Recipes 1-2-3: Fabulous Food Using Only 3 Ingredients [Paperback]

Rozanne Gold (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1999

Save time without sacrificing taste--award-winning chef Rozanne Gold offers more than 250 dazzling, elegant recipes that contain just three ingredients.

Barbecue Pepper Shrimp, Husk-Roasted Corn with Chili Butter, Turkish Cherry Bread. Each of these recipes is based on the creative preparation of just three simple ingredients, proving that when it comes to cooking, less is more! With Recipes 1-2-3 even an amateur chef can shop for a three course dinner for six--and still go through the express line in the supermarket. The expertise of trendsetting chef, award-winning author, and television personality Rozanne Gold makes it deliciously possible. Here are more than 250 recipes with mouth-watering full-color photographs and a calendar of menus, one for every week of the year.

--Recipes 1-2-3 also includes a list of sources for hard-to-find ingredients, notes on food and wine pairings, and an index of fat-free, low-fat, and low-calorie dishes

--Both Recipes 1-2-3 and Rozanne Gold's previous book, Little Meals, won the James Beard Award

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

A cookbook for people on the run who desire a culinary palette beyond foil-covered TV dinners and fast food. Each delicious recipe requires no more than three ingredients, saving time but not sacrificing taste. With this book you can plan a three-course meal for guests and still go through the express lane at the supermarket. Dishes such as Roast Pork Tenderloin with Prunes and Bay Leaves, Aromatic Ginger Rice, and Chutney Baked Apples in Vanilla Creme stimulate all the senses. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Despite her gimmicky title, Gold (Little Meals), formerly the First Chef to New York City mayor Ed Koch, offers a broad collection to prove definitively that three ingredients (not including water, salt and pepper) are plenty to construct flavorful, sophisticated dishes. These results often require some culinary expertise, as recipes call for various techniques, preparations and cooking times to draw out and mingle the flavors; optimum results also demand high-quality ingredients that can be costly or difficult to find locally. Nevertheless, dedicated cooks will be inspired by Gold's minimalist approach, which creates an extensive array of tantalizing dishes: Farmhouse Cheddar Frittata; Pan-Roast Oysters with Butter and Leeks; Brie and Pear Soup; Red Snapper in Burnt Orange Oil; Roast Pork Tenderloin with Prunes and Bay Leaves; and Carmelized Endive and Bacon. Memorable finishing notes include Frozen Maple Souffle, Pepper Lime Ice Cream and Red Wine Apple Sauce. Gold offers party-planning help with wine suggestions for each main course and 52 menus geared to the seasons and holidays (e.g., an Italian Family Dinner in January, a Summer Bistro Supper and a Supper in Your Silk Pajamas for November). This elegant, upscale cookbook persuasively demonstrates that less can indeed be more. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics); Reprint edition (August 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140263667
• ISBN-13: 978-0140263664
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 7.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,311,828 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Rozanne Gold, renowned chef, author and international food and restaurant consultant, began her career at age 23 as first chef to New York Mayor Ed Koch. Considered one of the most prominent women in the food world, she is a four-time winner of the prestigious James Beard Award and winner of the IACP/Julia Child Cookbook Award.

As Chef-Director of the restaurant consulting group, the Joseph Baum & Michael Whiteman Co., she helped re-create New York's magical Rainbow Room atop Rockefeller Center (where she was co-owner and consulting chef for 15 years), the legendary Windows on the World, and three of New York's three-star restaurants.

The author of 12 acclaimed cookbooks, Ms. Gold has been the entertaining columnist for Bon Appetit magazine where her "Entertaining Made Easy" column was read by five million fans. She has written and produced stories for The New York Times (her work can be found on the Op-Ed page, the Dining Section, and Sunday Magazine), and has written for Oprah, Gourmet, Cooking Light, More, FoodArts, Modern Maturity and The Montessori Magazine.

As Chef to Mayor Koch, Ms. Gold cooked for President Jimmy Carter, Prime Minister Menachem Begin and dignitaries from all walks of life. Business Week named her a "Mover and Shaker"; Cooking Light magazine named her one of "America's Top 5 Enlightened Chefs"; Chef magazine nominated her "Innovator of the Year"; the Food & Beverage Association of America honored her as 'Hospitality Professional of the Year" and Drexel University deemed her Distinguished Visiting Professor.

Known as the "diva of simplicity", she has set the Gold Standard for a style of cooking that has inspired professional chefs and home cooks alike to "keep it simple" with: Little Meals: A Great New Way to Eat and Cook (1994), Recipes 1-2-3: Fabulous Food Using Only Three Ingredients (1996), published in four languages; Recipes 1-2-3 Menu Cookbook (1998), Entertaining 1-2-3 (1999) and Healthy 1-2-3 (2001). Desserts 1-2-3 (2002) landed on the L.A. Times "Hot List" and was chosen one of the year's best cookbooks by Food & Wine Magazine. Cooking 1-2-3 (2003) was chosen as one of the year's best 10 books on NBC's Today Show.

