Mark Bittman's Kitchen Express: 404 inspired seasonal dishes you can make in 20 minutes or less [Hardcover]

Mark Bittman (Author)

Book Description

Release date: July 7, 2009

101 super-quick and ultra-easy recipes for each of the four seasons— totaling a whopping 404 recipes—from award-winning cookbook author and popular New York Times columnist Mark Bittman.

• A celebrated author with a huge following: The author of the perennial bestseller How to Cook Everything, mark Bittman is known across the country as “The minimalist.” His more than two million readers eagerly follow his weekly recipes and accompanying instructional online videos from The New York Times. His popular thirteen-part PBS series was named the Best National Cooking Series of 2005 by the prestigious James Beard Foundation.

• An easy, breezy read for busy cooks: 404 Express gives readers 101 quick recipes for each season, all of which can be prepared in ten minutes or less. For people who like to eat well without the fuss, mark Bittman offers his trademark pared-down elegance and contemporary style. Like his New York Times column, each recipe is presented with just a sentence or two and requires but a few ingredients. From seafood to pasta dishes, vegetarian specialties and desserts, Bittman covers every flavor for every season.

• Capitalizes on the “seasonal” food craze: With concerns about the environment, today more than ever, Americans are keen on cooking and eating seasonally. Each of the 404 recipes in this book make it easy for readers to choose meals made from fresh foods produced on local farms.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Bittman here offers a sampling of 404 inspiring recipes. But don't expect another How to Cook Everything. This newest is of a different kind—simple and snappy, and rarely calls for measuring spoons. The no-sweat recipes are divided into four sections: summer, fall, winter and spring, capitalizing on the freshest ingredients of each season while whittling down the prep time of ordinarily elaborate dishes like coq au vin and ricotta cheesecake to 10 minutes or less. The book includes a drill-down of how best to stock your kitchen, and given the impromptu nature of the book, the substitution grid proves indispensable. While many dishes are sandwiches, dips or salads, Bittman offers a handful of innovative gems like figs in a blanket and pasta jambalaya, drawing from a diverse gastronomical panorama including Latin, Asian, Mediterranean and Creole flavors. And while quick, Bittman's recipes don't lack his signature creative punch. Lavender-thyme braised chicken, scallop and peach ceviche and a five-spice lobster sandwich will make most readers both salivate and appreciate the ease of his recipes. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

“I’d buy any cookbook Bittman wrote.”

—The Miami Herald

“This is a man who loves food in the most unstuffy way possible.”

—The Chicago Tribune

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Edition edition (July 7, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416575669
• ISBN-13: 978-1416575665
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (63 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #76,261 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #100 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Special Occasions > Seasonal

More About the Author

Mark Bittman is one of the country's best-known, most widely respected food writers. His How to Cook Everything books, with one million copies in print, are a mainstay of the modern kitchen. Bittman writes for the Opinion section of the New York Times on food policy and cooking and is a columnist for the New York Times magazine. He is regularly featured on the Today Show in How To Cook Everything Today cooking segments. For 13 years he wrote "The Minimalist" column and now a "Minimalist" cooking show is featured on the Cooking Channel. The How to Cook Everything series is highly respected: the first edition of the flagship book How to Cook Everything won both the IACP and James Beard Awards, and How to Cook Everything Vegetarian won the 2008 IACP award. He is also the author of Food Matters, Food Matters Cookbook, Fish, and Leafy Greens.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

84 of 87 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific "busy Mom" cookbook! July 21, 2009

By Jill Anderson

Format:Hardcover

I love this cookbook! WOW.

What I love about this book:
1) Recipes are sectioned by season
2) All recipes are written in paragraph form - with very little instruction (a pinch, a splash, drizzle, etc..)
3) At the beginning of the book, he gives you recommendations for a well-stocked pantry (I passed - woo hoo).
4) At the back of the book he provides tables for Kitchen Express Menus - Weeknight Dinner Party, Romantic Supper, Better-than-Chinese Takeout, Kids' night, Room-Temperature Buffet, Finger-food Cocktail Party, and Picnic/Road Trip, Holiday Blowout and Weekend Brunch. Each table is segmented by season - listing potentially an appetizer, main course, salad or vegetable, side dish, dessert.
5) The food tastes great! My very picky eater 4 yr old son loved the Korean Barbecued Beef that I paired with rice and sugar snap peas.

I highly recommend this cookbook.

42 of 43 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Simple, fast recipes with few ingredients July 21, 2009

By Gluten free mom

Format:Hardcover

I really like the book. I have Mark Bittmans' book "How to Cook Everything" too, which I've always loved. This is smaller but still has a ton of great recipes. This is perfect if you really like quick-cooking dishes. "How to Cook Everything" also has a lot of quick dishes but you have to find them (which takes time - and that's what I'm trying to save). The format is different - just a paragraph for each recipe - but I like it. He always makes everything simple and his dishes are delicious. He's also very practical. He also has a section on what substitutes you can use if you don't have an ingredient. I also have celiac disease and have to eat gluten-free. Most of his recipes lend themselves naturally to a gluten-free diet. He doesn't use processed foods and he doesn't use flour to make a lot of sauces. He might use flour to dredge meats but I usually just skip this step or you can use cornstarch or another wheat flour substitute. His ingredients are just simple, fresh ingredients....and he doesn't use too many.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars For those who love Bittman's NYT Express columns..... July 21, 2009

By lonbeehold

Format:Hardcover

....this book is a real treat. I have been collecting the express entries from his "The Minimalist" columns and tucking them into my copy of his fabulous book How To Cook Everything. It's wonderful to have so many great ideas, inspired by the spirit of those columns, in book form. For those unfamiliar with Mr. Bittman, this book is a great introduction to his philosophy of simple, delicious, never boring cuisine. Another winner from one of my favorite food writers.

