Customer Reviews

Simple to Spectacular: How to Take One Basic Recipe to Four Levels of Sophistication

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
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First of all, the book is gorgeous. Better yet, the recipes are divine. They go from simply luxurious to positively decadent. The day I got the book I made Steak with Butter and Ginger Sauce. It was soooo easy and soooo good, and it was also different from any other steak I had ever made. The fabulous combination of Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Mark Bittman came up with the idea of taking a simple recipe and then building on that recipe to create a series of more sophisticated variations, and the idea really works. Mark Bittman's recipes are always clearly written, and Mr. Vongerichten is truly an alchemist in the kitchen. Whatever he starts with ends up being so much more than the sum of its parts, it's remarkable. Most cookbooks seem to have basically the same recipes distinguished by slightly different methods of arriving at a similar result. Not true of Jean-Georges Vongerichten. His recipes are very unique and usually uncomplicated. The difference is he combines ingredients that go very well together but that no one else has thought of. I have both his other cookbooks, and each recipe I have tried is easy to execute for the home cook. I would recommend both of them also. In fact, all three together would make a great gift set. An even better idea is to get them all for yourself and enjoy the results. Happy cooking and eating.

Although I have over 150 cookbooks, this is my first by Jean-Georges. I've become acquainted with him through his appearances on Martha Stewart and enjoyed watching him create some of his recipes. However, it was a recent appearance on the Regis show that sold me on this particular book. From a simple version of mashed potatoes, he then proceeded to enhance it four different ways. Wow! Also recommended which version would best accompany different meats or fish. I am always a fan of cookbooks that show one main recipe as well as subtle ways to change accompanying ingredients to create simple or spectacular menus.

My fiance and I throw a lot of dinner parties. I've loved cooking for years, and have mastered a number of great dishes that my friends love - and usually keep asking for. Constantly in search of new 'greats' - I've bought shelves of cookbooks trying to find great recipes that I could then modify to make my own. If only I'd found this book first - I would have saved myself hundreds of dollars!

This book is incredible - it starts with one basic (but great) recipe for something (like sauteed red snapper, for instance) then gives you 3 additional recipes, each becoming more complex. For instance, sauteed red snapper becomes potato crusted red snapper with a mustard/wine sauce, then spice and nut crusted red snapper, and finally pistachio crusted red snapper with pistachio oil and sauteed spinach.

The best part is that this isn't just a book of recipies. The author always explains in detail what you're doing, and why. He points out the really important part of these dishes, to ensure you know where to be careful. Plus, because it's written showing how you can constantly modify recipes for new creations, it opens a *big* door for you to constantly modify and be creative. I've never seen another cookbook like it.

Pros:
-Recipies are amazing!
-Even better, you learn how to modify them all in order to create fantastic new recipies.
-Besides the recipies, there's a lot you can learn about cooking in general - there is a wealth of knowledge in here.

Cons:
-I don't have any... this book is just remarkable.

Chef's cookbooks are, to me, guilty until proven innocent-- guilty of containing recipes that require a full restaurant staff to create, guilty of containing ingredients that are mainly there to justify a sky-high tab. (Rule of thumb: if more than three recipes call for White Truffle Oil, don't buy the book.) This, like Charlie Trotter Cooks At Home, is one of the few exceptions that genuinely seems aimed at a single cook and not a professional team. The concept is excellent-- showing you how to make roughly the same dish at levels ranging from farmhouse simplicity to four-star sophistication, and then letting you find your own level. In truth, though the Level 4 recipes still tend to be a bit much, you'll find a lot of terrific and quite impressive things at Level 2 and 3 (what you might call the bistro levels). Just as importantly, you'll learn a lot about how chefs think about putting dishes together at these different levels, which will encourage you to improvise as well.

Fabulous illustrations, solid text, and progressively imaginative recipes make this book one of my best cookbook purchases in years. As the title promises, Mr. Vongerichten takes some basic recipes for simple dishes and progresses each into more and more interesting variations. As an amateur chef, this is the kind of book that makes my hobby very interesting and teaches me not just what to cook but how to cook.

This is a beautiful book. There are 250 categories of recipes and 5 variations of each. They start with a basic quick and easy to prepare version then increase the ingredients/techniques to make it "fancier" over 4 variations. Scrambled eggs go from the old staple (but cooked in a special "soft" way) with eggs and butter to fancy with caviar served in an egg shell(as pictured on the cover). Lobster too undergoes transformation from steamed to extraordinary. The instructions are clear and precise and detailed notes/hints are provided as required. The full color photos are appealing and give you an idea of how beautiful the dishes are. The basic dishes can easily (and quickly) be prepared for weekday meals while the more exotic variations can be prepared for those special occasions.

`Simple to Spectacular' is the second of two collaborations by the dynamic duo of chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten and New York Times columnist and cookbook writer, Mark Bittman. The first, `Cooking at Home with chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten' is very good. This book is even better. To my seven (7) categories of modern cookbooks, I would add an eighth category for this and a select few other books such as Tom Colicchio's `How to Think Like a Chef', Paul Bertolli's `Cooking by Hand', and `Jeremiah Tower Cooks'. These are all `master class' texts on cooking techniques. If cooking is not your hobby or you are not a professional cook, your money would probably be much better spend on one of the `big' cookbooks such as the `Joy of Cooking' or on books by one of the fast cooking gurus such as Rachael Ray.

I have often thought that learning cooking is a lot like learning chess. There are lots of general strategies and tips, but you really cannot master the game until you actually play lots of games and see how the strategies play out in many different situations. One of the cleverest techniques for teaching chess is the method of playing through successively more difficult games in which the same rule(s) are applied with increasing sophistication. This book promises to do exactly the same thing with cooking, per its subtitle, `How to Take One Basic Recipe to Four Levels of Sophistication'.

