Before I get to the books (and magazine), a thought or two on last week’s Top Chef: All-Stars.
First, I found it interesting that no chef stood up for Jamie and even indicated that they understood, let alone approved of, her decision to leave for stitches on her thumb. If that’s the ethic of the kitchen, I feel like I should defer to that. And Tony Bourdain had no sympathy either. (Hat tip to Dave Cameron for pointing me to Bourdain’s blog.) Plus the stakes are even higher in this competition than they are in a restaurant kitchen.
But more importantly, how did no one ding her on bad cutting technique? Where the hell was her thumb that she ran her knife directly into it? I hate the parallel-to-the-board cut anyway because it’s dangerous, but when I must do it, my main priority is ensuring that if the knife moves forward faster than I expect, it will do nothing but slice the food I’m cutting. Fingers up. Thumbs up. Wrist angled up and sharply away from the food. If you don’t want to send Jamie home for malingering, send her home for poor knife skills.
Also, I tweeted a link earlier to the Chicago Tribune‘s interview with week 1’s unconditionally-released chef, Elia, in which she completely loses her mind and goes after Tom Colicchio. Tom’s response, while clearly dripping with disrespect, stays on point in an impressive manner – he answers the charges while keeping the deprecation subtle. It’s a model of angry writing. And as he and Bourdain and others have said, raw fish is raw fish. If it’s not meant to be raw, and it’s raw, you can’t pin that on the judges.
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I was asked on Twitter today to suggest some cookbooks or magazines, and I haven’t updated my old list of recommendations in a while so I figured I’d throw a new post together. I tend toward more specialized cookbooks now because I’m more interested in ideas than in techniques, but I’ll start with the staples to which I keep returning even though I’ve owned some of them for years.
Joy of Cooking
Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking
Baking Illustrated
Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice
How To Cook Everything
Good Eats: The Early Years
Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom
For magazines, I’m partial to Fine Cooking
why no atk? and why dont you use a mixer for breads?
ATK = Baking Illustrated.
You mean a bread machine? Can’t make old-world artisanal breads in there, and with Reinhart’s methods you don’t really need the machine because there’s not that much actual mixing and kneading involved, just time.
klaw: thanks for the great recommendations. any chance you’re going to post a part two any time soon for your suggested cooking-related gifts? part one was very helpful, and i’d love to see some higher end recommendations.
Second on Reinhart’s Bread Baker’s Apprentice (do not own the other two). Outstanding jump off point for anyone interested in bread making.
Reinhart does an excellent job of walking the reader through different techniques and styles, while driving home (to me anyway) that one of the best ingredients in great bread is time.
Thanks for the recommendations! My partner is definitely getting “Ratio,” as he despairs that he’s forgotten his empanada dough ratio and can’t find it again.
I meant a stand mixer. I suppose the “not much mixing or kneading” answers that question. My wife makes a ton of bread (we no longer buy bread as it’s vastly inferior) but we/she found that 10 minutes of kneading (mixing in the mixer) makes a much better sandwich bread.
Didn’t know about the ATK connection there.
We’ve got How to Make Everything, and it’s useful.
Also like:
Hubert Keller’s Under Pressure
(for our Sous-Vide)
have yet to use The Flavor Bible
and The Silver Spoon from Phaidon, but they look great.
Love the post! I recently purchased Cook with Jamie
, by Jamie Oliver and though I’m still making my way through it, I’m enjoying it so far. He spends of lot of time philosophizing his approach to food, which is no surprise if you ever watch his various shows. But at least he offers legitimate argument to lend his views weight. It’s a big book and clearly published with attention to detail.
brian: That’s interesting, as Reinhart and others tend to discourage that much time in the mixer for fear of overworking the dough. I only use the stand mixer for pizza dough, which requires more gluten development than bread; and for sticky doughs like pain francese. Other than that, it’s just not necessary with the overnight autolyse and soaker.
Nick: I can do that.
ATK = Cook’s Illustrated (and I guess Baking Illustrated though I’ve never heard of it). But I rarely bake.
And since I love Cook’s Illustrated (and ATK on PBS) I won’t make any recommendations because I’m sure Klaw will think they are just as silly. But I do love AB so I guess we have that in common. Thanks for the tip on “Ratio” … I will be checking that one out.
hmm…we’ve never done either of those however we’re not against trying new techniques. Could you provide your basic sandwich bread recipe? I’m interested to see how they stack up.
I don’t think I’ve ever made a straight sandwich bread. Probably because we rarely eat sandwiches.
Keith!
Bittman is an excellent complement to Joy, but you won’t find any squirrel or beaver recipes in How to Cook Everything. The NY TImes is biased against hill folk, it seems. Hmmm, caribou, too.
Jim Leahy’s No Work Bread isn’t no knead, but it seems to align with the method you’re talking about. Lots of sitting, little yeast, and yes, a minute or so of kneading.
I’ve been making really good pizza with Bittman’s proportions and some modifications for my stove. Isn’t that why we cook? To figure it out?
To add an oldie but goody to your list, we use The New Basics all the time. This is the cookbook that reinvented the Joy of Cooking with modern ingredients. I’ve gone through two copies, the second is now held together with rubber bands (as my Bittman was until recently). Cooking is dangerous business for books, it seems.
And it’s way more fun to cook with instructions that give you the basic outline for cooking a meal, and encourage you to improvise, than to end up a slave to the recipe.
Building on Peter’s comment, I would say Jim Lahey’s No-Knead bread is an excellent starting point for anyone interested in getting into bread making. It’s really easy and illustrates the benefits of patience and time. It also makes great bread, and can be modified in several ways (e.g. herbs, beer, or use of a sourdough starter).
How do you make toast?!
What is your basic bread recipe that you use more as utility bread?
Lahey’s no-knead bread recipe doesn’t include any instructions for kneading at all. He’s just relying on the soak/autolyse step to create gluten – which it does, but I find bread made with zero kneading to lack a little structure. YMMV.
Brian: For toast I use a 100% whole-wheat (or whole-grain) bread from Reinhart’s whole grain book. Soaker + starter each sit overnight, then you bring them together with a little more flour and yeast plus some melted butter and optional sweetener the next morning. A quick knead (maybe 5 minutes, tops) on the counter, shape, second rise, bake, cool. It’s not a classic soft sandwich bread, though – this one is strong, and stands up very well to the knife.
Okay two follow up questions and I’m done – or we can take it off line.
1. How do you keep 100 whole wheat bread from being so dense? We’ve always found it to be good in flavor but very heavy bread.
2. My wife does not eat dairy, in your recipe can the butter be subbed with another fat? Olive oil or something similar?
1. It is fairly dense, but I like that – it’s filling, and it feels filling. But you could go 80/20 using white bread flour for the 20, or use a finer-ground whole wheat flour (or just regrind it a little in your food processor).
2. Any fat works. I’ve made it non-dairy with vegetable oil and the coconut-milk beverage from So Delicious and it worked fine. (That coconut-milk stuff isn’t much to drink, but it bakes and cooks beautifully.)
Brian, this recipe is the best for a basic white sandwich bread out of the 4 or 5 I’ve tried: http://ayearinbread.earthandhearth.com/2007/05/t-his-bread-which-i-call-farmhouse.html
I like Harold McGee’s On Cooking. But its not a cookbook.
I also have Shirley Corriher’s Cookwise and Bakewise. Both books have recipes, but also talk about some of the science. I’ve read parts of both, but haven’t been able to put the time in to read both cover to cover.
I also got The Flavor Bible as a gift. I’m not sure how useful it is to an everyday cook. But this interests me more as a scientist and how certain foods pair well with others.