Ultimate Cook Book or Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook

Ultimate Cook Book: 900 New Recipes, Thousands of Ideas

Author: Bruce Weinstein

Here's the ultimate of ultimates: nine hundred new recipes from Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough, the authors of the Ultimate cookbook series. With a quarter million books already in print, their series has followed a simple recipe to success: Give cooks hundreds of solid, basic recipes with thousands of ways to vary them, shake them up, and personalize them so that everyone can be an ultimate cook!

With The Ultimate Cook Book, Weinstein and Scarbrough tackle everything from breakfast to barbecue, stir-fries to steaks, chilis to curries, and paellas to puddings. Pick your favorite, cook it as a solid basic, or vary it in hundreds of ways to make the dish your own. You've got years' worth of dishes and a world of cooking experiences ahead of you. What could be more fun?

Take chicken, that ubiquitous blank canvas. Roast a whole bird to perfection. Bake it under a salt crust for a dramatic presentation. Roast chicken halves atop winter squash. Prepare a Greek-style casserole with leeks, pine nuts, and raisins. Stuff chicken breasts with a Moroccan-inspired mixture of couscous and spices. There are more than thirty ideas for preparing boneless, skinless chicken breasts. And ten things to do with a leftover roast chicken or that rotisserie bird purchased on the way home. Get the idea?

This comprehensive, easy-to-use compendium is the ultimate in inspiration, the ultimate in possibilities. Start your Ultimate cookbook collection today—or round it out with The Ultimate Cook Book.

Judith Sutton - Library Journal

The ten earlier cookbooks in this popular series all focused on a single topic, from shrimp to ice cream to peanut butter. Now the authors present recipes for all courses of a meal, with dozens of variations and suggestions for many more (e.g., "Ten Things To Do with Gravlax"). The recipes are simple and mostly quick, and they are inspired by a wide variety of cuisines; although many are classics or familiar old favorites, there are imaginative twists as well. Boxes on ingredients, techniques, culinary lore, and helpful tips are scattered throughout. Other big books, such as The Gourmet Cookbook, offer more sophisticated recipes, but Weinstein and Scarbrough's collection will be accessible even to the novice. Busy cooks looking for ideas for a quick meal or for a company dinner will find dozens of possibilities here. Recommended for most collections.

See also: Party Monster or The Art of Learning

Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook: Recipes from Hunan Province

Author: Fuchsia Dunlop

Authentic recipes and fascinating tales from one of China's most vibrant culinary regions.

Fuchsia Dunlop is the author of the much-loved and critically acclaimed Sichuanese cookbook Land of Plenty, which won the British Guild of Food Writers' Jeremy Round Award for best first book and which critic John Thorne called "a seminal exploration of one of China's great regional cuisines." Now, with Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook, she introduces us to the delicious tastes of Hunan, Chairman Mao's home province.

Hunan is renowned for the fiery spirit of its people, its beautiful scenery, and its hearty peasant cooking. In a selection of classic recipes interwoven with a wealth of history, legend, and anecdote, Dunlop brings to life this vibrant culinary region. Look for late imperial recipes like Numbing-and-Hot Chicken, Chairman Mao's favorite Red-Braised Pork, soothing stews, and a myriad of colorful vegetable stir-fries. 65 color illustrations.

Judith Sutton - Library Journal

Dunlop wrote the acclaimed Land of Plenty: A Treasury of Authentic Sichuan Cooking. Now she turns to the cuisine of Hunan Province, known for its hot and spicy dishes—and as the birthplace of Mao Zedong. A British journalist and food writer, Dunlop lived in China for several years and trained at the prestigious Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine. She traveled extensively in Hunan while researching this book, and her unique background and extensive knowledge enabled her to meet several of China's most esteemed chefs, as well as Chairman Mao's nephew, among other personages. Her impressively researched and highly readable text ranges over topics from political history to culinary legend, and she provides 120 diverse recipes, often for little-known dishes, from a variety of sources. There are color shots of many dishes, and Dunlop's own photographs of her journey illustrate the text. An essential purchase.