Customer Reviews

The Mansion on Turtle Creek Cookbook

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Best known as the executive chef of Dallas' Mansion on Turtle Creek, Dean Fearing soars above Texas and, indeed Southern Regional Cooking. This book is a must for anyone interested in the subtlties of taste combinations. While many of the ingredients are not easy to find in much of America's hinterland, those on either coast should have no problem in achieving Fearing's direction. Additionally, to those fearful of the small portions usually associated with today's fashion cuisine, Fearing's quantity of hearty food matches a True Texan's appitite.

Chef Fearing's food at The Mansion has been a legend for over 20 years, with fresh ingredients that look as good as they taste, with his use of generally local Texan ingredients.

I've dined at The Mansion years ago, and would give it a true Michelin star for the service and quality then, and would only hope it earned two Michelin stars (out of 3) today.

This cookbook is from 1987, and with it's easy to follow recipes, fairly easy to get (or substitute) ingredients, and few well chosen color pictures, I give it 5 Amazon stars today. (I like it much better than it's sequel that purports to mix Asian with Sowthwestern cuisine.)

Recipes include: Chilled avocado soup with Tangerine-lime sorbet, Lobster and apple bisque, Southwest corn chowder. More involved recipes include fried oysters stuffed with crabmeat, stir-fried shrimp with spicy peanut sauce (16 ingredients, including brown veal demi-glace) and pineapple chutney (13 ingredients).

I like the look of Oven baked chicken with maple pecan crust and pan sauce, roasted garlic potatoes, and cranberry-orange relish in sweet potato cups.

He gives delicious tricks of the trade, with information on cold smoking of meats and vegetables, to give his flair and signature to some dishes.

He gives instructions on making the brown veal stock, with pretty standard instructions that are clearly written, and his fish stock simmers for 20-25 minutes, also standard. Thus, one needn't buy prepared stock, or go to other books for recipes.

His brining is different, intended for smoking game, meat and fish. It starts with fairly standard salt, onion, celery and carrot, and adds various herbs, chillies and white wine...this is a unique restaurant technique that works well for home smoking of food. (It's easy to adapt one's charcoal or even gas grill for smoking, as one does not need a dedicated smoker ...)

Even Simon David, the upper end Dallas grocery store, is still in business for mail order of some ingredients, so do not worry if there's one choice ingredient missing.

Make some Chocolate Jack Daniel's Ice Cream or Bradley Ogden's Molasses spice cake with lemon curd sauce (don't let the curd sauce boil on it's "medium heat"), look through the recipes, and cook up some great food!

For those who have dined at the Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas, or for anyone who is deeply involved in the craft of gourmet cooking, this book is culinary heaven. The photographs of some of the dishes in the book are indeed fine art, and they entice the reader to make permanent residence in the kitchen studio, with spatula-paintbrush in hand, and mimic or alter at will the recipes in the book. Having cooked all the main dishes in the book, with varying degress of success, I can vouch for the idea that one must depart frequently from strict adherence to the recipes. Definitely try the creme brulee, but use a cooking torch instead of broiling. Can't find quail? Use Cornish hens instead of course.

I thoroughly enjoyed every page of this cookbook chef fearing a grad of cia is a wonderfully talented and inventive chef who cuisine should not be missed when in dallas . If you can't go there personally he has given every detail on how to prepare his heavenly dishes at home

I was very pleased with this transaction. I received the product much quicker than I had expected and it was as described.