Customer Reviews

Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you are looking for a recipie book to throw over something when you get home from work-pass this book up; It will overwhelm and confuse you.
If you truly want to learn how sauce is made-this is it!
Starting with stocks and moving through the basics of about every sort of classical sauce, it not only tells you the method, but the theory and how to take it where you want to go. These are the methods that pros such as myself use on a daily basis in the finest kitchens to create those wonderfull sauces that you get on plates.
There may be some terms and ingredients you are not familar with-but, as cooking is a grand adventure, you will have a wider taste and knowldge of the craft.
I do warn you that you will really sit down and read this book and asorb it. I have been cooking for almost 10 years in fine kitchens, and I have been learning things almost from the first page! Plus, in this new edition, he covers more exotic things such as Thai style curry pastes and other Asian stocks and sauces..making the book even more usefull that it was before.
EVERY pro chef and skilled home cook should have this book!

I purchased this book hoping I can get a good recipes for making BBQ sauces, salad dressings or salsas and things of that nature. The book is highly technical. The first five chapters go through the history and details of sauce making. Eventually I might read this, to get a good background, but that wasn't my reasoning for purchasing the book.

The chapters that follow are White Sauces, Brown Sauces, Stocks, etc. The problem I have with this book, is that at the beginning of the chapter it details one recipe, doesn't usually tell you what the sauce accompanies, then goes through talking about variations upon the sauce in short succinct paragraphs. All in a very technical nature with ingredients that I cannot find easily like Deer or Rabbit for example. Furthermore the majority of the Recipes are distinctly French in nature, with a very small chapter dedicated to "Asian Sauces" at the end.

A lot of work went into writing this book and I believe it is a must for the professional Chef, but not for the average cook such as myself who want to quickly find a peanut sauce recipe that goes well with my spring rolls.

This book is for the professional or SERIOUS hobby cook. It is NOT for someone coming home from a long, hard day at work looking for a quick sauce to slosh over the overcooked maccaroni. It is to be read as a book from beginning to end and kept as a reference tool. The stocks and sauces take time to make, but the results are fabulous. James Peterson is THE master...

"Sauces" is a book for professionals and serious home chefs and is the first book I've seen that compares and contrasts both classical and modern sauce-making methods. The author emphasizes the importance of quality stocks in sauce-making and points out that a stock appropriate for older, roux-based techniques is often inappropriate for more modern, reduction techniques. This explains why the stocks formulated in, say, the French Culinary Institute's "Salute to Healthy Cooking" are so much more concentrated than those in Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" and other classic French cooking texts. Peterson also includes methods for pan-prepared (integral) sauces that offer the professional and home cook alike a rapid way to prepare an impressive array of fine foods.

As others have commented, this isn't designed to be a recipe book. Instead, this book *teaches* you what sauces are all about. You'll learn the history. You'll learn the techniques. You'll learn the ingredients. In the end, you will be armed with the knowledge to *create* your own sauces rather than just execute others' recipes. This ranks up there as one my most cherished books on cooking. Any serious cook who cares about sauces should get this!

If you ever wanted to know the inner workings of sauces this it the book for you. Everything you could possibly want to know about making a sauce is in this book. Although it isn't completly obvious from looking at this web page this book is enormous(could be used for killing mice), and thorough. You will learn many different styles and techniques. There are only two complaints I have about this book. It caters more to expensive restaurant chefs than to inexpensive home cooked meals. This isn't entirely true, it let's you know what shortcuts you can take, but it berates you for taking them. The other complaint, It is overkill, unless you are a proffesional chef there is very little chance you will everyone of the techniques discussed. This book is full of recipies, but I feel that they are only there as an example. A chapter will talk about a technique and then show recipies, that do exactly what the chapter talked about. Don't buy this book for recipies, but buy it because you really want to learn how to cook. I haven't followed any of the recipies in this book to the letter, but because I read about the theory I modified/improvised some seriously good sauces. If you want recipes there are better things out there for that.

This is a great book, but it's not for recipe cooks. If you're looking for recipes, go to allrecipes.com and get a bunch. I think this is one of the best cooking books I have ever read, it sits right next to the Oxford Companion To Food. Both are encyclopedic, really explaining what is what, the history, giving you insight into real processes and techniques for doing things. To me this book is for learning the basic in-depth skills, giving you background, etc, so that you can innovate and create things on your own with whatever you happen to have around you. I really love this book. But again, if the reader is looking for a book that is going to give them recipes for tartar sauces, best look elsewhere! This is NOT the book for you! However, if you want to learn just what a sauce is, the ways they are thickened, the various ingredients that go into them, their purpose in the meal, etc, then you've just found what is possible the only book on the shelves that is going to give you a clear answer. I really like this book, can you tell ?

If you only read one book on making sauces in your life, make it this one. Winner of the James Beard Foundation's "Cookbook of the Year" Award. Covers all the basic and advanced sauces, variations, in-depth information on how various ingredients add to or detract from the perfect sauce, as well as how to "fix" a sauce you've messed up.

This book is excellent for anyone who enjoys cooking whether they're a merely competent cook or a highly skilled chef. Peterson infuses the book with his encyclopedic knowledge of all things epicurian and a subtle sense of humor in a way that makes it eminently readable and useful.

The real benefit is that it provides the fundamentals behind making sauces. Anyone looking to expand their repetoire by learning how to make new and creative sauces, or who just needs clear direction on how to make the classics will enjoy this book.

Some may find the amount of technical terminology (glaces, coulis, etc.) daunting at first, but Peterson presents the terms and concepts in a way that can be readily understood. "Sauces" is not a recipe book per se, but a first rate instruction manual that happens to include many good recipes. The recipes are clear, but require some grasp of cooking basics.

I've been dabbeling in sauces for a number of years in my home kitchen. In my considerable collection of cookbooks none attempt to teach a culinary subject with the thoroughness of this effort. The book assumes a general knowledge of cooking, such as what temperature to roast your chicken at, and focuses on the theory behind what your sauce should do. While the book contains many recipes, they are presented as illustrations of various types of classic sauces. The author encourages the reader to experiment and fine tune their sauce efforts by illustrating the classic techniques and recipes.

In all my years cooking and collecting cookbooks this is the first cookbook that I have read cover to cover. While you can simply peruse the recipes and use the book as a reference it really shines when read in its entirety. If one is really interested in French sauces and the theory and technique behind them, this book is all that will ever be needed on the subject. And if you're wondering what kind of sauce to make with those lamb chops tonight...