Customer Reviews

Get Saucy: Make Dinner A New Way Every Day With Simple Sauces, Marinades, Dressings, Glazes, Pestos, Pasta Sauc (Non)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've been a subscriber to Food and Wine magazine for years and have really come
to depend on Parisi's recipes. So when I read about her book Get Saucy
recently, I was very excited for its release.
I found the collection of recipes to be thorough and the recipes themselves
concise and totally approachable. I've nearly made my way through the pesto
chapter and particularly loved the Wild Mushroom and Herb pesto, Scallion
Macadamia Nut pesto, Green Chile Scallion pesto and Romesco. The fact that
these are not included in the pasta sauce chapter was initially a little odd,
but upon closer reading, the reason becomes clear. Pestos have multiple uses
that most of us wouldn't ordinarily think of. To put that to the test, I tried
the Green Chile pesto worked into meatballs and inside quesadillas and it was
super!My only quibble is that I wanted more than the recipe made. Next time
I'll double it.
I also liked how the author begins a chapter with a standard type of recipe and
then makes numerous variations. If my pantry lacked a certain ingredient, I
always felt like there was something else I could make or find some
approximation since she offers lots of alternatives to harder to find
ingredients.
Based on my level of cooking, I'm sort of glad Parisi didn't include the dozens
of classic French sauces she could have. Though interesting historically, I'd
never make most of them anyway. She makes a good point that the ones she did
include probably have the most universal appeal or at least are the most
indicative of the technique.
I quite enjoy reading the informative, quirky and anecdotal headnotes. They
make good reading and spark my interest. One issue I have with the organization
of the book however, is that the side bars, recipes contained in boxes and
other tips aren't included in the index. You have to read through a chapter to
find that information. It would be helpful to have those recipes at least
included in the index. I tried the Stir-Fried Beef with Scallions and Mushroom,
a recipe that shows you how to use a stir-fry sauce and it was delicious. There
is a page at the back that lists all those recipes, but it should be easier to
find them. The index otherwise is so overwhelmingly complete. The Sauce Index
by Suggested Use breaks down the food groups and pairs food with them.
Brilliant.
It seems fitting (though maybe a bit contrived) to end the book with dessert
sauces. But I'm never too full at the end of a meal to have something sweet and
I guess the same could be said of reading and using this book.

This gem threw itself at me in my local cooking store and I have been very happily "saucing!" Sure, there are many wonderful books on sauces already, some very sophisticated and some not. This book is a mix of both worlds. It is like someone has gone through all my cookbooks (and there are many...) and pulled out most of the sauces, from classic to fusion. It is well organized, directions are clear, ingredients are easily obtained (and if you are a card-carrying foodie like me, you already have almost ALL the ingredients already...) and it has a great pairing section for easy, no-brainer combinations of sauces for salads, pork, fish, beef, desserts, etc. This book helps spiff up whatever you are serving from salad to dessert.

My very first experience with the book successfully hooked me. Having scored a counter-top, electric roaster for Christmas, I have been experimenting with the cooker to see what it can and cannot do by using larger roasts, chickens, etc. Granted my 16 year-old is 6'1" and eats eight meals a day, but left-overs are not his cup of tea. After you slice off lovely large pieces of a six-pound pork roast for Sunday dinner, what the heck do you do with the rest to make it interesting and different and creative without a degree from the CIA? Grab this book: Sunday, I roasted the six-pound roast and served it with the "Creamy Sherry Vinegar Pan Sauce"; Monday, I cubed some of the meat and served it over rice with the "Sweet-And-Sour Stir-Fry Sauce", pineapple and some green peppers; Wednesday, the rest of the roast got shredded and mixed with "Smoky Texas-Style BBQ Sauce" and was served with coleslaw on hamburger rolls to my son and two of his friends. The plates were clean.

Now, THAT's economical, and fun! Three meals for the cost of one pork roast (on special, by the way) all very different and very tasty. This is not gourmet cooking, I know, I know...but at 5:30 pm on a week-night when my creative juices are well, not as "juicy" as I'd like, this is just fine by me.

My only complaint was that my book is a paperback. But Amazon has again saved the day: Just ordered the hardcover for myself and my daughter will get this one.

Quite frankly, having no more than 30-45 min. after work to fix dinner for a family everyday, I will invariably go for the dish with the least amount of work. As such, roasting, quick sauteeing, grilling, etc. are what meats, poulty and seafood are subjected to nightly in my kitchen.