One of the very few disappointments in this book is that it doesn't really follow this agenda. For each recipe title, it certainly begins with a very simple example and at least one of the later recipes certainly is more complicated with more expensive ingredients, but in practically no cases is there a clearly defined progression where the later recipe simply adds either ingredients or techniques to the earlier, simpler recipe. But this is simply not a big thing, as recipes, like chess game paradigms, simply do not evolve linearly. Another inconsequential deviation from the advertised plan is that there are often more than four variations on the same recipe and sometimes as many as six.

One of the unadvertised virtues of this book is that many of the most basic preparations are amazingly simple, and this is from a very important French influenced chef. Two of my favorite examples are the recipes for quick chicken stock and the `Best scrambled eggs' recipe.

I concede that many expert chefs, including those who teach other chefs recommend very long simmer times for their chicken stocks. In this book, Vongerichten and Bittman are recommending a single hour's cooking, using easily acquired chicken legs and just a few common vegetables, with practically no knife work. I am certain that a stock simmered for 12 hours may have some virtues that a one hour stock does not have, especially in the amount of gelatin picked up from the connective tissues, but you got to love this express recipe.

Similarly, some people such as James Beard have given us recipes for scrambled eggs done in double boilers which, according to our authors, can take up to 40 minutes to complete. Now, having done Beard's recipe myself, I know his method is less prone to error and is probably great if you are cooking for a dozen people, but the Vongerichten/Bittman recipe will have your pillowy soft scrambled eggs on the table in 10 minutes flat. If you never quite understood the difference between scrambled eggs and omelets, this book is worth its price for these recipes alone. After the plain eggs comes a recipe for eggs with tomato and basil, eggs with cream cheese, smoked salmon and sorrel, eggs with crispy potatoes and prosciutto, and eggs with caviar.

In addition to the section on `Eggs, Crepes, and Savory Tarts', there is are chapters on:

Soups, with variations on squash soup and gazpacho.
Salads, with variations on Frisee and Mesclun salads.
Pasta, Noodles, and Rice with variations on fresh pasta, cannelloni, sauces, spaetzle and sticky rice.
Vegetables, with variations on stuffed tomatoes, mashed potatoes, sautéed veggies, and tomato confit.
Seafood, with halibut, slow cooked salmon, red snapper, beurre noisette, raw tuna, shrimp, and poached lobster.
Poultry, with roast chicken and sautéed chicken.
Meat, with steak dishes, braised ribs, veal stew, roasted pork, venison and rabbit
Seasonings and sauces, which is simply the typical chapter on pantry preparations.
Desserts, with sorbet, ice cream, crème brulee, poached pears, and tarts.

Except for the recipes of rabbit and venison and the occasional caviar and foie gras, virtually all of these recipes are for dishes which are popular today and which the casual Food Network / Public Television / Today Show TV chef audience would be more than happy to try and wish to learn how to do better and with more variations. Some may argue that spaetzle is just a little obscure, but it happens to be very similar to gnocchi, and even easier to make, as long as you have the right kind of collander or spaetzle maker.

I have heard Ina Garten and some others say that all you really need are to know about a dozen recipes well. I disagree with this number. If I repeat any dish more than once a month or even repeat an ingredient (other than for breakfast) more than once a week, I get complaints. The only dinner exceptions to this rule are for corn and tomatoes when they are in season locally. Therefore, this book is a really great source of recipes that are easy, popular, and highly adaptable.

While I am not a professional dietitian or nutritionist, my sense is that the recipes are also extraordinarily healthy. A perfect example is the egg, smoked salmon, and cream cheese recipe used to replace the high carb, high calorie bagel, lox, and cream cheese.

This book is easily among my top five favorite cookbooks for foodies.

My father is the cook in the family -- I only follow in his humble footsteps. This book, however, is unbelievable for both the professional and amateur cook. My father and I both have copies, and while he can make the more exotic dishes, my less adventurous versions are just as good.

In "Simple to Spectacular", Vongerichten and Bittman have constructed a genius concept: take a single recipe, and show it at various levels of complexity. So, you get egg recipes that start with "the Best Scrambled Eggs" and going up to "Scrambled Eggs with Caviar and Creme Fraiche." This idea is marvelous, because it allows amateur cooks, like myself, to see how you can use a basic concept and build on it to create something sophisticated and different.

This is a perfect book for a young cook who is interested in really learning how to make good and great food. In spite of the sumptuous egg dish on the cover, this would work great for college students, or recent grads as they struggle to move beyond macaroni and cheese and pizza as staples of their diet.

I was very excited when I got this book, and I still find myself using it regularly. But even though I cook a lot, I am sometimes confused by the recipes. How, exactly, do you seal that chicken in foil? In spite of my best efforts at following the directions exactly, I had liquid and steam gushing all over the place. If you use phyllo dough in the place of puff pastry, how many layers should you plan on assembling? Does it depend on the recipe? You'd think that Vongerichten and Bittman might at least mention some guidelines.

Still, this cookbook has broadened the way I think about food, and I'm really grateful for that. I would certainly recommend it, but expect to be a bit confused now and then.

I've been inspired to try several of these receipes, even though I've gotten out of the habit of cooking lately -- the pictures are so attractive and the ingredients are so imaginatively combined. I have been pretty happy with the results, but find the receipes usually need a fair amount of tinkering and adjusting. For example, the spaetzle receipes which produce a dough so thick and dry that I find it impossible to push it through a colander! I find this odd, because I've used "the Minimalist" quite a bit, and everything in there works! Still, this book is worth it -- just run everything through once before you count on serving guests!