|
Books: Cooking by Cuisine -> Cooking French
The French Laundry Cookbook
 |
by:
Keller, Thomas
Jones, Deborah (Photographer)
Jones, Deborah
|
Publisher:
Artisan
Published: November 1, 1999
ISBN: 1579651267
Format:Hardcover
Pages:336
|
Read More, Buy It
|
Book Description
Amazon.com
To eat at Thomas Keller's Napa Valley restaurant, The French Laundry, is to experience a peak culinary experience. In The French Laundry Cookbook, Keller articulates his passions and offers home cooks a means to duplicate the level of
perfection that makes him one of the best chefs in the U.S. and, arguably, the world.
This cookbook provides 150 recipes exactly as they are used at Keller's restaurant. It is also his culinary manifesto, in which he shares the unique creative
processes that led him to invent Peas and Carrots--a succulent pillow of a lobster paired with pea shoots and creamy ginger-carrot sauce--and other high-wire culinary acts. It offers unimagined experiences, from extracting chlorophyll to use in coloring
sauces to a recipe for chocolate cake accompanied by red beet ice cream and a walnut sauce. You are urged to follow Keller's recipes precisely and also to view them as blueprints. To keep them alive, they must be infused with your own commitment to
perfection and pleasure, as you define those terms.
Keller's story, shared through the writing of Michael Ruhlman, shows how this chef was both born and made. After winning rave reviews when he was still in his 20s, it took a more experienced
chef throwing a knife at him because he did not know how to truss a chicken to open his eyes to the importance of the discipline and techniques of classical French cooking. To acquire these fundamental skills, he apprenticed at eight of the finest
restaurants in France.
Grounded in classic technique, Keller's cooking is characterized by traditional marriages of ingredients, assembled in breathtakingly daring new ways, such as Pearls and Oyster, glistening caviar and oysters served on a bed
of creamy pearl tapioca. Continually piquing the palate, his meals are a procession of 5 to 10 dishes, all small portions vibrantly composed. For example, Pan Roasted Breast of Squab with Swiss Chard, Seared Foie Gras, and Oven-Dried Black Figs require
just three birds to serve six. The result: you are never sated, always stimulated.
The 200 photographs by Deborah Jones include more than just beauty shots: they show how to prepare various dishes; how Keller, shown stroking a whole salmon,
respects his ingredients; and how the perfection of baby fava beans still nestled in the downy lining of their succulent pod, or the seduction of an abundance of fresh caviar, calls out the best from the chef. --Dana Jacobi
Product
Description:
Thomas Keller, chef/propietor of the French Laundry--"the most exciting place to eat in the United States," writes Ruth Reichl in The New York Times--is a wizard, a purist, a man obsessed with getting it right. His flavors have clarity
and intensity. His methods dazzle. Every mouthful is an explosion of taste. This cookbook, Keller's first, is as satisfying as a French Laundry meal, a series of small, highly refined, intensely focused courses. One hundred fifty recipes and more than
two hundred photographs capture the impact of this extraordinary food. Keller's wit and whimsy find expression in unique recipes (and titles) such as lobster-filled crOpes with a carrot emulsion sauce, topped with a pea shoot salad dressed lightly with
lemon-infused oil ("Peas and Carrots"), or sautTed monkfish tail with braised oxtails, salsify, and cOpes ("Surf and Turf"). This is a book to cook from, to learn from, to savor.
Read More, Buy It
|
|
