Le Cordon Bleu's Complete Cooking Techniques: The Indispensable Reference Demonstates over 700 Illustrated Techniques with 2,000 Photos and 200 Recipes

by Le Cordon Bleu, Eric Treuille

With this exceptional opus, over 100 years of unparalleled experience and expertise are put at the fingertips of every home cook using the same hands-on approach promoted in practical classes at Le Cordon Bleu's institutes. This indispensable and unique reference work teaches essential preparation and cooking skills and professional tricks-of-the-trade, with over 700 cooking techniques shown in more than 2,000 color images. Whatever the interest -- providing family-pleasing everyday fare or mastering a top chef's recipe, or even attempting to re-create a dish from a restaurant menu -- Le Cordon Bleu Complete Cooking Techniques will enable people to cook what they want with success. Its hundreds of illustrated techniques are invaluable kitchen aids, as are the many integral recipes. Cooks interested in ethnic cuisines, readers of chef inspired, ingredient-led, or occasion-oriented cookbooks, as well as devotees of simple home cooking will turn to this book again and again and wonder how they ever cooked without it. Le Cordon Bleu Complete Cooking Techniques is destined to become a classic kitchen reference.

Genres: Cooking, Cookbooks, Food, Reference, Nonfiction, Culinary, France

352 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

Reviews

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good overview of cooking techniques. However, I didn't learn much new and there are a few better books out there (though this is better than most I've seen).

[Ryan Jung · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the rare cookbooks that works out reading it from start to finish, like a novel. It begins by introducing the tools of a professional kitchen and then devotes each subsequent chapter to different kinds of foods, starting with bare ingredients and building toward larger kitchen operations. For example, you learn in various portions of the book how to make choux pastry, how to caramelize sugar, how to process nuts, and how to mold and shape food. Eventually, near the end of the book, you get a recipe for croquenbouche, a towering pile of baked choux balls coated in caramel, crushed nuts, and crystallized sugar.

This isn't really a book of recipes, although there certainly are plenty of them. Most of the recipes are kept in the margins, though; the book favors longer descriptions of techniques accompanied by images. I'm no professional chef, but I do a lot of home cooking, and I've made some fairly involved meals. Nevertheless, this book has really helped me up my game by describing things like fancy-looking garnishes.

I've also made a few of these recipes myself - the crepes, the pasta, and a few more, and they always come out well. The recipes are actually quite nice in the sense that they are not overly descriptive. It's just the facts, straight to the point.

I wouldn't gift this book to a brand new cook. I think the terseness of its content would do little to help a brand new cook and might confuse them and result in less great food. But to someone who has been in the kitchen a while, this is an indispensable guide to improving your food, and a good place to look for quick instructions on making common foods. You don't need a fancy crepes recipe from the internet. You need the recipe in the tiny box in the margin here, and you can improvise from there. That's the value in this cookbook.

[Sang · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good

[Guilherme Fontes · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 estrelas
Não era o que esperava, pessoalmente, é um livro abrangente mas de preço elevado para o que contém!

[Jill List · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great resource!

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

This cookbook is so marvelous that I read it like a novel--soaking it in page by page. My favorites were the myriad how-to photos, the garnish ideas for different types of dishes, the "tools of the trade" sections (revealing chef's tips and shortcuts), and the glossary in the back on herbs and spices. I'm looking forward to trying some of the recipes.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't like this book as much as I liked Le Cordon Bleu's Complete Cooking Techniques, but the pages on decorative garnishes (using chocolate, sugar, etc.) were excellent and I really liked the "professional tips" sections throughout the book.

[Comelibros]

Exelente como todos los libros de la Cordon bleu.

[Comelibros]

Exelente es el mejor libro, que he conocido acerca de técnicas de cocina se lo recomiendo a todo el mundo.