Customer Reviews

The Paris Neighborhood Cookbook: Danyel Couet's Guide to the City's Ethnic Cuisines (Cookbooks)

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Let me start off by stating that I'd seen this book at a local bookstore, and the recipes inside immediately captured my interest. Returning home, I decided to check Amazon for a better price (of course), and to see what others have thought of it. After reading the one previous negative review, I decided to purchase the book anyway, because I simply feel that the recipes are worth having.

The first thing I cooked from the book was an hors d'oeuvre in the "Bistro Food" chapter: "Chévre Chaud," which is a sliced baquette topped with a bit of goat cheese, baked, and then you pour a fantastic mixture that includes tarragon, parsley, and basil mixed with orange blossom honey on top of each. Needless to say, my dinner guests weren't complaining. In fact, they wanted to go back and polish them off after dinner!

So, last night I decided to try the "Flétan Aux 'Epices" (Spiced Fish), in which I cooked sea bass with a spice dry-rub comprised of fennel seeds, black mustard seeds, cumin, ginger, cinnamon, and tumeric. After frying the fish in a bit of olive oil on each side, the sauce is a strained mixture of jalapeno pepper, cilantro, butter, and orange juice. Again, the guests loved it; and I am quite pleased with my new cookbook.

To sum things up, I haven't cooked a lot from the Paris Neighborhood Cookbook yet, but nearly every recipe seems to suit my tastes, and I trust the instincts of author/chef Daniel Couet based upon what I like to cook as well.

This is a little more than just a cookbook it also offers information on food culture and Parisian neighborhood spots and ethnic cuisine. A nice read not just to cook from. Recipes are from various establishments and all very nice. I should stress that this book is much broader than just French cuisine. It is also multinational ex-pats that now reside in Paris. Nothing too complicated or unapproachable, everything looks and is yummy. Some sexy food porn pictures too. If you want something a little different this is a pretty good one.

I returned the book because it ended up not what I thought it was going to be. Turns out it is a walking tour through ethnic Paris neighborhoods getting recipes from the various countries that these neighborhoods were settled by.
In essence eating North African, Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian, etc. in Paris. Anecdotes are good just not quite the cookbook I was hoping for.

This is such a well-designed cookbook, as stylish as the author's home
city of Paris itself. The many color photographs by David Loftus
transport the reader to each of the eight different ethnic
neighborhoods described in the book and effectively give the flavor of
the featured recipes. It is a cookbook, a memoir and a travel book
all in one and the publishers did a magnificent job in designing the
book so that the armchair tour of these Parisian neighborhoods flows
seamlessly. One gets a taste of the Greek, Arab, Jewish, African,
Indian, and Asian quarters, as well as a sampling of bistro cooking
and meals grabbed outdoors at specialty markets and from street
vendors.

This book would be a fine working cookbook for the home cook and
professional chef alike. The recipes do not sound impossibly
difficult nor are the ingredients too obscure or expensive. The heft
of the book (265 pages) is just right for propping open on a kitchen
counter or curling around in a comfortable chair for recreational
reading.