them, and the unique ingredients that some of the meals had.

That being said, I found that even with my past in cookbooks that there was still much to be had from this one. The instructions were easy to read and follow, and with serving size, difficulty, and other need to know information quick to find on each page, the functionality of the book impressed me.

Overall, I think it's a must have, even for someone like me who doesn't cook much other than 'regular' chicken and beef. It's enough of a challenge with food that I think we'll enjoy exploring the receipies presented, and it'll be great to use for cooking for company.

23 of 32 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Focus on Basics November 19, 2003

By B. Marold HALL OF FAMETOP 100 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

Many celebrity chef cookbooks published in the last few months have been packaged as coffee table books and have been written with an emphasis on some distinctive aspect of cooking which will help it stand out from the pack and sell at relatively high prices. Rocco Dispirito's spin on the cooking experience, as the title makes obvious, is on the role of balancing flavors, or, more exactly, the four classic tastes (sweet, sour, bitter, salty) in preparing food. As we all learned in high school biology class, the four tastes are experienced on the tongue and the remaining components of flavor are experienced by thousands of receptors in the nose. Flavor is actually more about smell than it is about taste. But, the four classic tastes are much easier to classify, so Rocco and his co-author(s) focus on that. There is a brief mention of the newly conceived umani taste found in foods such as tomato, beef, mushrooms, and fava beans. Rocco, wisely, I think, leaves it at that. After introducing the tastes, the theme is carried throughout all the recipes in the book, identifying the predominant tastes of all the ingredients in each recipe. This theme is not merely a gloss, forgotten by the time one gets to the entrée recipes.

This book can be seen on several different layers and the value you find is based on how valuable you find each of the layers in the presentation.

At the most basic level, there are the recipes. For a list price of $35, the number of recipes is pretty thin. There are 105 recipes divided into Appetizers (18), Soups (11), Salads (10), Entrees (35), Side Dishes (11), Desserts (13) and Reserve List (7). The last category needs explanation. All the recipes in the other 6 categories are, I believe, fairly straightforward, with a very reasonable number of ingredients.... This is not the same as fast. Many recipes do require long cooking or marinade times and very few require less than an hour of active time, even though few require any fancy techniques or equipment. This is a sure sign that the restaurant recipes have been adapted to home cooking. The Reserve List recipes are all distinguished by being more difficult to prepare, with more steps and more ingredients. These are the types of recipes you will find in a book by Daniel Boulud. The recipes in this book are based on French seafood style of cooking with a heavy infusion of Southeast Asian (Thai cum Vietnam) flavors and methods. Some are simple, but most have that upscale New York restaurant about it. But then, one of the reasons you buy this book is to do Union Pacific recipes at home.

At the next level, you have the overlay of flavor notes on the ingredients. For the real foodie, this aspect of the book really works. For me, it reinforced the epithany I had while watching the `Jamie's Kitchen' special where Jamie is testing his students for their appreciation of taste. It is so easy to get lost among the trees of equipment, techniques, nutrition, books and recipes and forget that above a bare subsistance level, it's all about flavor, which is the engine which drove the great world cuisines to coax great results out of inexpensive ingredients by seemingly involved methods. It is clear that Rocco is not seeing things hidden from other chefs. He and his collaborators have hit upon a way to bring this to the foreground.

At another level, the book adds very useful information about each recipe, giving the total time, active time, difficulty, number of protions, and recommended wine paring for the dish. The serving size is standard. Nothing new there. The total and active times are uncommon, but they shouldn't be in high end cookbooks. I believe these times are very realistic. The difficulty rating is a great addition. My only reservation is that no recipes outside the reserved list have a rating of more than 3 out of 6. Still, a very good thing.

The top level is the way in which photographs have been used in this book. There is a photograph for the finished product for almost every recipe. Almost all of these photos are very good. There are also many photographs of ingredients. Pretty. Not that useful. There are several techniques which are illuminated by a series of photographs, but NO TEXT. They look like pages from a book seen in Fahrenheit 451. All pictures. No reading. They work, but they would have worked much better with a little text. As in Jamie Oliver's book, there are a lot of photos of Rocco and colleagues fondling ingredients. Except for the one with the young girl covered in chocolate, I could do without them.

As long as you get this book at a discount price, it is definitely worth it for the amateur chef. It will succeed in making cooking more interesting and it will give you some great experiences with exotic ingredients. Rocco's advice on encountering new ingredients is right up there with Alton Brown's advice on thinning out your kitchen equipment. Another added value are the lists of ingredients by taste and by season at the back of the book. The obligatory list of internet ingredient sources is there as well.

I have just a few pet peeves. Rocco does a great service by pointing out which ingredients infuse well in water and which ingredients infuse well in oil, but then spoils the whole insight by relegating it to `scientific babble'. The other minor annoyance is when he assigns classic names such as pot au feu to a dish which are substantially different from the classic recipe, then neglects to put these named dishes in the index.

A great gift for the foodie on your list. Read more ›