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I haven't read "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat" as recommended in the article, but I swear by: Julia Child, "the way to cook" Jeff Potter, "Cooking for geeks" Kenji l
by dgacmu 9y ago
I haven't read "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat" as recommended in the article, but I swear by:
Julia Child, "the way to cook"
Jeff Potter, "Cooking for geeks"
Kenji lopez-alt's "the food lab"
The author does compare to most of these, so the recommendation seems solid.
- Tomte 9y agoI was underwhelmed by "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat". Good information, great presentation, but not up there with the very best books, IMO. I like Ruhlman's "Twenty", maybe followed by "Ratio". "How to Cook without a Book" by Anderson is great, although you probably needwhole rooms in your house for food storage if you took her "what you should have in your pantry" serious. My most used cookbook is the one my mother gave me and all my relatives when we were living alone for the first time. It's the book she uses at school. It's for special-needs children, so extremely basic and easy, with many, many quirky illustrations. But it has everything important. Bechamel? Sure. Choux pastry? Yes. But also how to cook potatoes or eggs. The only infuriating thing in this book is that the index is worse than useless. I know the important recipes' page numbers by heart.
- twic 9y agoWhat's the name of that last cookbook?
- Tomte 9y agoIt's a German one, "Nahrungszubereitung Schritt für Schritt".
- Cenk 9y agoI also recommend Samin Nosrat’s Longform interview: https://longform.org/posts/longform-podcast-243-samin-nosrat https://longform.org/posts/longform-podcast-243-samin-nosrat
- mikekchar 9y agoI learned to cook from "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" by Julia Child et al. I still think it's the best instructive cook book I've ever seen (with the exception of some bread books, of which there are numerous incredible examples).
- croon 9y agoI might pick up that last one. When looking up something I haven't cooked before, I always check seriouseats (or epicurious and a few others), and especially Kenji, as he's never steered me wrong before. Haven't read the book though.
- CocaKoala 9y agoI have actually lost count of the number of times I've made something new and my wife says "this is good, where did you find it?" and I'll say "Oh, I saw it on serious eats and thought that it looked fun". In point of fact, this exact thing happened last night after I made chicken piccata for the first time.