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Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook: Strategies, Recipes, and Techniques of Classic Bistro Cooking (Hardcover)
by Anthony Bourdain
| Category:
Cookbook, Original books |
| Market price: ¥ 358.00
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¥ 348.00
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| MSL Pointer Review:
As New York Times proclaimed: "Bourdain shows himself to be one of the country's best food writers. His opinions are as strong as his language, and his tastes as infectious as his joy." |
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Author: Anthony Bourdain
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Pub. in: September, 2004
ISBN: 158234180X
Pages: 304
Measurements: 9.6 x 7.5 x 1.5 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA00957
Other information: ISBN-13: 9781582341804
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- Awards & Credential -
This book ranks the #2,009 in books out of millions on Amazon.com as of February 25, 2007. |
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- MSL Picks -
A celebrity with a high-profile position as executive chef at New York bistro Les Halles, and bestselling author of Kitchen Confidential and A Cook's Tour, Bourdain doesn't intend to break new ground. The dishes do exactly as the subtitle notes and include such solid classic fare as Onion Soup Les Halles, Steak au Poivre, Boeuf Bourguignon, Coq au Vin and Chocolate Mousse.
Culinary bad boy Tony Bourdain and his Les Halles owner chefs have written a very good cookbook. If you have an ounce of interest in reading good cookbooks, stop reading this and go to order yourself a copy.
This is an excellent cookbook:
- Tony Bourdain is a very good writer. That means reading this book is very entertaining and worth the price even if you make none of the recipes. There are hundreds of good cookbooks, but Bourdain joins the very select rank, along with Alton Brown and Wayne Harley Brachman of culinary writers who can have you laughing out loud. It also means that he knows how to put things so you understand them and remember them.
- The book is all about demystifying classic Bistro cooking and in convincing you that with the right attitude and the right directions, you can do as well or better than any newbie professional cook entering Tony's kitchen to work for the first time. Bourdain lays out the reality of this cuisine in a way I have never seen before. If you ever had any reservations about whether you wanted to cook or had the aptitude to cook, this is the book for you.
- The book presents excellent directions for doing most of the basic preparations for bistro dishes, with special emphasis on preparing stocks.
- The book explains some kitchen techniques and ways of thinking. Recipes for dishes such as bouillabaisse and cassoulet which in most other books seem to be daunting projects are broken down into realistic steps which make them entirely manageable.
- The book gives us excellent recipes for all and only classic bistro cooking with wonderfully informative comments and instructions. There is no filler here. There are no recipes which would be more at home in a book by Mario Batali or Ming Tsai. It also means that if you have two or three good French books on cuisine bourgeois, you will probably already have recipes for many of the dishes presented in this book. But, this book is so entertaining and the recipes are so well written.
- The book does not make itself out as the wisdom of a single mind. Culinary skill is highly social, done in a world full of influences and people to influence. Bourdain is generous with his being clear about the people and institutions to whom he owes his culinary skill, with special mention being given to Jacques Pepin. Yet, Bourdain has absolutely nothing about which to be modest. He has given us a major addition to useful culinary literature.
Aside from excellent chapters on general principles and glossaries, the chapters are almost all the same you will find in any good English language book of French recipes. These are:
- Soups, including excellent comments on which preparations improve with age and which do not.
- Salads, including a surprising method for preparing lardoons. Boiled, not fried.
- Appetizers, especially gratins, snails, and mussels.
- Fish and shellfish: Lobster and dry scallops and pike.
- Beef, of course. Note the very important notes on how the French cut up the cow different from us Yanks.
- Veal and Lamb. The lamb stew recipe is especially good.
- Pig, from nose to tail. Bourdain is a great fan of Fergus Henderson and of using everything but the oink.
- Poultry and Game, roasted, braised, and rolled chicken, duck, and pheasant. The big Classics.
- Blood and Guts. Recipes for "the fifth quarter" of organ meats.
- Potatoes.
- Desserts. Everything you expect.
The recipe text is done in a very easily readable font. The binding is especially well made to take a lot of standing open while you prepare dishes from the recipes. The book is so well put together. Very highly recommended for both clear recipes of popular dishes and the great support he gives to the confidence of the amateur cook.
– From quoting B. Marold
Target readers:
Food lovers, housewives, professional cooks, or hotel and restaurant managers.
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Anthony Bourdain is the author of A Cook's Tour and Kitchen Confidential, as well as the satirical thrillers Bone in the Throat, Gone Bamboo, and The Bobby Gold Stories, and the Urban Historical Typhoid Mary, all published by Bloomsbury. A twenty-eight-year veteran of professional kitchens, he is currently the executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles in Manhattan. He lives in New York City.
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From the publisher
In this long-awaited cookbook, Anthony Bourdain reveals the hearty, delicious recipes of Les Halles and the provocative tricks of the trade that have made him a celebrated name across the globe.
Before stunning the world with his bestselling Kitchen Confidential and A Cook's Tour, Anthony Bourdain spent years serving some of the best French brasserie food in New York. With its no-nonsense, down-to-earth atmosphere, Les Halles matches Bourdain's style perfectly: a restaurant where you can dress down, talk loudly, drink a little too much wine, and have a good time with friends. Now, Bourdain gives us his Les Halles Cookbook, a cookbook like no other: candid, funny, audacious, full of his signature charm and bravado.