Having "Get Saucy" is of tremendous help to me. I'm able to vary and improve the tastes of our everyday fare. I'm not making the same spaghetti sauces or the same gravies week in and week out. I've made about a dozen sauces, pestos, marinades, etc. from this book and each one has been simply delicious. I will usually prepare the sauce the night before, stick it in the fridge and warm it up or incorporate it with what's cooking for dinner next day.

As to whether the sauces in this book are authentic or not hardly concerns me. If it's quick to prepare, reasonable in cost, tasty and complementary to the main dishes and sides I cook, then it's a keeper for me.

This book already has become indespensable in my kitchen and I've only just bought it! There are enough pasta and tomato sauces to keep me going for a long time. And the BBQ chapter--unbelievable how many recipes Parisi has included--most of the country's regions are represented plus she includes so many of her own variations. I can't wait till it's warm enough to grill! I can't recommend it highly enough!

Whether you are an accomplished cook or a beginner you will find in this book delicious, imaginative dinner, salad and dessert sauces to enhance any meal. The recipes respect the limited time most people have to buy and prepare food using items found in most groceries. The sauces span the seasons so a cook can use the abundance of summer and winter vegetables. There is a helpful section, a sauce index, which offers suggested uses of sauces, and excellent preparation tips appear on many pages, a benefit for both experienced and novice cooks.

`Get Saucy' by food writer Grace Parisi is based on a really terrific idea and it has a great value as a multiplier of diversity in familiar dishes with relatively little effort spent learning new recipes. The biggest problem with the book is that this general subject of sauces has already been addressed by James Peterson's classic, award winning book `Sauces' which was so good and so popular, it warranted a second edition, something very uncommon in the world of cookbooks.

Ms. Parisi's book would not suffer much in comparison with Peterson's work if Parisi had not gone too far in simplifying great classic recipes, possibly in the interests of making recipes easier for the amateur cook. But then, this means that you think you are getting a pedigreed dog when you are actually getting a half-breed. The best example I found of this is in the comparison of Parisi and Peterson's recipes for `beurre blanc', French for `white butter', a relatively simple, extremely useful sauce of butter flavored with shallots, wine, and vinegar. The great value of this sauce is that it is a relatively crude emulsion similar to a vinaigrette which can be whipped back into shape easily instead of going through a lot of high maintenance procedures to bring back mayonnaise or hollandaise. It is most notable in being the darling of `nouvelle cuisine' because it was much lighter than bechamel or veloute. I say all this to emphasize that cutting corners in the presentation of this sauce is a more serious shortcoming of this book than one may think.

One can argue that while Peterson's book was written for professional cooks and Parisi's book has been written `for the rest of us', I will only recommend Parisi to those who simply want a quick and easy reference book for lots of common sauces which appear day in and day out in magazines, newspaper columns, and TV cooking shows. Having all these recipes in a single place with the added value of lots of cross references telling us what sauces are good for what dishes and ingredients. If you are a foodie or simply a serious amateur cook of any stripe, get James Peterson's book instead of this one.

For example, Peterson spends four pages discussing `beurre blanc' versus Parisi's half page column. Where Parisi gives an abbreviated (incomplete) recipe, Peterson, after giving us the historical perspective on the sauce, gives the full recipe in six steps (versus three in Parisi) and detailed instructions on how to store leftover sauce, including tips on how leftovers can be used in future hollandaise or béarnaise sauces. In the twice as long procedure for preparing the sauce, Peterson adds tips on what to look for to prevent bad things from happening, adds the butter over high heat rather than low for quicker incorporation, and adds checkpoints to taste the sauce for any needed adjustments. The most important step that Parisi leaves out entirely is the suggestion to strain the sauce before using. I have used `buerre blanc' both strained and unstrained and I am certain the strained version is superior, especially when entertaining. The bits of shallot remind one far too much of a vinaigrette and add little to the taste. Parisi would have done well to add this step as an option.

Now such differences in a single recipe may seem a bit trivial for lowering the rating of a 440-page book that has genuine value and lots of high-powered blurbs on the back cover from Jacques Pepin and Bobby Flay. But I find minor annoying things on every other page. For example, I think the organization of chapters is poorly done. Why have a chapter for pasta sauces when you have separate chapters on tomato sauces and pestos?

Other annoyances are based simply on the lack of skill used in the writing. In one sidebar on how to fix a broken hollandaise, I found two or three redundant expressions within two sentences. In another recipe, I was puzzled when the instructions had me putting butter in a microwave safe dish, with no instruction to put the dish in a microwave.

