The Art of Cooking with Vegetables [Hardcover]

Alain Passard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 5, 2012

Alain Passard is chef who astonished the food world in 2001 by removing red meat from his three-Michelin-starred Paris restaurant L'Arpège, and dedicating himself to cooking with vegetables, supplied exclusively from his own organic farm. Today L'Arpège is widely acknowledged as one of the world's great restaurants, while its visionary owner has inspired a new generation of chefs.

Here is a collection of forty-eight wonderful recipes illustrated with Alain Passard's own joyful collages. Ranging through the year, the recipes include:
Asparagus, pear, lemon and sorrel in April and May
Peas, pink grapefruit, almond and thyme in July and August
Beetroot, blackberry, sage and lavender in September and October
Red potatoes, red chicory, sage, lemon and nutmeg in December and January.
The Art of Cooking with Vegetables is made up of unexpected combinations, complex flavours created with a few simple elements, a passion for fresh and seasonal ingredients.

Praise for Alain Passard
"[Passard is]...one of the “last generation” of great French chefs, those who were trained in the craft from early adolescence, and have never done anything else, and who exhibit a seemingly instinctive (though in fact dearly won) skill that still leaves the chefs of every other country in wonder." - THE NEW YORKER

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A tome to take into the kitchen." - Wall Street Journal

"If you’re open to it, cooking from this book will change you. Quietly and surely." -The New York Times

"It's a surprisingly slim book, an even 100 pages, but there are so many great ideas. Passard has the knack for making dishes that sound at the same time surprising and completely natural." -The Los Angeles Times

About the Author

Alain Passard is chef and owner of restaurant l'Arpege in Paris, which has retained a three-Michelin-star ranking since 1996. His kitchen garden in Fille 230 km from Paris supplies the restaurant, and is run completely organically, without even the use of machines. He lives in Paris. Alex Carlier has years of experience editing English cookery books, and cooking in England and France. She lives in Paris.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 112 pages
• Publisher: Frances Lincoln; First Edition edition (June 5, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0711233357
• ISBN-13: 978-0711233355
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 0.6 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #105,338 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A really enjoyable set of recipes! August 31, 2012

By Arthur

Format:Hardcover

We received this cookbook earlier in the year as a gift and have really enjoyed it. It's been great for shopping at the Farmer's Market this summer. The recipes frequently combine same-colored vegetables into a single dish, and my kids have found it a lot of fun to help select and eat vegetables "by color." We have made about half of the 48 recipes so far. Our favorites include all the recipes with beets or asparagus and three more unusual dishes: Peas and pink grapefruit with white almonds, Haricots verts with white peach and white almonds, and Pears and black radish with tapenade.

Here is a list of all the recipes in The Art of Cooking with Vegetables:

1. Carrots and basil in purple splendor

2. Bell-shaped carrots with red sorrel and white wine

3. Herb-filled peppers on warm crusty bread

4. New potatoes with arugula and raspberry vinegar

5. Eggplant with green curry

6. Piquant mesclun salad with orange confits and soy sauce

7. Red spinach with rhubarb, beets, and bay

8. Spinach and carrots with orange and sesame

9. Stand up asparagus

10. Asparagus with pear with a touch of red sorrel

11. Baby turnips with lemon and black pepper

12. Peas and pink grapefruit with white almonds

13. Passion fruit, stuffed and baked like a crumble

14. Summer garden of vegetables garnished with turnip leaves

15. Globe artichokes with bay leaves and lime

16. Haricots verts with white peach and white almonds

17. Turnips and new potatoes with red tomatoes

18. Melon with blue cheese and black pepper

19. New potatoes with sage

20. Ratatouille Brittany-style in butter

21.... Three kinds of tomatoes with roasted eggplant caviar

22. Tomatoes and mozzarella with mint

23. Caesar salad

24. White chili the way I like it

25. Peaches with lemon and saffron

26. Rhubarb and strawberries with pralines and cream

27. Red peppers and black tomatoes with cilantro

28. Harlequin's garden of vegetables dressed with stuffed dates

29. Summer mosaic of green vegetables

30. Warm compote of plums with honey and orange

31. Turnips and black tomatoes cooked in Beaujolais, served with boiled eggs

32. Porcini with lemon, thyme, and olive oil

33. Red beets with lavender and crushed blackberries

34. Red cabbage with pink garlic and tarragon

35. A tale of pumpkin and beets

36. Yellow carpaccio of onion, potato, horseradish, and garlic

37. Beets with red onion, basil, and parmesan

38. Beets with leek, green apple, and green tea

39. Pears and black radish with tapenade

40. Pumpkin soup with basil and a cappuccino topping

41. Red tiger bananas with madras curry, sage, and onion

42. Baked apples with hibiscus petals and crushed sugared almonds

43. Avocado souffles with dark chocolate

44. Red apples and red chicory cooked in butter and sage

45. Yellow beets baked in a dome of coarse salt

46. Jam of blood oranges, raspberries, and mint

47. Chicory with orange peel and fresh mint

48. Pineapple with an olive oil, honey, and lime dressing Read more ›

23 of 26 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Very highly recommended. Merci Chef Passard!! August 4, 2012

By Music

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

It is true that you will not find glossy pictures of avant-garde vegetable dishes in this book, but great food photos (including many featuring the cuisine at L'Arpege, Alain Passard's restaurant) are all over the web these days.

