Customer Reviews

The Illustrated Step-by-Step Cook (DK Illustrated Cook Books)

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
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This is a compilation book, taken from the original Look & Cook series by Anne Willan. "Updated" apparently means much briefer recipes and instructions, fewer photographs, just generally a watered down version of the original series. If you don't have those books, then this may be a decent substitute, but if you do, this will be a very poor shadow.

This cookbook is physically big, but that does make it easy to read. The directions are easy and many steps are illustrated with colour pictures. Each recipe has large colour, luscious looking pictures also of the final dish. Most recipes take up two pages laid out flat, no page turning needed in the middle of preparation.

There are charts in front and back with equivalent measures. There is a section of recipe choices with the pictures of the dishes and pages they are located on, they are also pictured again on the recipe page. Preparation and cooking times are given. Everything is simplified. Some of our family favorites have been; Cold chicken and ham pie, Fisherman's pie, Steak and wild mushroom pie, Rhubarb and strawberry tart.
I do question the statement that you can use canned crab and have your crab cakes come out the same as using fresh crab - that just does not work.

Recipes include; starters and light bites, salads, meat free, one-pot dishes, home from work, food to share, comfort food, bread, pies, tarts and cakes, desserts.

This would be ideal for someone learning to cook and those not too sure of preparing more than the ordinary dishes, of which there are many in here, such as: spinach-stuffed veal, bouillabaisse, Saltimbocca of salmon, Lamb chops chapvallion, chicken and prawn laksa. There are many dishes that are different made easy to prepare and would give a cook the confidence to attempt them.

A general, rather downhome cookbook with lots of practical recipes is always appreciated and The Illustrated Step-by-Step Cook (DK Illustrated Cook Books), with its clear directions and lack of assumption of knowledge, is particularly helpful. It's a hefty book of 544 pages and more than 300 recipes, including grilled tuna steaks with salsa, Aunt Sally's meatloaf, southern fried chicken and salmon with orange salad. For the internationally minded, recipes include Vietnamese spring rolls, Turkish lamb kebabs and tabbouleh with yogurt. The book is well illustrated and provides temperature, volume and weight equivalents. It's a good book for anyone getting started or needing some new ideas.

I was a Novice Baker/Cook until books exactly like this came into My world.I had "flunked out" of Home Economics" due to Cooking! Then,I found myself CALLING Dearest Friends@ 7a.m.asking,"how do You poach an Egg"? Then,"How to stop a Fire from the Broiler"? So for those nay~sayers,please understand,I had to put my nose to the proverbial "grind stone".Yes,Some Areas Do Not have Fresh Seafood.Tinned is Only Option.Nigella Lawson uses tinned Crab for Her Delectables and No One bats a lash either. My Relatives are "land locked".They "swoon" over Coastal Foods.This is a "Primer" for those just like Me that require to Feed Self/Others without an ER visit. Unless graduated from "Le Cordon Blue",ease up a little.We adore any Help and as I continue My Education into Culinary World{s} from this Great Orb,I relish the Opprotunities to Succeed and Fail.Why? That is when I learn.