What is your favourite cookbook?!
What is your favourite cookbook?
I am looking to put a favorite cookbooks page on my website, what books would you recommend and if possible, why? Thank you for your time. Kay
Answers:
Better Homes & Gardens Red Plaid cookbook
Womens Home Companion cookbook (this is an old standard...not published anymore)
any church/community fundraiser cookbook with home style recipes
Jamie Oliver
Rachael Ray
DEATH BY CHOCOLATE
I don't know about cookbooks, but www.bettycrocker.com, or www.copykatrecipes.com are good websites. Good Luck!
The Dairy Book of Home Management.
It describes the basics ........ weights/measures/liquids etc.
It gives you recipes for beginner/medium and competent cooks.
It describes all cuts of meat/fish etc.
It gives you all equipment needed.
The recipes are fab and they bring one out every year ........ worth every penny.
Any cook book a women is holding.
I have tons, but my most useful ones are the BH&G plaid book, and Betty Crocker. Then the series of "365" books. And then The New Good Housekeeping Cookbook. There are more, they just all have their own merits.
I have a bunch of favorite cookbooks!
We rely heavily Fast Food My Way by Jacques Pepin. This cookbook is amazing! Whenever I sit down to dinner with one of its recipes, I'm floored that I cooked something so elegant and delicious without even breaking a sweat. The first time I ate Mr Pepin's chicken supreme, I looked around the kitchen to see if someone else really did the cooking--I can't cook that well, I said! But I did.
For baking, I use The Tassajara Bread Book (a classic) and The King Arthur Flour Baking Companion. These books taught me to make yeasted breads.
And, when I need something especially healing, I cook from Recipes for Self-Healing by Daverick Leggett. Mr Leggett took the concepts of eating from Chinese Medicine and used them to compile recipes delicious to a Western sensibility. So often "food energetics" cookbooks rely to heavily on the same old, quasi-Asian flavorings, but not this one.
French Farmhouse Cooking by Susan Herrmann Loomis is also excellent, as is Portuguese Homestyle Cooking by Ana Patuleia Ortins.
Cheers.
Any of the Paula Deen Series!! She has wonderful recipes for good ol' southern cooking like, cornbread,anything fried you can think up, and desserts, tons of desserts. Well you didn't ask for the heathiest.
Deliah Smith's complete illustrated cookery course.
The best cookbook I have ever found is Passionate Vegetarian by Crescent Dragonwagon. Even if you aren't vegetarian it has great tips for making almost any vegetable or grain. It's easy to read and has great little stories and descriptions as well as recipes and suggestions for different foods. For example it tells the differences between all the different grains and then gives recipes for each kind. I would never have tried Quinoa or millet if it wasn't for this book and they are both great tasting grains.
1. "Help! My Apartment has a Kitchen!" Kevin & Nancy Mills - these recipes are simple enough for a new cook. It's also chock-full of "Mom Tips" that help you out even more. I'd recommend it for someone going off to college for the first time or moving out on their own without lots of cooking experience.
2. "Best Recipes from the Back of Bottles, Boxes, Cans and Jars" by Ceil Dyer - This book has many, many recipes, some of which are really old classics. I enjoy it because there's a wide variety and they range from simple to complicated.
The I Hate To Cookbook
Rachael Rays 30 min meals
"The Good Food Cook Book" - Ina Paarman
(It was given as a gift, and has some awesome recipes for everything ranging from soups, starters, vegetarian, game, desserts, cakes).
The pictures look good enough to eat!
There are a lot of very good cookbooks out there - I've got about 200 and also a huge wodge of recipes from magazines such as 'Gourmet'.
The important consideration is that many home cooks start out just wanting to be able to boil an egg or grill (broil) a steak, but end up desiring to cook lobster thermidor aux crevettes in the Provencale style with a garnish of truffles and foie gras and a fried egg on top (with or without Spam). Therefore, the first cookbook anyone should have is one that teaches the basic theory behind cooking, details how to make sauces, from the basic roux right through to the most complex reductions, but also teaches you how to effectively prepare and fry an onion. This book is Practical Cookery, by Ceserani and Kinton - the first of a three-volume set, normally just known as "Ceserani and Kinton".
