Books that inspire me, Part 2- the French Laundry Cookbook

Last time I discussed the Fat Duck Cookbook. The French Laundry Cookbook is wildly different to say the least.

In this book you won’t find a lot of abstract photography or even a lot of history about the French Laundry Restaurant, or the chef, Thomas Keller except for brief little paragraphs here and there explaining his choice of equipment and methodology or highlighting an important purveyor. Although I would have liked more background in the book, It really helps to focus on what’s important: the food and methodology.

If the French Laundry were to be placed in a category or genre, I suppose it would be classical French, but it goes beyond that in a way. The main reason I love this book is because of the solidly explained classical French techniques that back up his creative recipes, Because for me, it is not only important to understand how to cook things, but also important to understand the methodology and theory behind the actions. And really, once someone has a sound grasp of the basic methodologies of cooking and an understanding of how food works, they can cook and create almost anything their imagination desires.

And lastly, the food in the book is downright amazing. The photography is spot on, and almost all of the recipes have a picture. The recipes themselves are very in depth and often have a short paragraph about the best parts of the dish and how it was created. This is also a great book for beginners because of the included stock recipes, knife skill guides and other basic techniques.

All in all a great book that I think every cook should own.

 As always, thanks for reading!

-TIM

Works In Progress

I had the urge to try some new stuff out this weekend, but had very few ingredients, so here is what I came up with

First, I have been wanting to try out some dehydrating. It’s a little bit more towards the modernist side of things I suppose, but I figured that it would cool to make things crispy that normally aren’t crispy. For example: Cabbage, Cucumbers, peaches, Cherries, etc. I decided to start off with cucumbers.

I set the oven to as low as it can go (for me it was 200⁰F) and cracked the door for 6 hours while I was at work. The results were less than satisfactory.

The heat was too high and the cucumbers were in for too long.. That much was clear just from the color. They were very crispy which was awesome, but I think that if I had dropped the heat they might not have shriveled up. Perhaps if I just left the oven on warm and let the cucumbers go for a little longer, they would not shrink up from the higher heat and cook a little more gently. Or I could just get a dehydrator.

Expect more dehydrated cucumbers in future.

Secondly, chilled soup of cherries, peaches, and cucumbers.

A few days ago, My fiancée brought home a bunch of fresh fruit and cucumbers from her aunt and uncle’s garden. Needless to say I was pretty excited about this. Mostly about the cherries and peaches, two of my favorite fruits when in season.

I could have made some dessert out of them, but that’s what everyone does. I decided to shoot for the savory side. I started by marinating peaches, cucumbers, cherries, basil, thyme, olive oil and vinegar in a bowl overnight to let the flavors get to know each other. The next day, after Straining and pureeing, I got a slightly viscous but not completely smooth soup. It was a sort of intriguing texture, and it had great flavor, but was really unexciting. I am thinking of garnishes now, something along the lines of balsamic reduction, honey mascarpone, and black lava salt. Perhaps a table-side pour?

Anyway, I thought that I would do a quick update about the random crap that I am doing.

Hope you enjoyed.

-Tim.

            

Books That Inspire me part 1-The Big Fat Duck Cookbook.

There are books that I think everyone should have, or at least every serious cook should have.  The list is long, but I will start with one of my favorites.

The Fat Duck Cookbook.

Not only is this a great cookbook, it’s a great book to just keep on your coffee table or nightstand and read for fun every once in a while. It’s written by Chef Heston Blumenthal, who is pretty inspiring in and of himself. If you watch BBC, you will have seen Blumenthal on the air, either on his show In search of perfection, or getting interviewed about a dish of his. He never went to culinary school, but was self-taught, which is incredible considering where he is now. As he was learning his trade, he began to question the things that he was taught and ask why. Why sear meats? Why not wash mushrooms?  What’s the best way to really do this? This led him to his style of cooking that Blumenthal calls “Classic cooking with a little science.”

The book starts with a lengthy (almost a third of the book) and intriguing history of Blumenthal and The Fat Duck, which is cool, because he shares with us what inspired him and how he came to have the number one restaurant one of the top restaurants in the world.

The next portion (about half the book) is full of Recipes from The Fat Duck. Not only are his recipes awesome, but also before each one there is a page or two explaining how the dish was created, beginning at conception and ending on the Fat Duck menu. Some recipes are complex, and most are very complex, oft times using equipment that makes it hard to do them at home. Even so, the ideas and concepts behind his recipes are astounding, and can certainly teach anyone a lot about cooking and creativity. As an added bonus, the photography and graphic design in this section is incredible. Lastly Blumenthal takes a chapter of his cookbook and dedicates it to the science behind his methods and ingredients, which is good to know if you are truly going to dive into his recipes.

Overall, The Fat Duck Cookbook is an amazing book that any aspiring chef should have.

As always thanks for reading. Stay tuned for more posts. I’m going to start updating the blog once a week!

-Tim