Le Cordon Bleu at Home - Hardcover

Le Cordon Bleu

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0688097502 ISBN 13: 9780688097509

Publisher: William Morrow Cookbooks, 1991

Synopsis

Here is the first English-language cookbook from the Parisian cooking school whose very name epitomizes excellence. Le Cordon Bleu at Home provides a solid understanding of the philosophy and skills taught for nearly a century in the school's nine-month "Classic Cycle" course. Moving through three stages, from basic to advanced techniques, this in-depth approach to classical French cuisine offers a series of easy-to-follow menus and recipes that correspond to classes at the school. Nearly three hundred beautiful color photographs depict finished dishes, serving ideas, and cooking techniques at each stage through completion.

Learning to cook means mastering the fundamentals. In "Part One: Getting Started," you'll learn how to roast, poach, fry, saute, braise, and stew. You'll learn which cuts of meat are most appropriate for a dish, which utensils to use and how to use them, and preliminary preparations that simplify tasks. The menus focus on basic dishes -- from roast chicken and lamb to pan-fried sole, apple fritters, and poached fruit.

"Part Two: Perfecting Skills" takes you through pastry-making and introduces such preparations as pâtés, soufflés, consommés, and more. This is where you'll find such glorious dishes as Daube d'Agneau Avignonnaise (braised lamb cooked as it is in Avignon), Tournedos Baltimore (tenderloin steaks with Chateaubriand sauce), and Pilaf de Volaille à la Turque (Turkish-style pilaf with zucchini and oranges), created by Henri-Paul Pellaprat, one of the school's most famous instructors.

Ultimately, no one truly "finishes" learning -- the best chefs endlessly hone their skills. For advanced cooks, "Part Three: Finishing Touches" emphasizes the creative aspect of cooking.

Le Cordon Bleu is the crème de la crème of cooking schools, and this is an indispensable volume for everyone interested in learning about the ageless art of French cooking. Combining time-honored traditions with the latest, most sophisticated methods and a variety of recipes ranging from standard at-home fare to classic, regional, and modern dishes, this is the ultimate state-of-the-art book on French cuisine.

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews

This ``course'' in French cooking from the well-known Paris cooking school sets out to teach standard cooking techniques, sauces and stocks, and pastry magic in a series of 90 three-course menus that are arranged in three sections: basic, intermediate, and professional. The first 11 lessons (or menus) include boxed comments (not really very detailed) on saut‚ing, roasting, mayonnaise, choux pastry, and other basics. ``Technique photo''- strips throughout demonstrate operations from making an omelet to boning a rabbit. By the end of the book, you're into lengthier preparations (the medallion of venison surrounded by tartlets of celeriac and chestnut pur‚e is a two-day operation), preparing several terrines in aspic (one seafood, one rabbit) as starters, and serving what seems throughout to be an excessive number of courses in choux pastry shells. (One of these, filled with salmon and asparagus, calls for a total of 36 tablespoons of butter in a recipe for six that's described as a ``light'' dish in the modern style.) The menu arrangement makes the book heavy on pastries and desserts, and there is much butter, eggs, and cream everywhere. The Cordon Bleu name will lend cachet, but this doesn't notably stand out from other major French cooking tomes available, some of them more patiently detailed. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly

Here is a mother lode of contemporary cooking: lessons from the famed French Cordon Bleu cooking school. Unlike other culinary academies, which train cooking professionals, Le Cordon Bleu strives to educate the home cook in time-honored techniques invented and perfected by the French. And those who master the strategies of roasting, poaching and so on in the book's first section, "Getting Started," will "become familiar with a rich and varied repertoire of dishes that will do them honor and rival the best home cooking in France." Accordingly, the volume is organized by skill level with lessons ranging from French country fare like mussels with wine and cream sauce to more sophisticated creations--scampi bisque and orange mousse--to recipes representing the best (and most contemporary) of French cuisine, e.g., salmon rillettes with buckwheat blini and rum savarin with kiwis and strawberries. While illustrated with four-color photographs of foods and tough-to-master techniques, this is no coffee-table effort. It will be highly useful to serious cooks and novices. Cointreau is president of Le Cordon Bleu. Photos not seen by PW. Advertising; author tour.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: William Morrow Cookbooks
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0688097502
• ISBN 13: 9780688097509
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 592