I also found other recipes that are not as good as ones available in standard texts. Ms. Parisi's recipe for Puttanesca sauce takes 17 minutes of cooking time while what is essentially the same ingredients are cooked up within 10 minutes in the `Cooks illustrated' version in their `Italian Classics' book. Aside from being outrageously flavorful, Puttanesca's main claim to fame is the speed with which it can be made. So, Ms. Parisi certainly does not have `the best recipe'.

In the long run, I think Ms. Parisi did an excellent job of collecting an amazingly comprehensive selection of sauce recipes that perform exactly the function she intends. That is, it multiplies the amateur cook's ability to vary dishes far beyond what can be offered by just another book of recipes. My only reservation is that the amateur needs to apply just a little critical judgment in applying sauces to dishes, and Ms. Parisi does provide the material with which to make good choices. I suspect Ms. Parisi and especially her copy editors may have been just a bit less careful than they should have in checking out English usage and recipe pedigrees. The very best thing this book could have included would have been a reference to each and every recipe to books that give more information and alternatives to Parisi's material.

I will still recommend this book to people who just want a fast reference to sauces, dressings, stocks, and salsas. But, I would recommend Peterson's `Sauces' to the serious amateur.

A friend gave me this for Christmas and if she weren't already #1 in my book, this would have put her over the top.

I have always enjoyed making sauces and salad dressings, but I usually just threw something together and hoped it tasted like I wanted it to. This book just overwhelmed me with the possibilities.

I have only made a few of the recipes so far, but everything has turned out very well. I made the mustard bechamel to go with the roast duck my family had on New Year's Day and I got rave reviews. Since the basic bechamel recipe makes about 4 cups, and I only needed 1 cup for the mustard sauce, I used the excess to make the Spinach-Pignoli Pesto Lasagne recipe included in the book. The only modification I made to the recipe was eliminating the raisins from the pesto - no one in my family cares for them. While the lasagne blorped a bit in the oven, it tasted delicious. I'd maybe up the ricotta content for next time, but that's a minimal issue.

I'd give the book a 5-star rating, but I haven't made enough of the sauces/pestos/marinades to properly judge how easy or hard all the recipes are. I'll admit the bechamel was a bit work-intensive, but the end results were totally worth it. I am definitely looking forward to making each and every recipe in this book.

UPDATE 10Sept2010: I spent most of the summer making BBQ sauces and had similar successes. I do, however, have beef with the section which contains "hot sauces". There is a single hot sauce recipe, and while I'm sure it's delicious, it is still a single recipe. I felt a bit betrayed. *sniff. Who ever thinks that Bible will let them down?

I bought this book because I live alone and like good food, but don't have the time necessary to prepare huge meals for myself. With this book though, I am able to find a simple, easy to make sauce, that is full of flavor, and use it to make a simple dish new and exciting. There is something for every taste in here, gravies, curries, mayonnaises, raitas, dessert sauces, salsas, etc. The sauces aren't too terribly elaborate and don't rely on difficult preparation techniques or exotic, expensive ingredients, though there are plenty of recipes for people who want to get creative and adventurous. There are also plenty of healthy recipes that don't call for lots of fats and sugars.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who eats food.

I have a couple bookshelves full of cookbooks and this is one I go back to frequently. I could probably end there, but I will explain more. This is the kind of book you reach for when you feel like cooking but dont have any ideas in mind. This is the kind of book you reach for when you have a handful of ingredients and haven't figured out what you want to do with them. It's the kind of book you reach for when you wanna get a taste for a new style of cuisine. And with several hundred recipes, it's all that and more. The recipes do work, but you might have to use a little cook's intuition, but that can be said about any cookbook.

I once complained to a neighbor of mine, whose wife grew fantastic asparagus, that I was tiring of melting cheddar cheese to make a sauce for the asparagus. He suggested that the Europeans were well ahead of us, having created many different types of sauces for foods. the sauces served several purposes: to spice up bland foods (like pasta), to provide variations in tastes for standard foods (like rice or potatoes), to provide interesting and attractive presentation of foods.

After years of having veggies plain, from either steaming or boiling, I decided to branch out into sauces. For me, sauces are to food as toppings are to pizza: they add the dash, the garnish, the extra flavor, they dress up the appearance. This not-so-little book (over 400 pages) provides a great introduction into the art and craft of sauces of every type, up to and including ketchup, salsa and aioli (a "sort of" mayonnaise). While it contains probably over 300 recipes for sauces, for me, the most useful part of the book is at the end, which contains a Sauce Index By Suggested Use. this index suggests which sauces might be best considered for what foods.

In addition to the recipes or sauces, there are occasional recipes for complete dishes, featuring one of the sauces.

This book is a welcome addition to my standard cookbook library: Child, Claiborne, Bittman, and the American Everyday Cookbook.