The Basics: The Techniques of Continental Cooking

by Filip Verheyden

Every cook or home chef reaches that defining moment when he or she puts away the cookbook and begins to experiment ‘off the page’ with flavors and ingredients. But without a full understanding of the rudiments of cooking, these explorations can be leaps of faith at best, and dishes from the simplest to most complex and ambitious risk failure.Beginning with a chapter on techniques, The Basics explains and illustrates with gorgeous photographs essential cooking techniques, such as how to bard, marinate, poach, caramelize, and lard. Following chapters explain cutting techniques and both savory and sweet recipes for stocks, thickeners, light and hearty soups, potato preparations, rice preparations, cold, hot and sweet sauce preparations, mousses, pastries, spreads, sweet egg dishes and ice creams. And an Ingredients Index makes cross-referencing a snap.Each page in The Basics is like a homily on the principles of great food. Learn the difference between a brunoise, julienne and a chiffonade cut. Follow simple instructions for preparing chicken, white, dark and game stocks. Make more than 30 of your own sauces, including mayonnaise, garlic butter, vinaigrette, pesto, white wine, and hollandaise. Prepare dazzling soups, breads, breakfasts, and desserts, using your own creative imagination and The Basics at your fingertips.

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Reference

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Dani · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this for a friend who loves to cook. It's a great little book; there are full-color photos accompanying each recipe/technique.

This is really more of a technique cookbook than a recipe cookbook, although there are plenty of recipes. It truly is the "basics" and it provides a good foundation of techniques - like barding, infusing, etc.

The book itself is well-designed, with a woven ribbon placeholder and all the recipes are kept to one page.

One little peeve I have with this book is that I prefer cookbooks that can lay flat.

This is great for creative chefs who will use the cooking techniques and recipes as a starting point for their own culinary creations.

[Jenn Ollivier · Rating 5 out of 5]

This small, unassuming book with it's simple cover and gold rimmed pages contains a wealth of knowledge and beautiful photos on each page. It takes you through the techniques every skilled chef should know from the basic sauces and stocks to the future of molecular gastronomy. This handy little bible should be in every serious foodie's kitchen.

[Jinnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just a really solid book about cooking basics. Beautifully illustrated, extemely easy to read and follow, this book will take you from what it means to fry something to glazing pears and making hard-to-pronounce French sauces. It's been invaluable to me as someone newly interested in cooking.

[Wendy Holliday · Rating 4 out of 5]

Title explains it.

Food cooking basics, but not like, "place water in pan, and boil." Slightly more complicated than that, but classy enough to make a semi-good cook like myself the ability to add a touch of fancy to everyday cooking.

[Melville House Publishing · Rating 5 out of 5]

“It’s perfect for the foodie who needs to be as competent in front of the actual stove as he is at talking up his culinary prowess.” -- Metro New York

[Robin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely pictures, a wry wit, a culinary education in a package small enough to slip into a knife bag. Everyone should have a copy.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most comprehensive, informative, tasteful, compact pictured cookbooks I've come across.

[Megan]

So not an awesome cover... however this book is supposedly a cook book. But I am here to say that it is most definitely a sex book. Seriously.

[Gino Filicetti]

False

[Guinevere · Rating 4 out of 5]

basic, simple, gifty. a picture on each page! a MUST in a cookbook.

[Babai Sasmal · Rating 5 out of 5]

need to read