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Cross-temporal convenience fusion? August 26, 2009

By Brian Connors VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

I must, shamefully, admit to not owning enough Mark Bittman books; in fact, though both volumes of How to Cook Everything have been on my shopping list for quite a long time now, so was Home Improvement 1-2-3 and it took me the better part of 7 years to get around to picking up a copy.

That said, I don't think it's any secret at this point that Bittman is one of the most influential American food writers out there right now; the No-Knead Bread column he wrote in 2006 took off like wildfire and lit up the culinary blogosphere in a manner that has only ever been equaled by the Bacon Explosion. How to Cook Everything Vegetarian is one of the biggest go-to books since Moosewood for people who want vegetarian recipes without the self-righteousness of Christina Pirello or the hucksterism of macrobiotics, and overall Bittman might just be the modern oracle of American food. But he's always writing for a very basic audience that doesn't always have a firm grasp of technique or food science; this is fine, but it can be somewhat limiting to someone who is comfortable in skills and just wants to tap in and hit a vein of inspiration on the first try. Enter "Kitchen Express".

This is a most curious book to a modern reader -- dish after dish, laid out on the page and described in a short, dense paragraph. It's not a beginner's book -- these recipes are for people who know what they're doing and just need quick inspiration. The recipes are quick and dirty and more than anything else resemble...... well, those of cookbooks from before the early 20th century, actually, before Fannie Merritt Farmer began to redefine the way cookbooks were written and formatted. The food is thoroughly modern convenience food with a great many influences from around the US and around the world, and are arranged seasonally just because Bittman felt like doing it that way to emphasize seasonal ingredients, but the informality and high level of faith in the reader is very much in the old-school vein and will feel very familiar to anyone who's downloaded a cookbook off of Gutenberg or bought an antiquarian book like Hannah Glasse's. Most importantly, though, the recipes, with their deemphasis on precision and the extensive hints on substitution of ingredients, are set up in roughly the same way as one might simply describe a dish over the phone or in email.

I think Bittman took a risk on this one, especially as it's a very no-nonsense book with no pictures, but all things considered it's pretty much the ultimate recipe browser's delight. You probably won't find it all that useful if you're a beginner cook, but if you're pretty solid in your cooking technique, grab it and keep it around in case inspiration fails to strike. (Make sure you get the dead tree edition though -- the Kindle version is apparently faulty and difficult to navigate. It's not quite that much like Gutenberg, it seems...) Read more ›

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fast, casual cooking at it's best - makes every dish better. June 29, 2011

By John Dark

Format:Hardcover

Executive Summary: Great book, get it. Maybe not as your first cookbook, and not as your only cookbook, but for everyday meals, nothing beats this.

I stood there in Costco in the books section. I had been looking at the Ad Hoc at Home on Amazon and was happy to see it in person. Oh, so tempting. Maybe, I too could cook like Thomas Keller might at home. However the recipes are still exacting, and there is a level of planning ahead that I know means I would rarely use that book.

On the other hand, right next to it, was this little gem: Kitchen Express. I've made some of Bittman's recipes in the past from the NY Times and the Minimalist podcast (Sauteed Brussel Sprouts with Bacon was a hit with the family.) I've had the book for a couple of weeks and have used it or been inspired by it almost every day.

Cookbook Elements
1. Recipes are organized into seasons, so it's easy to refer to it before a trip to the farmer's market for fresh foods.
2. Additionally, they are indexed by type - one-dish cooking, potluck dishes, picnic dishes, etc. There are also several suggested menus.
3. The kitchen pantry section gives a good overview of useful items to have on hand.
4. There's a generous substitution list that gives you full permission to substitute red onions for shallots, for example. This is great for my wife who is often substituting completely random things in recipes in ways that totally change the dish.

Things I like about this:
1. 20 minutes per dish, max. Meals really don't take long - under 30 total.
2. Generally very healthy dishes - he relies on butter and bacon as cooking aids, not as the main attraction.... This is a good cookbook overall to go with the Abs Diet or P90X diet because it relies on fresh whole foods and lean proteins overall.
3. He uses lemon frequently (really, it's in a lot of dishes in the summer section, but it always adds a little life) and bacon/pancetta (but in very small quantities).
4. Because of the low-committment nature of the recipes, it's great if you're looking in your cupboard and just need to make something with the food on hand - it may inspire you to add an herb or spice you hadn't thought of to an unrelated dish.

Who is it not for?
1. Need shopping lists? Need exact quantities? Sorry, look elsewhere. It helps to have a little experience in cooking because it relies upon your own sense of doing things.
2. Want to bake? Sorry, no bread or cookies here (though the desserts look awesome, high in flavor, but low in sugar.)
3. Just want someone to tell you exactly what to do? Sorry, this is more like being in the kitchen with Mark telling you what to do. Read more ›