Americans are on a roll in the kitchen—we've never been better or smarter about cooking. But how does a beginning cook become good, a good cook great?
Modeled on Strunk and White's
The Elements of Style,
The Elements of Cooking is an opinionated volume by Michael Ruhlman—the award-winning and bestselling author of
The Making of a Chef and coauthor of
The French Laundry Cookbook—that pares the essentials of good cooking into a slim, easy-to-take-anywhere book. It will also stand alongside a handful of classics of the kitchen, just as Strunk and White's book sits on the desk of every writer and every English student.
Not only does this book deconstruct the essential knowledge of the kitchen, it also takes what every professional chef knows instinctively after years of training and experience and offers it up cleanly and brilliantly to the home cook.
With hundreds of entries from acid to zester, here is all the information—no more and no less—you need to cook, as well as countless tips (including only one recipe in the entire book, for the “magic elixir of the kitchen”) and no-nonsense advice on how to be a great cook. You'll learn to cook everything, as the entries cover all the key moves you need to make in the kitchen and teach you, for example, not only what goes into a great sauce but how to think about it to make it great.
Eight short, beautifully written essays outline what it takes not merely to cook but to cook well: understanding heat, using the right tools (there are only five of them), cooking with eggs, making stock, making sauce, salting food, what a cook should read, and exploring the elusive, most important skill to have in the kitchen, finesse.
New York Times bestselling author Michael Ruhlman deconstructs the "essential knowledge all cooks and food people need" (The New York Times Book Review) in this indispensable cooking reference for home cooks, serious food lovers, and aspiring chefs, revealing what professional chefs know only after years of training and experience.
With alphabetically ordered entries and eight beautifully written essays, Ruhlman outlines what it takes to cook well: understanding heat, using the right tools, cooking with eggs, making stock, making sauce, salting food, what a cook should read, and exploring the most important skill to have in the kitchen, finesse. The Elements of Cooking gives everyone the tools they need to go from being a good cook to a great one.
"A useful, well-thought-out, clear, and precise collection of cooking terms,
The Elements of Cooking is essential for cook apprentices and necessary and enjoyable for seasoned chefs." -- Jacques Pépin, author of
Chez Jacques: Traditions and Rituals of a Cook