This book, although aimed at student chefs who wish to work professionally, is essential to the home cook, as all the techniques are tried and tested. Using this book first will prevent the cook from having to 'unlearn' faulty techniques from 'coffee-table' cookbooks of dubious value.
The second book I would have would be a compendium of the series released some years ago in the UK as "The Dairy Book of xxx" There are several volumes in the series, and for UK cooks, they give clear recipes for some superb fodder. They are often seen on the UK secondhand market in charity shops, or can be obtained via Abe books or Amazon on the WWW.
Thirdly, assuming one has mastered the basic techniques in Ceserani and Kinton, the aspiring cook can move into buying the range of books "1000 Indian/Italian/Greek etc" recipes. Cheap and free from pictures they are, but they have excellent recipes for cooks who wish to move from basic British cooking onto various ethnic cuisines.
Jamie Oliver and Antony Worral-Thompson's books are worthy of perusal - these chefs give recipes that allow a home cook to display a bit of panache - there are too many books by these two for me to quote titles.
I'll conclude by saying that I am a trained chef, but cooks and chefs are of the same ilk - we want to, and have to, cook. The basic techniques for cookery do not differ whether one cooks for two in a home kitchen, or for forty in a restaurant kitchen or ships galley. The basics of cooking are such things as to how to fry an onion, boil spuds and separate an egg. The bullshit factor in cooking comes at a much higher level than either the home cook, or, for that matter, myself, will aspire to. The books I have suggested will enable the new cook to progress from basics to panache in two years, and from basic to Sunday Lunch in about a month.
PS. This covers the UK scene. For US cooks, I'd look at Wayne Gisslen - I find his work to be interesting, appetising and accessable.
Mrs Fields Cookie Book!
my favourite cookbook EVER!!!
Potpourrie It is a small book By an amateur author. That he dedicated it to his Mother who died of Breast Cancer. He gives some of the proceeds to the Breast Cancer Foundation. A very touching dedication is in the front of the book. The book has allot of good down home Southern Recipes. And it is very easy to understand and practical to use.
Any Jamie Oliver Books. Jamie's Italy, Cook with Jamie, Jamie's Kitchen and my Faveourite Jamie's Dinners. He's easy to follow and throws in the odd story of how he came about a dish. Love all his recipes. Delicious!
Have a range that I go back to time and time again
Any of Jamie Oliver's - simple dishes that work
Same for Nigel Slater, but favourite of these, both for the recipes, but also for the sheer pleasure of the book itself is the Hardback edition of The Kitchen Diaries
I love middle Eastern food, so Claudia Roden but also a great book called the Complete Middle Eastern Cookbook by Tess Mallos.
The Moro cookbooks - great restaurant and great recipes
And - not a cookery book, but a book you can lose yourself in for hours at a time - The Oxford Companion to Food.
Word of mouth
I actual have one that contains over a 1000 recipes, i like it because the method is pictured, so you can follow along as you cook. Its a lot simpluar, if you never cooked a certain recipe in your life before.
Delia smith rules ok
christina perillo's "everything you wanted to know about healthy cooking, but were afraid to ask"
ANY Rachael Ray book, i especially love her new one~2,4,6,8 (something like that) I OWN EVERYONE OF HER COOKBOOKS!!
'traditional cooking' by darina allen - very nice irish cookbook
You can't beat "The Joy of Cooking" by Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker.
Diana Kennedy (Mexican Food)
Jennifer Caprial (USA)
Donna Hay (Australia)
Armando Scannone (Venezuela)
Dolli Irigoyen (Argentina)
Gaston (Peru)
Douglas Rodriguez (Nuevo Latino)
Alain Ducasse (France)
Jose Maria Arzak (Basque)
Any cookbook by Bert Greene. He simply cannot create a bad dish and his recipes are extremely reliable.
Hi there, I love cooking, it's in my latin blood. I have over 150 cookery books currently (they include all the Top chefs). My favourite ones (which are my bibles) out of these are Delia Smith, Jamie Oliver, Gary Rhodes and most of the Good Housekeeping range. Also, not forgetting the Cheeky Nigella Lawson. My reason: - These Books offer quick, simple no messing recipes. All the ingredients are easy to find and the recipes are generally easy to prepare! When I cook I always think "KISS", Keep It Sensible and Simple!!! you cannot fail.