Customer Reviews

Tapas: The Essential Kitchen series

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

 

 

"Tapas" contains step-by-step recipes of authentic Spanish flavors from the interior of Spain and it's surrounding islands as well as some of the author's own creations. Richard Tapper takes you on a Spanish culinary tour that includes such mouth-watering and flavorful foods like Stuffed Artichokes, Chorizo and Olive Empanadas, Spicy Hard-Boiled Eggs, Shrimp Omelette, Cheese Marinated in Tarragon and Garlic, Mallorcan Pizza, Moorish-Style Kabobs, and Sangria (well, yeah!) Don't put a lid on your next tapas party. The author suggests serving tapas in Spanish crockery and to have Spanish classical guitar music playing in the background to help create an authentic Spanish bar atmosphere. Buen provecho!

Clearly written instructions. Good photographs. The 10 recipes I have prepared were all good.
For the most part ingredients were readily available.

For a recent tapas party that I was cooking for a fairly large group of friends and family, I stocked up on tapas cookbooks, and this was among my finds. Though the two recipes that I did end up trying from this book (clams in piquant tomato sauce and lamb brochettes) both turned out satisfactory, there wasn't much else that I wanted to try, or that didn't look better in a different book. There's lot of "filler" here - 4 "different" empanadas (though the only difference was in the filling), mussels and clams with the exact same preparations, etc.

The repetitive recipes, though, might be good for a beginner cook who has limited experience in substitution and other doctoring techniques, but for an advanced cook, this book seems overly basic, somewhat lacking in inspiration, and really just not the best buy for your money.

Try the El Farol cookbook instead... you'll be glad you did!

This book is great that in that it has a large color photo for nearly every recipe. The recipes are varying in scope to some extent but annoying in that the author chose to make different pages for variations to the same recipes such as croquettes (ham/seafood/vegetable) so this makes me feel that he was trying to "up" the recipe count with minimal effort.

All in all, recommended for a "basic" tapas cookbook.

I felt most of the dishes take too long to prepare and make. I think these recipies are for a person with better than average cooking skills and not cooking for a family of 4 after a hard days work. Most of the mushroom dishes are delicious: just the right amount of flavor if you follow the instructions.