Kitchen Sense: More Than 600 Recipes To Make You A Great Home Cook

Kitchen Sense: More than 600 Recipes to Make You a Great Home Cook

Imagine if everything you needed to know to be a great home cook were contained between the covers of a single volume. Thered be new twists on cozy favorites like Macaroni and Cheese with Buttermilk Fried Onions and Crumbled Bacon, classic stews such as Chicken Paprikash, Asian-inspired dishes like Chilled Soba Salad, and all-American staples such as juicy hamburgers hot off the grill. There would be reliable, fundamental recipes for basics, including rice (white, yellow, basmati, jasmine, and brown) and vinaigrette (French, Italian, creamy, and others), along with countless creative variations. There would be boxes packed with time-saving tips and useful information on topics ranging from cleaning leafy greens to putting up jams and pickles. Thered be advice for mailing baked goods and pointers for making pan sauces. Each recipe would include not just a list of ingredients but also accurate cooking times, notes for advance prep, and specifics on how to store (and reheat or recycle) leftovers. In short, thered be kitchen sense. And now there is.In Kitchen Sense, renowned food authority Mitchell Davis provides more than 600 of his inviting, foolproof recipes along with the guidance you need to become a terrific home cook. If you already are one, youll find plenty of dishes to add to your repertoire. Because so much great American home cooking is inspired by this countrys unprecedented infusion of international ingredients, techniques, and preparations, Daviss enticing collection takes its cues from far and wide, combining recipes from across the globe to create a true melting pot of flavors.Written with flair by a true scholar of food who enjoys cooking and eating everything, from the simplest down-home cooking to the most sophisticated international cuisine, and crammed with informed, lively, passionate opinions, Kitchen Sense is like cooking alongside the Italian-Midwestern-Thai-Hungarian-Mexican-Southern-French-Israeli-Yankee-Indian grandmother you never had.Amazon.com ReviewGeneral cookbooks like Mitchell Davis's 600-recipes-packed Kitchen Sense can't help but raise a question--in a world with The Joy of Cooking and How to Cook Everything, to name two such tomes, is another such book wanted? On the yes side, Davis has provided a nicely edited selection of homey, easy-to-do recipes--old favorites like baba ghanoush, tuna casserole, frise aux lardons, and chicken cacciatore, plus more unusual formulas, such as Seared Scallops with Warm Pomegranate Vinaigrette, Chipotle-Rubbed Turkey Breast, and Grilled Lamb Chops with Salsa Verde. Sweets include the likes of Bourbon and Bread and Butter Pudding, Salty Chocolate Sabls, and Peach Galette and Pumpkin Chiffon Pie, as well as old standbys like strawberry shortcake and chocolate chunk cookies. Kitchen Sense's well-written recipes might easily form the backbone of any cook's repertoire. Present also are notes to help readers better understand ingredients and techniques, as well as advice on advance preparation and what to do with leftovers, among similar matters. Davis's approach is both casual and informed, which is exactly right for the kind of book he's aimed to write.On the no side--well, we've visited many of the book's recipes many times before, and in versions that could be called, to the extent that it's possible, definitive. It remains for the reader to decide which book and author he or she feels most comfortable with--whose recipes jibe most closely with personal liking. For many, Kitchen Sense will offer just the right combination of good taste, technical ease, and recipe soundness to make it a trusted kitchen helper. --Arthur BoehmFrom Publishers WeeklyA labor of culinary love is evident from beginning to end in this thorough and inspiring collection of recipes written by Davis, a professor of food studies at New York University and on staff at the James Beard Foundation. Chapters are arranged by subject (such as Grains, Poul