Three (3) most recent cookbooks you've used.

1) how to cook everything - mark bittman
2) epicurious.com
3) the babbo cookbook - mario batali*

*got this as a gift. a couple of the simplest pastas have actually come out well, esp. ziti w/cauliflower pecorino chilis and mint. and the recipes were more user-friendly/less cursory than I expected from a celebrity chef's cookbook. not sure this is where I would go for instructions on making head cheese at home, though.

i love batali's cookbooks. even the more involved recipes aren't fussy or esoteric for the sake of being so.

embarrassingly, for me this is a bittman sweep:

how to cook everything
how to cook everything vegetarian
fish

What do your cookbooks look like? I finally got all mine up on shelves. Just the tall ones in the center, the smaller shelf is just random stuff:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3249/3038757226_db184498f3.jpg

Nice

1)River Cottage Meat
2)Tassajara Vegetarian

(these two get used continuously in our house)

3)Il Cuccaio Argento (the Silver Spoon)

1) ottolenghi
2) moro east (i think this is what it's called? anyway, the most recent one)
3) pork + sons

anyone got locatelli's "italian food stories"? GREAT book

pork and sons is lovely

pork + sons is so lovely. i saw that he had another book out, but i havent had a chance to look at it.

1)River Cottage Meat

This came out in the US last year - I'd gotten a copy from a UK retailer via ABEbooks about 4 years ago, due to someone here (Porkpie, I think) recommending his pork pie recipe. Do you have a particular favorite from it? I really loved the side pork.

I've got Pork & Sons on my wish list.

I do the pork chops with cider and anchovies all the time and use the roasting instructions a lot. I'm trying to remember if the Tagine recipe is in there or in the River Cottage book because that is my favourite I think.

River Cottage Fish is top of my christmas list this year.

i use How to Cook Everything on the regular

i'm exited to try out the slow cooker/crock pot book i got at costco over the weekend. it has a ton of interesting recipes, including fish and game, instead of the usual "put x in the cooker with a can of campbell's soup and some shredded cheese" instructions which seem to comprise 99% of those cookbooks.

can anyone recommend a good book of vegetarian middle eastern recipes? i have gotten claudia roden's "new book of middle eastern food" out of the library a couple times and liked it but i don't think i would buy that one because i don't need the meat recipes. i want something i would use often, not something for special occasions. should have lots of recipes, pictures not that important.

maybe she has a vegetarian cookbook? i can't find one on amazon though.

ppl: best indian cookbook?

Madhur Jaffrey?

best for what?

The most authentic? Even if this may entail your having to move to a south-asian village in order to obtain the correct ingredients and learn to cook over a dung fire?

The tastiest recipes? Even if this may require you to learn very elaborate techniques and purchase gold leaf with which to wrap tiny morsels of expensive whatnot flown in by overnight express?

The simplest recipes? Even if this may suggest that opening a can of Heniz beans and mashing them with a fork makes a perfectly good substitute for dal?

Nicest pictures? Even if this results in a coffee table book that no one could conceivably cook from?

Most comprehensive? Even if this turns out to be encyclopedic in scope, comprising 16 volumes, available only from an obscure publisher in Dehli, replete with typos and costing 100,000 rupees, C.O.D.?

One wonders what criteria to apply.

i have gotten these out of the library:
julie sahni "savoring india" (hueg, i liked it)
smita chandra "cuisines of india" (easier than ^, still good)

savoring india is a coffee table book i guess but can be cooked from. i usually don't go for stuff w/ a lot of pictures but i was happy with it.

i never use my cookbooks! occasionally i browse to make sure i'm not forgetting key ingredients, but most of the time i just look up a basic recipe online and then riff on it. considering starting to work with books though, so i can make fancy things.

i did consult an eating well cookbook last weekend for poaching techniques.

I got a copy of Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty yesterday - so beautiful, and all the recipes sound delicious.

btw, Julie Sahni's Classic Indian Cooking is a good all-around Indian food cookbook.

I made baked duck eggs on a bed of arugula w/chili butter and garlic sour cream for dinner last night, slightly adapted (sour cream instead of greek yoghurt, duck eggs instead of chicken eggs) from Plenty - so tasty and also very beautiful.

my sis got me COOKING FOR GEEKS for xmas and it is the best cookbook i own, hands-down

http://teslastaging.com/forums/images/smilies/Gestures/userArmsCrossed.gif

nb i haven't actually tried any of the recipes yet, but that isn't the point---it just sorta explains cooking, in general, which is great cuz i'm the kind of person that looks up five recipes for the same thing and then tries to make it

http://www.bonappetit.com/blogsandforums/blogs/badaily/asian-tofu-andrea-nguyen.jpg
http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320423552l/2564637.jpg
http://www.earthboundkitchen.com/upgrade/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Biscotti_Flour_Cookbook.jpg

is that blood tofu on the front of that

i think mine are ottolenghi, rick bayless, and the gd veganomican

The Georgian Feast - Darra Goldstein
The Cuisine Of Armenia - Sonia Uvezian
Roast Figs And Sugar Snow - Diana Henry

Which Bayless? I have had .. not a lot of luck cooking from Bayless. Many of his recipes seem fussy, and I've messed them up more badly than p. much any other book I've cooked from.

the mexican cooking tome. it works alright but i think unless you yourself execute them with bayless' own weird robot precision you could probably be using a recipe half as complex for any given thing and taking a quarter of the time and coming out just as well? - the last time i looked at it was just to see what he said about epazote when cooking a pot of beans, though, it's a long time since i did anything real from it

I got a copy of Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty yesterday - so beautiful, and all the recipes sound delicious.

― Jaq, Friday, October 29, 2010 1:16 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i decided to treat myself to a cookbook on friday and ended up buying jerusalem. it's gorgeous and i can't wait to start cooking from it. how was plenty?

I still love it - though I don't cook from it much, it's great to look at and think over. Everything I've tried has been quite good.

totes sleepin on this yo but
1 jaq pepin's complete techniques
2 how to cook everything (bittman)
3 mastering the art of french cooking (child, et al)

also if muy serioso read on food and cooking cover to cover

oh, i've looked at and drooled over that Jerusalem cookbook. my evil step-mother has it and i shoulda taken it when i had the chance.
xpost
Just picked up a inexpensive copy of Classic Indian Vegetarian and Grain Cooking by Julie Sahni (1985). Looking forward to making things out of it obvs. But was just casually flipping through pages in reverse order and came across Sunflower Seed Fudge, or the Road to Nirvana and she writes:
The intoxicants primarily consist of bhang, or hashsish, ganja, and charas from the hemp plant. . . and affeem from the opium plant, Papaver somniferum.

probably shouldn't attempt to source these but omigod, India!

my mum has a couple ottolenghi ones which i really like. i think she's never cooked from them. i just take photos with my phone of the best looking recipes.

i should probably start actually buying myself cookbooks tho, there's something very satisfying and useful to me about leafing through something looking for dinner inspiration. more than browsing websites or googling for me

xp. that sunflower seed fudge sounds good!

i've had a ottolenghi recipe bookmarked for a few weeks and just haven't bothered yet. it sounds at once weird and interesting, beet, caraway, and goat cheese bread. i'm missing nigella seeds for that but think i'll forgo those
xp

I made the Momofuku bo ssäm yesterday and it was terrific
Then Lucky Peach and Malaysia by Ping Coombes

mary berry baking bible
charmaine solomon’s complete asian cookbook
california ranchero cooking by (cant remember)