Meat: A Kitchen Education [A Cookbook]

by James Peterson

A Kitchen Education is award-winning author James Peterson’s guide for carnivores, with more than 175 recipes and 550 photographs that offer a full range of meat and poultry cuts and preparation techniques, presented with Peterson’s unassuming yet authoritative style.  Instruction begins with an informative summary of meat cooking sautéing, broiling, roasting, braising, poaching, frying, stir-frying, grilling, smoking, and barbecuing. Then, chapter by chapter, Peterson demonstrates classic preparations for every type of meat available from the chicken, turkey, duck, quail, pheasant, squab, goose, guinea hen, rabbit, hare, venison, pork, beef, veal, lamb, and goat. Along the way, he shares his secrets for perfect pan sauces, gravies, and jus. Peterson completes the book with a selection of homemade sausages, pâtés, terrines, and broths that are the base of so many dishes. His trademark step-by-step photographs provide incomparable visual guidance for working with the complex structure and musculature of meats and illustrate all the basic prep techniques—from trussing a whole chicken to breaking down a whole lamb.  Whether you’re planning a quick turkey cutlet dinner, Sunday pot roast supper, casual hamburger cookout, or holiday prime rib feast, you’ll find it in Meat along  Roast Chicken with Ricotta and Sage; Coq au Vin; Duck Confit and Warm Lentil Salad; Long-Braised Rabbit Stew; Baby Back Ribs with Hoisin and Brown Sugar; Sauerbraten; Hanger Steak with Mushrooms and Red Wine; Oxtail Stew with Grapes; Osso Buco with Fennel and Leeks; Veal Kidneys with Juniper Sauce; Lamb Tagine with Raisins, Almonds, and Saffron; Terrine of Foie Gras; and more. No matter the level of your culinary skills or your degree of kitchen confidence, the recipes and guidance in Meat will help you create scores of satisfying meals to delight your family and friends. This comprehensive volume will inspire you to fire up the stove, oven, or grill and master the art of cooking meat.Winner – 2011 James Beard Cookbook Award – Single Subject Category

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Food, Culinary, Nonfiction, Food and Drink, Reference

338 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 19, 2010

About the author

James Peterson grew up in northern California and studied chemistry and philosophy at UC Berkeley. After his studies, he traveled around the world, working his way through Asia, by land, to Europe. Eventually he landed in Paris and was amazed by the French attitude toward food and drink. (This was in the mid seventies when food in America was practically non-existent.) It was in France that he found his calling. As he was running short on funds, Jim found a job picking grapes in the south of France where he lived with a family for two weeks. He has never forgotten the sumptuous lunches prepared by the vigneron's wife. After his initial inspiration, Jim returned to the United States and got a job as a short-order cook. This was his first cooking job and while the cuisine was not 3-star, there was still the need for speed and organization. After saving money for a year and a half, Jim returned to France. After begging his way in, he ended up working at two of what were then among France's greatest restaurants, George Blanc and Vivarois. It was his experiences in these restaurants that shaped his style of cooking and drove his pursuit of cuisine as a career. Jim also studied pastry at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris.

By a series of serendipitous events, James found himself a partner/chef in a small French restaurant in Greenwich Village, called Le Petit Robert. It was here that he was able to experiment and invent and shape his own unique approach to cooking. The restaurant was reviewed in a wide variety of major publications including Gourmet Magazine where it was called "...what may be the most creative restaurant in New York." It was no doubt in part because of his extravagant use of truffles and foie gras, that the restaurant, after four years, was forced to close. At a loss, Jim started teaching cooking at the French Culinary Institute and later, at Peter Kump's New York Cooking School, now ICE. Jim spent a year developing curriculum for the French Culinary Institute.

After translating a series of French pastry books, Jim established a relationship with a publisher who encouraged him to write his own book. His first book, Sauces, published in 1991, continues to sell as well now as it did the first year after publication. It won the James Beard Cookbook of the Year Award and put James on the map as a serious writer and teacher. Other books followed: Splendid Soups, nominated for both a James Beard and IACP Award, Fish & Shellfish, nominated for both awards and a winner of an IACP Award, Vegetables, winner of a James Beard Award, The Essentials of Cooking, nominated for both awards.

