On Cooking: Techniques From Expert Chefs, Trade Version (3rd Edition) at Chef2Chef

This mighty encyclopedia covers a wealth of subjects, including nutrition, food safety, and standardizing a recipe. The book does assume a fair amount of culinary knowledge and expertise when it comes to proper textures, cooking times, and accurately judging "doneness." There are recipes for more than 700 dishes, including classics such as Turnedos Rossini and Crabcakes Benedict--as well as the basics for making great sauces, stocks, soups, pastry, and so forth. New-style cooking also features prominently, with a delicious recipe for Duck Prosciutto with Fresh Mango being a fine example. On Cooking: Techniques from Expert Chefs is quite an achievement. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
Similar in scope and approach to the Culinary Institute's The New Professional Chef (LJ 8/91), this textbook/reference was put together by Phoenix cookbook author Labensky and caterer Hause. Like The New Professional Chef, it begins with an introduction to the food service industry, then covers equipment and kitchen staples, with the bulk of the book devoted to all aspects of professional cooking and baking. This volume includes 1250 color photographs and 5500 recipes, in contrast to Chef's 700 recipes and 900 color photographs plus illustrations. Many of the recipes in Labensky and Hause's work come from a variety of professional chefs, and it shows. While one should expect that yields for stocks and other basic preparations be large in a text of this sort, home cooks attempting to use the recipes may be frustrated by serving sizes that vary from recipe to recipe, serving from one or two people to ten to 16 or more. The color photographs and step-by-step technique shots give this value as a reference, so special collections may want to consider; those that already have The New Professional Chef, however, can skip it.
Judith C. Sutton, Sutton's Place Cuisine, New York
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Reader Reviews
I'm a culinary arts student at the Art Institute of California, and total foodie, and I take my cooking very seriously. This book goes into explicit detail for each and every ingredient and cooking method. I'm not kidding when I tell you that there are three paragraphs and a chart to tell you how to boil water. That may seem like overkill, but now that I've been following the various guidelines of food preparation, I notice a subtle improvement in everything I make. If you're the kind of person who walks down the spice aisle of the grocery store for fun (like me!), or if you can't get enough kitchen gadgets (like me!) then you'll enjoy this book. Caution: don't read this one on an empty stomach! Comment | Permalink | (Report this)