233 of 238 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Strange and Indispensable, May 1, 2000
This review is from: The Minimalist Cooks at Home: Recipes That Give You More Flavor from Fewer Ingredients in Less Time (Hardcover)
What a strange and wonderful book this is. I started here, and not with Bittman's other book, because I didn't want to be overwhelmed. The recipes are at once more exotic and (even) more simple than I thought they'd be. One can probably learn more about cooking from this slim little book than he would by reading The Joy of Cooking cover to cover. All the same, you won't find here recipes for meat loaf or macaroni and cheese. The book is too urbane and international in its approach for that. A dish has to be both simple and, somehow, elegant. Grown-up. Bittman sees fit to include recipes for things like duck and lemongrass ginger soup with mushrooms in this short primer-not things that, at face value, I'd expect myself to need or even want on a quotidian basis. But there's the rub. The reader quickly learns that, in Bittman's cosmos, virtually any ingredient is interchangeable with any other ingredient. Even a main ingredient-chicken or fish-can be and should be readily and unhesitatingly substituted for what's available in the refrigerator- right now. At the end of every recipe comes a coda called "With Minimal Effort," and it is here that the recipes transcend themselves to inspire and instruct. Here are the substitutions, additions, embellishments, variations and manipulations of the core recipes that transform this from being just a little book to being a little book that can change the way you cook.
We shouldn't be running out to buy things. The mantra is making due with only a few high quality items that are already on hand. This is infinitely refreshing vis-a-vis a world of Martha Stewarts - cooks whose recipes seem to me rigidly conceived and which fetishize individual ingredients. Here, it's all about making intelligent substitutions based on a firm grasp of technique and knowing "where the flavor comes from." When I said the book was "strange," what I found so was the juxtaposition of certain recipes that - along with those for duck and lemongrass ginger soup - are so simple as to seem both obvious and antithetical to the book's overall sophistication. Not so. Once you get the hang of it, you learn that simple IS sophisticated. Often, more so than something with 25 different ingredients. Preparing a meal of linguine with olive oil and garlic can be nothing less than learning to cook all over again. I seem to recall making that, years ago, and yet this most pristine dish had fallen out of my repertoire. I had been brainwashed into believing that "more is more." Having reintroduced the dish, I want to make some substitutions with the very same dish tomorrow night: adding an herb here, a vegetable there. But not too many. I won't be making any special trips to the market. Bittman wouldn't want me to. Besides, too many ingredients might muck up the individual flavors, which is want I want to come through.
One could probably make a case for the idea that to master all of the recipes in this book would lead one to be able to cook anything. As the author points out, recipes can be "symbolic" of other recipes. It's nothing less than an education to be in the presence of a teacher whose goal is to demystify cooking itself by helping us make these connections.
My only bone to pick with Bittman is a tendency to underestimate the preparation time of some of the recipes. I myself have never peeled and minced garlic in less than fifteen minutes. If you can, you'll get even more out of this book than I did.
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92 of 92 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Mentor in the Kitchen, June 9, 2000
This review is from: The Minimalist Cooks at Home: Recipes That Give You More Flavor from Fewer Ingredients in Less Time (Hardcover)
I began flipping through this book when it first arrived and found myself driven to read it cover-to-cover. Mark Bittman's approach is like having a food mentor in my very own kitchen. Providing the right amount of information about the ingredients and the process PLUS ideas for modifying the recipes to suit the contents of your refrigerator is incredibly helpful. His practical, down-to-earth method is more like great coaching--informative and inspiring!
The Lemongrass-Ginger Soup on page 16 pleased everyone in my soup loving family (which includes two teenage boys). Mark's section called "With Minimal Effort" includes multiple ways to enhance/modify every recipe. And did I mention the Pasta & Potatoes recipe, page 59? Seasoned chefs may shudder but I have to say, it's a slice of heaven if heaven serves comfort food.
Mark Bittman, I'm grateful for your practical yet food loving approach to getting tasty dinners on the table quickly. We're having a Lemongrass-Ginger Soup variation tonight!
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67 of 70 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Get "How To Cook Everything" Instead, November 28, 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: The Minimalist Cooks at Home: Recipes That Give You More Flavor from Fewer Ingredients in Less Time (Hardcover)
I can't say enough good things about "How To Cook Everything," which is my cooking bible. However, "The Minimalist" seems to offer little new in terms of technique or reference, and has only a small fraction of the number of recipes in HTCE - many of which are identical or very simalar to ones in HTCE. If you have HCTE, this book is redundant. If you don't have HCTE, get it instead - it's 5 times the book at essentially the same price. I have both books, and always find myself reaching for the dog-eared and food-stained copy of "How To Cook Everything".
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