It was during the writing and preparation of Fish & Shellfish that Jim starting taking his own pictures for his books. This started what has become a twenty-year obsession with photography. He set out to write and photograph a definitive technique book similar to Jacques Pepin's La Technique except in full color and updated. After the publication of The Essentials of Cooking Jim embarked on four small, photograph-laden, books about food and wine including Simply Salmon, The Duck Cookbook, Sweet Wines, and Simply Shrimp. After the completion of these four books, Jim set out on producing the monumental Cooking which is his attempt at explaining and illustrating the most important basics of cooking. Cooking won a James Beard Award for best single subject. When Cooking was published, Jim set out to tackle baking. A two-year project ensued during which Jim shot over 3000 pictures (with film!) for the definitive Baking. Baking went on to win a James Beard Award in the dessert and baking category. Exhausted after these behemoths, Jim wrote a book dedicated to simple dishes--dishes that can be prepared in 30 minutes or less. Out this last August, Kitchen Simple has been acclaimed as an important collection of simple yet elegant recipes. The latest project is the publication of the second edition of Jim's award-winning Vegetables. This new edition will hav

Reviews

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is really an informative book on meat. You got to learn of the different cuts of the meat and the various techniques of cooking them. And not forgetting doable recipes for different kinds of meat. I have tried some of the recipes and the results were fabulous.

This is one cookbook you want to add to your bookshelf.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

James Peterson is my favourite cookbook author (and I have read a lot of cookbooks). I hold his book on "Sauces" (the first of his books I ever read) in near biblical esteem. His book on "Soups" is particularly distinguished because, in it, he agrees with me so frequently. His book simply titled "Meats" is not encyclopedic but near so, both in terms of techniques and of animals to cook. There is nothing in these pages about cooking salmon splayed on alder sticks around a open fire Northwest Indian style nor how to prepare fugu (pufferfish) without killing your guests. But most of the rest is in there. Chicken and turkey, fowl, rabbit, hare and venison, pork, beef, veal, lamb and goat. The politically correct may preserve their superiority over the rest of us by omitting the chapter on veal and the several recipes for fois gras. The squeamish may omit his detailed instructions on how to bone a saddle of rabbit. The text concludes with offerings on sausage-making, pates and terrines, broths and consomme. Peterson is himself, at his best, an expert. He staged at Cordon Bleu in Paris. He owned Le Petit Robert in Greenwich Village. He taught for years at the French Culinary Institute in New York City. His cookbooks have won seven James Beard Awards. His writing is wry and funny and practical and the product of an immense amount of time in the kitchen. If I could only have twenty cookbooks on my shelf, surely four or five of them would be Peterson's, including this one.

[May · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well I started writing a review but then the internet ate it. Bummer.

Two main points: Peterson is downright OBSESSED with larding (and other uses of fatback), which I find a bit repulsive; Peterson is also obsessed with deglazing, which I can appreciate but don't necessarily want to do for Every. Single. Recipe.
On the positive side, he talks about a very wide variety of cuts from many different animals and how to cook them to achieve the best texture and flavor. He even has recipes for animals that aren't typically featured in most mainstream (American) cookbooks, such as goat or rabbit. And, if you're the kind of person that loves offal, this book most certainly has some recipes for you.

[Linsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hands down one of the most informative cookbooks I've read (and by read I mean skim through for recipes that look good). It is broken down by type of meat, so there are some chapters I skipped (I dont eat pork or veal). I really appreciated that at the beggining of each section, the author describes the different cuts of meats, cooking techniques and background of the type of meat. I found this especially helpful with the beef section.
The recipes make me wish I had more time to cook, and more money to cook with! Some of them look very complicated, others very simple. Good variety and I liked the use of pictures. Highly reccomened.

[Aja Marsh · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 - great basic all purpose book on meat with lots of step by step photos for cutting down and cooking different kinds, but i think i would have enjoyed this a bit more if i were cooking meat on a regular basis like i used to for work.