So bring a sharp knife, a big appetite, and a willingness to learn, as Bourdain teaches you everything you need to know to prepare classic French bistro fare. While you're being guided, in simple steps, through recipes like roasted veal short ribs and steak frites, escargots aux noix, and foie gras aux pruneaux, you'll feel like he's in the kitchen beside you-reeling off a few insults when you've scorched the sauce, and then patting you on the back for finally getting the steak tartare right.
As practical as it is entertaining, Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook is a can't-miss treat for cookbook lovers, aspiring chefs, and Bourdain fans everywhere.
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| View all 6 comments |
A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-25 00:00>
I am a foodie, I have been cooking for years, and made the decision to not kill that love by going to cooking school and making it my full-time job. Instead I went to law school.
I have been a fan of Anthony for a long time now, his attitude and adventuristic style comport with my own. I received a copy of this cookbook, and had it kicking around on my shelf for a few months. Then came my wife's birthday.
I am a cook who already knows what I want the end result to be, and usually just refer to cookbooks for temperatures and times, and the occasional idea for what else to add to a dish. I guess that I use cookbooks as reference manuals, not for rote instructions.
I decided to make rack of lamb, as we were in the mood for meat, and that is an especially nice meal to drop on your guests: some veg, some potatoes, and three or four ribs of lamb with a red wine reduction. Pop a few bottles, and... Nice.
So I was cruizing my cookbooks for ideas, and came upon his book. I read through the recipe for "carre d'agneau au moutarde" and thought, geez, this is simple and looks really good. I decided to just do his recipe whole nut. It was spectacular. An absolute hit.
Let me tell you, my family and friends are serious foodies. We love to get together for special occasions and blow a paycheck on an excellent meal with good wines. We all travel, and are the types to try all the freaky foods you find in local markets in far away places (most recently Beijing's stinky tofu and fried scorpions).
We were all floored. The lamb was fantastic. It is a quick meal: you just take your racks, salt and pepper them, brown them in olive oil and butter, set them in your roaster, slather them with dijon mustard and then breadcrumbs, then roast at 375 for 20 minutes. Easy.
I highly recommend this cookbook. The recipes are easy to make, and are truly the classic recipes, but cut down in time and process to make it doable at home. This is the type of recipe that is quick to make and could be whipped up for special occasions or an impressive business dinner. Get this book. |
Alessandra Eakin (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-25 00:00>
Read the first chapter and fell in love with Tony Bourdain all over again, after avidly watching his "A Cook's Tour" series on FoodTV. It makes sense: the best chefs come from the poorest regions of the world. Why? They have to improvise with the 'scraps' made available to them and make the undesirable most delicious. That explains why some of my best dishes were made with paltry remains in the pantry days from payday or years away from real income.
I offered to make my in-laws dinner one night with a recipe from the cookbook. Something basic and not frightfully exotic was the consensus. My intended feast: chicken basquaise. Feeding a family of five hungry adults in Ireland (or anywhere in the EU) is darned expensive. Lucked out at the local supermarket when eight pieces of chicken (thighs with bone and skin) were on sale, as all other options broke my budget.
My wonderful, saintly mother-in-law regards cooking as drudgery and the kitchen reflects this sentiment. I regard cooking as essential therapy, All-Clad as instruments of mental health. I was shocked we spent over $100 on two measly bags of food for the meal. For the considerable expense of groceries and the toll my outsized ego would take, I prayed the meal would be successful.
In the kitchen making the meal, I operated in less than ideal circumstances with limited overhead light (oh!), scant pots and pans (no!), and makeshift utensils (ugh!) on an electric stove (egads!). Kept glancing at Tony Bourdains really simple recipe, insisting it must be harder than it is. It wasn't.
When the meal was done, we all sat around the large table and served them. I nearly cried to see everyone in my new family of simple eaters devour first plates and second helpings. We left the table stuffed and blissfully happy, repeating with newfound eloquence: chicken basquaise, ooh la la.
If this American can impress pastoral people of Ireland with simple tastes and big appetites with one of Tony Bourdain's sophisticated recipes, then I absolutley assure you similar success with anyone. His explanations are sensible and inspire imagination. Following his logic and any of his recipes instills confidence. |
Caroline McLane (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-25 00:00>
I was sick in bed when this arrived and found myself laughing out loud and sitting up in bed. This reads almost like a novel. This is not your typical cookbook, ie I wouldn't consider giving it to my French mother, due to Tony's (ahem) colorful style of writing. It is more geared towards the new wave of home cooks. However, I would gladly and wholeheartedly make any of the recipes for my mother, and she would be very pleased. These recipes bring back memories of my childhood. I simply cannot wait to gorge myself on rillettes just as I did as a child. Thank you, Tony Bourdain, thank you.
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E. Gieskes (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-25 00:00>
This cookbook has been a consistent success for me - we usually cook something from it at least once a week. The pork recipes are particularly good (as is the roasted chicken!).
Bourdain's instructions on how to make veal stock and demiglace were sufficiently inspiring to get me to attempt it and the results were as good as he suggests. I've had ice cube trays of demiglace in my freezer for months now and it is a magic ingredient for sauces.
All in all an excellent cookbook. Don't be put off by the "attitude" other reviewers have complained about - it's more in the nature of coaching than real invective.
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