The Cook's Compendium : 265 Essential Tips, Techniques, Trade Secrets and Tasty Recipes

Essential cooking experience presented in 265 expert tips.

This compendium contains 265 tremendously useful cooking tips, techniques, shortcuts, wisdom and indispensable recipes that cooks of all experience will find to be valuable additions to their skill set.

Step-by-step photographs, labeled diagrams, tables, charts, "fix it" and "try it" features, and much more make this compendium an essential resource. The book covers a wide range of topics in seven thematic chapters and 20 recipes to practice techniques. The opening section has information on key ingredients, utensils, useful "gadgets and gizmos" and other essential tools.

Sections include:

• Fish -- using fresh fish, the art of cooking fish, mastering shellfish
• Meat -- tenderizing meat, beef: the ultimate red meat; versatile pork, lively lamb, popular poultry
• Grains and legumes -- rice, perfect risotto, sensational sushi, pasta sauces, artisan pasta, noodles
• Vegetables and fruits -- chopping, slicing, peeling; root veggies; greens; mushrooms; herbal magic; essential garlic; variety of spices; nuts and seeds; oils
• Dairy -- understanding dairy ingredients, the joy of eggs: savory and sweet; cheese, other dairy
• Baking -- utensils and ingredients, art of pastry, baking bread, cakes
• Dinner's at 8 -- presentation techniques, menus.

Concise text, color photographs and instructions fill the user-friendly spreads. Essential preparations and techniques that may befuddle beginning cooks are included, for example:

• Risotto: Use a "girosiro", a wooden spoon with a hole in the center, to double stirring power
• Beef: Use the "fingertip test" to gauge the doneness of a steak
• Meringue: Four tips for meringue peaked to perfection.

With this compendium, cooks of all experience will acquire skills, discover tricks, expand their repertoire and gain more confidence to try new things and fix problems. "Difficult" dishes will be easier, and new taste adventures will follow. This is an essential addition to all kitchen collections.

Jenni Davis is an author and editor. Her previous books as author include Cocktails: A Complete Guide and as editor, The English Pudding.