Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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.

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.

....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.

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...)

Being raised in a family where most meals involve food from cans or boxes, I started my adult life with a real handicap in the kitchen. Mark Bittman helped me overcome it. I already owned "How to Cook Everything" and turn to it frequently. This book, however, fills a real need in our lives: how to eat well on weeknights with a baby pulling at my legs as I prepare dinner.
I love the paragraph style recipes. I have enough common sense to know how much chicken, onions or garlic to start with, and Mark knows that. I usually ignore given amounts in recipes anyway, so this approach just makes sense for me.
I love the flavors. I have cooked at least 20 recipes from this book and they have all been both quick and delicious.
I do not love the layout. The arranging recipes by seasons is a nice idea but in the end, lots of the recipes in the book are all-season recipes that a reader might miss out on if they only browsed the current season. This is a small complaint, however, because the index is comprehensive.
I have Mark Bittman to thank for teaching me broiling, braising and how to cook seafood. Thanks Mark!

The "recipes" as noted elsewhere are more guidance than instructions, presented in a conversational style that is like the response a friend might give when you ask "how did you make that?" The ingredients are interesting and work together well, so that exact proportions don't tend to matter much. With its seasonal focus and relaxed style, this book is one of my favorites.

I bought this after borrowing it from the library and constantly renewing it.
I was in a rut, and bored with my normal routine of scanning magazines, or the tall pile of tear outs I've collected, or my favorite cookbooks for meal ideas. Reading through Bittman's brief recipe ideas--they are NOT traditional recipes (brand new cooks may find them too sketchy)--turned out to be entertaining and motivating. This is just what I needed at this point in my personal cooking doldrums.

If you are familiar with and enjoy his 101 series from the Times, then you'll like this book.

This is a wonderful, inspiring book, the one I turn to most often when I'm looking for a weekend dinner idea on short notice.

Others have written well and at length about the book's virtues, so I want to focus on one thing that some people might consider a "flaw." Several reviewers have complained that the recipes are written as a single paragraph without a separate list of ingredients. While it's true that a list would be useful, the format is just fine as it is.

Think about it: Bittman gives you 404 recipes in a 230-page book. Add a list of ingredients to each one, and the book would be TWICE as long (and more expensive), or it would only have half as many recipes. If you decide to try a particular recipe after reading it, it only takes a moment to jot down the ingredients on a scrap of paper.

I, for one, appreciate that Mr. Bittman and the publisher gave us so many great recipes in such a short book.

New York Times "Minimalist" columnist and author of numerous books on fast, fresh, inspired cooking, Bittman never talks down to his reader. While he assumes nothing in terms of expertise, and offers clear, concise directions, he encourages flair and imagination - tossing off variations and encouraging the home cook to follow suit.

His latest - a slim, attractively designed volume with no illustrations, organized by season, from appetizers through dessert - offers 404 dishes which can be ready in 20 minutes and require only a paragraph of instructions - including ingredients. Pork Tacos with Apple-Fennel Slaw, for instance, start to finish in six lines. Plus one for variations.

The recipes are innovative (Miso Burgers) and traditional (Ham Steak with Redeye Gravy). With an internationalism we now take for granted Japanese Scallion-Stuffed Beef Rolls follows Beef Fajita Stir-Fry and Indian Lamb Kebabs precede Pasta Jambalaya.

For fall there's a Curried Coconut-Butternut Squash Soup and a Tofu Salad, Panini with Mushrooms and Fontina (each season includes sandwiches), Moroccan Lamb Chops with Couscous, and Pumpkin Crème Brulee.

Bittman includes something for everyone in a book that offers quick variety any day of the year.

Mark Bittman's Kitchen Express is not your ordinary cookbook. It has many ideas and recipes for the more unusual- non everyday recipes one is used to finding in cookbooks. It is divided into mainly summer, fall winter, and spring sections. As for the recipes, it is quite delightful to find some such as Warm Milk Toast and Quick Cassoulet, but then there are also the unusual ones not found in the ordinary book like Anchovy Egg Sandwich, Curried Coconut -Butternut Squash Soup and Lime and Chicken Soup.
There are extremely useful sections, especially a chart that has substitutions, if you don't have parsnips you can use carrots, no brussel sprouts? Use cabbage. I really liked this chart so much, I copied it and posted it with my other kitchen information.
Directions are included for dishes that could also be appetizers, the easiest of the easiest, the best to do ahead recipes for potlucks; so there are enough explanations to clarify how to use this cookbook. The index is well done, always a good thing for a cookbook, listing recipes under main ingredients.
However recipes are not set up in the normal fashion, meaning ingredients are not listed above the recipe. This can be a little irritating, because you have to read down through everything, hopefully not to skip anything to make sure you have the ingredients to make the thing you want to. There are also many instances of directions such as ` just rub a bit of salt in', you really have to be a person who knows how to cook to use this book, so please do not get it or give it if you are just a beginner, it might prove to be a very frustrating, confusing experience.
But if you want to try something different and especially can stand the non listing of ingredients before a recipe, it's probably a good book to try.