Gold's books have garnered starred reviews from Publisher's Weekly and chosen as Editor's Selections in the New York Times Book Review. Her seminal book, Healthy 1-2-3 won the coveted IACP award, was nominated for a James Beard award, and chosen as "one of the year's best books" by the San Francisco Chronicle.

Known as a food-trends pundit, Ms. Gold invents concepts that give restaurants and food companies their competitive edge. An early proponent of American regional cooking, she helped create American Spoon Foods, the first specialty food company to focus on regional ingredients. She invented Hudson River Cuisine, turning the idea into a three-star restaurant, the Hudson River Club; and was responsible for developing New York's first pan-Mediterranean restaurant (Café Greco), featuring "Med-Rim Cuisine".

Ms. Gold is a frequent guest on national television, including four recent appearances on the Today Show and is a regular guest on National Public Radio. A recent appearance on WNYC's "Leonard Lopate Show" won her a fourth James Beard Award.

A graduate of Tufts University with honors in psychology and education, Ms. Gold studied cooking in Italy and France. She is past President of Les Dames d'Escoffier, New York, and is a trustee of Arts Horizons, a nonprofit organization that brings the arts to city schools. She is a major proponent of the movement to help teens eat more healthfully and has just published her 11th book -- "Eat Fresh Food: Awesome Recipes for Teen Chefs" (Bloomsbury USA, October 2009.) Gold lives with her husband and teenage daughter in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Her son Jeremy Whiteman lives in Silicon Valley.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Creative, imaginative recipes, January 14, 1999

By 

. "Adelie" (Grass Valley, CA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Recipes 1-2-3: Fabulous Food Using Only Three Ingredients (Hardcover)

I have tried many of the recipes in this book, and while they are not all unqualfied successes, enough of them are that I number this among my most useful recipe books. Ms. Gold and I share a basic sensibility about simplicity and flavors - simple, robust, up-front. I find that the add-ons make a big difference, and of course, I tend to tweak recipes anyway - the Baked Olives (in red wine and olive oil) are great as given, but with the addition of some garlic or rosemary, it's terrific. The deep-fried cheese was a disaster - I got a huge mess in the pan, with the coating stuck to the bottom and the runny cheese all over everything - ugh. The pasta with broccoli sauce is pretty bland - next time I'll massage it with some lemon juice or pepper flakes or something. But other recipes are great, and provide quick and easy starting points for me. I definitely recommend the book, and have given it to a couple of non-cooks, who really liked it.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Something New In Cooking-- Really, August 1, 2001

By 

disco75 "disco75" (State College, PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Recipes 1-2-3: Fabulous Food Using Only 3 Ingredients (Paperback)

Gold's approach to cooking is quite unique. By using a limited number of ingredients she must make the plain flavors stand out by emphasizing their inherent qualities. This differs from many culinary styles that strive for complexity of flavors and ranges of tastes within a dish. The results are subtle and fresh tasting. Readers should be warned, however, that 1-2-3 doesn't mean simple. Many times the dishes are time consuming and have multiple steps such as roasting, sweating, blanching, baking, sauteing, and pureeing in order to showcase the flavors of the main ingredient. I have made several dinners using only her cookbook, and three dishes can use up an impressive number of pots, pans, and appliances (fortunately I am not the dishwasher in my home). At their best, the recipes using this simplicity concept are especially suited to wine pairings that enhance or complement the tastes. I have incorporated a number of these dishes into my day to day repertoire: Pasta with Broccoli-Sausage sauce (using vegetarian sausage), Pureed Potatoes, Celeriac Remoulade, Sausages (Vegetarian) with Asparagus Sauce, Pumpkin Pasta, Braised Endive, Baked Fennel, Pasta with Broccoli Sauce, Routabaga Soup, and others. Gold is clearly writing from a large metropolitan center, and those of us in rural areas will have to adapt some of the more exotic ingredients. She is, however, a cook's cook and has in this and subsequent books provided an individual epicurean style.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good recipes created with some hard-to-find ingredients, November 8, 2000

By 

njbookworm (New Jersey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Recipes 1-2-3: Fabulous Food Using Only 3 Ingredients (Paperback)

When I purchased this book I thought, "Wow! I can cut my shopping time in half and still serve excellent gourmet meals to my friends and family!"

While the recipies were creative and pleasing to the eye as well as the palate, I had difficulty finding some of the ingredients. Ms. Gold's philosophy is, the better the ingredients the better the meal. I can't say I disagree. However, it was difficult when almost every time I wanted to make something I had to plan ahead and make either a special trip to the grocery store or ethnicgrocer.com.

What I did like is that the book encouraged me (a novice cook) to think about how different ingredients taste and function together. This is knowledge I can use with all of my other cooking.

Also, I should add that the photography and art design in this book is wonderful!