eBook Starting with Ingredients ePub

Gaua

`Starting With Ingredients, Quintessential Recipes for the Way We Really Cook' by Philadelphia chef and cookbook writer, Aliza Green is an imposing tome which promises much, and generally delivers on it's promise, even if it lets us down just a bit on expectations now and then.

The book has ONE BIG IDEA that sets it apart from almost all other general purpose cookbooks. All recipes are in 100 chapters which represent one (or two, or a family of) principle ingredient. Examples of single major ingredients are Beef, Chestnuts, and Butter. Examples of two ingredient chapters are Calamari & Octopus, Carrots & Parsnips, and Bananas & Plantains. Examples of `family' recipes are Mushrooms, Cheese, and Greens. One special chapter entitled `X-tras: Basic and Useful Information for the Cook' covers the usual pantry preparations such as stocks and basic pastry recipes.

All this means that the author is realizing the promise of her title with no compromises. The virtue of this organization comes home as I recall Tom Colecchio's great dictum that one does not decide what one wants to cook before we look at what we have on hand. Ingredients, not dishes, always come first.

With that established, lets look at the recipes we get for that most important ingredient, eggs. Opening this chapter, we see another excellent aspect of this book. Each chapter begins with a table of contents for all the recipes and sidebars appearing under this ingredient. Here we encounter the second great strength of this book. Each chapter includes a great wealth of information on dealing with the ingredient. In the egg chapter, for example, I see (or at least take notice of) for the first time the instruction on how to freeze egg yolks by first stabilizing them with either sugar or salt, depending on whether you are more likely to use them for a savory or sweet recipe down the road. All the other sidebar tips are familiar to me, but I always value any book if it can tell me at least one thing I didn't know before (and not lead me astray in any way). After my initial pleasure, I'm just a bit surprised that for eggs in this chapter, there are scant seven recipes, covering:

A souffle (Broccoli with aged Gouda)

An egg tart (Milanese with spinach and peppers)

Buttermilk Pastry Dough

Huevos Rancheros

Spanish Potato and Chorizo Tortilla

Baked Eggs (`Dad's Venetian')

Baked Eggs (Florentine)

Out of seven recipes, I'm surprised that one, the pastry dough, is much more about buttermilk than it is about eggs, and that in the remaining six, there is no recipe for an omelet, basic scrambled eggs, fried eggs, or poached eggs! And, even on the `sort of' traditional dishes such as the version of the Tortilla Espagnola, the author does not use the most traditional (and easiest) recipe.

As I look through other chapters, I see the same pattern repeated over and over again. Many especially good tips and information, and an assortment of good `example' recipes, but not what you would consider `paradigm' recipes for the ingredient. In the lamb chapter, for example, we discover that American lamb is generally grain fed, while Australian and New Zealand lamb is grass fed. Now this may not seem terribly important, unless you happen to have just read an excellent book on nutrition that says that lamb is the very best red meat to eat because the animals are fed on grass!

One aspect of this book which may not appeal to many, but which I always consider important in a serious book about ingredients. This is the inclusion of the scientific names of all single species, where appropriate (obviously not appropriate for eggs or cheese or butter, but eminently important for broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and Brussels Sprouts, especially since this tells us that all these four ingredients are members of a single genus, meaning that all have roughly the same nutritional value and there is a good chance they will cook in similar manners.

Like virtually every cookbook I have ever seen which has some novel organizing scheme, the author tends to color outside the lines just a bit here and there. On the one hand, there is a chapter on `Greens for Cooking', yet Spinach, Arugula, and the aforementioned brassicas (cabbage family) all have their own chapter. On the other hand, sidebars and recipes for one headlined ingredient often find their way into the chapter for some other ingredient, as when the technique for making North African preserved lemons appears in the Carrot and Parsnip chapter. This is on the rather thin fact that carrot salad is a very common North African dish.

The great size of this book (1055 pages) may suggest it is a good first cookbook or major reference cookbook. It is not. It cannot replace either your `Joy of Cooking' or `James Beard's American Cookery' or even Mark Bittman's `How to Cook Everything', as these books DO give you all those basic recipes for our most familiar dishes. It is also not as important as the best instructional books such as Julia Child's `How To Cook' or Madeleine Kamman's `The New Education of a Cook'. This is more like Mark Bittman's `The Best Recipes in the World' or `The Gourmet Cookbook' or `The Bon Appetit Cookbook'. And, in spite of its huge page count, I believe it has fewer recipes than these books. One problem with it's size is that except for the middle third of the book, it is a real pain in the neck to have the book lay open to a particular page without two large cans of tomatoes to weigh it down. It is very nicely, but rather stiffly bound. I believe the book is more at home by the easy chair than in the kitchen.

All in all, considering the VERY reasonable list price, this is a very good, but not great addition to any cookbook library.

Chilele

Wonderful! Literally a cookbook organized by ingredient. Meat - beef, lamb, chicken, what-not - etc. Super fun. Not complicated. HUGE publication

Nahelm

No serious cook should be without this book. Great recipes, invaluable info, one step down from Harold McGee and food science. It tells the home cook what they need to know without getting into insane chemical specifics. A must have for anyone serious about cooking with love.

Westened

I love this book . I never realized that the recipes I was always searching for were based on what I felt like eating. What is so great about this format is it takes me directly to the recipe that I am in the mood for. I had been baking banana bread last year and never found a recipe to suit my taste. The banana bread I made from this book was outstanding and easy. This is a great book also when you have the food and decide against the reipe you had chosen. Just a really great concept.

Drelalak

This book is absolutely fantastic. I must say that I am very glad to have purchased it on this site rather than in a bookstore. It has everything you will need to look up, plus figure out how to use that ingredient in a recipe. If you are in the culinary world in any way, it is a MUST have.

Walianirv

I borrowed this book from our local library two times and then decided I had to have it for myself. Written in the same format as Aliza Green's BAKING INGREDIENTS Cookbook, I love, love, love this book for all the same reasons. Check it out.

Aloo

This is one of the most thorough food encyclopedia's I have ever come across. This is a must have for anyone serious about food.

Silvana

Simply this is a great cookbook, fascinating concept and great recipes. It is also a huge cookbook.