- Hardcover: 240 pages
- Publisher: Broadway; Revised edition (Sep 10 2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0767909267
- ISBN-13: 978-0767909266
- Product Dimensions: 24 x 19 x 2.2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 680 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #882,063 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon.com
Mark Bittman's New York Times column, "The Minimalist," is a much-consulted source for easy but polished recipes. The Minimalist Cooks at Home features these less-is-more recipes plus others never before published--formulas that require a minimum of technique and/or ingredients. Bittman's dishes draw on the world's cuisines and, taken together, represent what might be called a new kind of home cooking. Anyone seeking delicious everyday food that's quick to put on the table yet satisfies the demands of modern palates should embrace the book. In succinct chapters that cover the major dish categories, salads through desserts, Bittman offers fare like Roast Cod with Tangerine Sauce, Chicken Under a Brick, Real Paella, and 15-Minute Fruit Gratin. These approachable, flexible dishes should enter the repertoire of cooks at all skill levels, as well as please those they feed. Bittman also includes recipes that illustrate a particular cooking technique or sequence; his Creamy Broccoli Soup, for example, presents a formula--three parts liquid, two parts vegetable, one part dairy--that can be applied widely to create new dishes instinctively. Cooking lessons like these, plus shortcuts and multiple suggestions for flavorful variations, make the book particularly useful. With photos that illustrate a number of the techniques, and recipe notes that further explore dish anatomy, the book delivers on its promise to provide strategies for good eating with little fuss. --Arthur Boehm
From Publishers Weekly
Adding to the popular subgenre of cookbooks that emphasize good food achieved with simplicity and speed, the rerelease of Bittman's 2000 original delivers the goods. Exhibiting the lucid and breezy style that characterizes his weekly New York Times column, "The Minimalist," which served as a launchpad for this book, he notes the preparation and cooking time for each basic dish and provides suggestions for variations. Many of the recipes are easy and familiar (Pear and Gorgonzola Green Salad, Linguine with Garlic and Oil, Chicken with Vinegar and Strawberries with Balsamic Vinegar), while others offer more unusual combinations: Pasta with Red Wine Sauce calls for spaghetti to finish cooking in garlic-flavored wine; Negima is a Japanese dish that consists of thin slices of beef, chicken, veal or pork wrapped around scallion bundles and grilled. The Minimalist's Thanksgiving Turkey and the Minimalist's Choucroute take longer, requiring 2 1/2 hours and 2 hours, respectively; the former is stuffed with a Pierre Franey-inspired sandwich of bread, chicken livers and parsley. Among toothsome sides are Beet Roesti with Rosemary and a Fennel Gratin redolent with crumbled blue cheese. There are many inspired ideas here, but Bittman fans will also encounter a few reworked recipes from his previous books How to Cook Everything and Fish.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
great cookbooks,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Minimalist Cooks at Home: Recipes That Give You More Flavor from Fewer Ingredients in Less Time (Hardcover)
These are great cookbooks (this and his other minimalist cookbook). Not only are the recipes fast, delicious, and simple, the flavors are clear, interesting, and distinct. My husband tends to cook dense, stew-like, Moosewood Cookbook concoctions, which I don't like at all. Now he cooks from Bittman's cookbooks, and dinner is much more interesting. We have tons of cookbooks, and these are definately my favorite.
4.0 out of 5 stars
An Essential for Cookbook-Addicts (Seasoned or Amateur),
By Vanessa (Salt Lake City, UT) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Minimalist Cooks at Home: Recipes That Give You More Flavor from Fewer Ingredients in Less Time (Hardcover)
I have constantly butted heads with any whisper of authoritarian tone, especially in regards to the kitchen. Since I don't work in the sizzling madness of a four-star restaurant under an iron gaze, I prefer a more relaxed ambience in my kitchen. The fabulous thing about this book is that it dissects the fundamentals of good cooking - no matter what the cuisine. Ingredients that are in their prime and of the highest quality, a basic understanding of what's staring at you from the kitchen counter or refrigerator, and the willingness to experiment and trust your innate (yes, we all have to a certain degree) gastronomic intuition. Cookbook authors are most often restaurant professionals whose idiosynchratic personalities make them interesting points in the culinary universe, but all too often intimidate the average cook with a heavy-handed emphasis on tradition/precision and mind-boggling lexicon. Bittman's casual approach and culinary flexibility put the reader at ease enough to enjoy the actual process and the significant results from their modest efforts. For the seasoned cook in purusit of a new perspective or for the willing amateur, approach the recipes without the obligatory pre-recipe tension. Bittman will effortlessly guide you along the way with useful insight on his triumphs and errors and how to make do with several options, even if it seems like you can't.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best cookbook I ever bought,
By digerati "digerati" (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Minimalist Cooks at Home: Recipes That Give You More Flavor from Fewer Ingredients in Less Time (Hardcover)
The only cookbook that I regularly use, which makes it the best I have ever purchased by a long way. "Minimalist at home" works because in the process of stripping dishes down to their essentials, Bittman can explain how the dish functions. By this, I mean that he explains the roles of the different ingredients, and why leaving one out doesn't work. Once you know the basic function of an ingredient in the context of that recipe (e.g. vinegar as acid to balance sweetness), his recommendations for substitutes now make sense.The result is a book that not only suits weekday cooking (because you can typically use what you have in the fridge), but also increases your confidence and flair as a cook. You build your confidence by successfully substituting ingredients, and coming up with your own ideas for enhancements to dishes. This is a cookbook where you learn structure and principles that can be applied to all cooking -- unlike most cookbooks where you must slavishly follow the ingredients and method without understanding why they work. A book that strips recipes to their essentials does rely more on the quality of the ingredients. The extra expense to buy good, flavorful free-range chicken, for example, rather than the cheaper-but-flavorless anaemic supermarket version really pays off. If you are not prepared to do this, you will not get as much out of the book. I have cooked a large number of the recipes from the book and only a couple were misses -- "Chicken with vinegar" was disappointing, for example. But friends who come round for dinner rave about dishes like "Chicken under a brick", which is fantastic as well as being quick and easy to make. I have bought copies of this book for friends who like to cook, and they love it too. You should buy it!
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