Instead, you are getting something unique with this slim collection of recipes: a highly accessible tour of Passard's distinctive, sophisticated, and very delicious approach to vegetables.

I wonder if those who are commenting about the lack of photos in the book have taken it into the kitchen to try some of the recipes? This book, unlike so many by other elite chefs, is one that a home cook can actually use regularly, with ordinary equipment and, for the most part, commonly found produce.

I have been cooking from the book for the past couple weeks. Here are some quick reflections:

- Each recipe has only a few elements, and best results are achieved by focusing on basic things like selecting high-quality produce, cutting vegetables into uniform sizes, using the right amount of heat, etc. In this sense, the book feels like an implicit kitchen apprenticeship, as if Passard were asking you to learn a few things well. Many of the more straightforward recipes--globe artichokes with bay leaves, new potatoes with sage, or pumpkin soup with basil and a cappuccino topping--indeed demonstrate how much can be achieved with very little.

- Very nice taste combinations are achieved by subtle means. A few examples: a mozzarella and tomato salad enhanced by a bit of mint and vanilla, red beets sauced with blackberries, ratatouille made with butter instead of olive oil....

- One does not need a lot of new spices to cook with this book: flavor comes mainly from the juxtaposition of vegetables, as heightened by great butter and olive oil, fleur de sel, and often lemon.

- Most recipes are gluten-free; many dishes could be made vegan (by skipping the butter, and alas losing some of the flavor).

- Many recipes allow for well-considered ingredient substitutions: for example, butternut squash for pumpkin, or one color of tomato/basil/apple/carrot for another color.

- The book was translated from French to English for British audiences and is full of "colours" and "flavours," as well as a handful of idiomatic cooking instructions.

The title of the original French edition of the book translates to "Collages and Recipes." (Each recipe has a corresponding collage on the facing page.) As I plated some of the dishes, I was amused by how apt the collages were. A summer mosaic of green vegetables is really what you get with that recipe. My tangle of red peppers and black tomatoes with cilantro indeed did resemble the Matisse-like paper cutout abstraction accompanying the recipe. But I had caught the spirit of the book, snipping the cilantro coarsely as directed, slicing my onions thinly with a Benriner mandoline, and admiring all the while the contrast of black tomato with glossy roasted red pepper strips.

In cooking from the book, perhaps you will catch the spirit of it, too, and be inspired to do more with vegetables. Read more ›

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great cookbook September 24, 2012

By Stevo228

Format:Hardcover

I think this cookbook is great , regardless the pictures ( who cares ) if there is none . First of all this cookbook has been out for 6 years in France. !!! and to all the people complaining about it I think there is too many copycat within the chef world and I do understand that Alain Passard wants the chefs to be creative so he gives you only the pairing flavors and ingredients then you are free to go further or you just replicate and by so you are just a copycat .. Anyway great cookbook by a great chef !!!!

24 of 33 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Fine recipes, but no photos June 9, 2012

By Bradley Nelson VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Alain Passard is one of the finest French chefs of our generation. This book is small and focuses on, as the title states, the art of cooking vegetables. So this contains several fantastic, focused recipes on vegetables. This is really the perfect book for the amateur cook who wants to hone their skills.

However, there is one major drawback: there are no pictures. Every recipe has it's own art work, which is mosaic-style clippings of construction paper or something, arrayed in a way to represent the dish. The one on the cover is probably the best one...most are impossible to distinguish as anything food related. Now, it's not required for every cookbook to have photos, but he's still dedicating a full page of art for every recipe. Many of them are worthless as visualizations. I found this highly disappointing. If you really want the recipes, by all means get the book. But if you appreciate the visual appeal of food photography, there is nothing like that here.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars For serious cooks only... February 8, 2013

By Cook-E

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

You have to love cooking for this one. If you're looking for a quick easy meal, pass on this... But if you're adventurous about food - and want to try some interesting and wonderful combinations you wouldn't have considered before.... get this book and have fun!! I'm enjoying it. Don't mind the lack of pictures, his artistic representations are playful and fun