Meat: A Kitchen Education [A Cookbook] - Hardcover

Peterson, James

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1580089925 ISBN 13: 9781580089920

Publisher: Ten Speed Press, 2010

Synopsis

Meat: A Kitchen Education is award-winning author James Peterson’s guide for carnivores, with more than 175 recipes and 550 photographs that offer a full range of meat and poultry cuts and preparation techniques, presented with Peterson’s unassuming yet authoritative style.
 
Instruction begins with an informative summary of meat cooking methods: sautéing, broiling, roasting, braising, poaching, frying, stir-frying, grilling, smoking, and barbecuing. Then, chapter by chapter, Peterson demonstrates classic preparations for every type of meat available from the butcher: chicken, turkey, duck, quail, pheasant, squab, goose, guinea hen, rabbit, hare, venison, pork, beef, veal, lamb, and goat. Along the way, he shares his secrets for perfect pan sauces, gravies, and jus. Peterson completes the book with a selection of homemade sausages, pâtés, terrines, and broths that are the base of so many dishes. His trademark step-by-step photographs provide incomparable visual guidance for working with the complex structure and musculature of meats and illustrate all the basic prep techniques—from trussing a whole chicken to breaking down a whole lamb.
 
Whether you’re planning a quick turkey cutlet dinner, Sunday pot roast supper, casual hamburger cookout, or holiday prime rib feast, you’ll find it in Meat along with:
 
Roast Chicken with Ricotta and Sage; Coq au Vin; Duck Confit and Warm Lentil Salad; Long-Braised Rabbit Stew; Baby Back Ribs with Hoisin and Brown Sugar; Sauerbraten; Hanger Steak with Mushrooms and Red Wine; Oxtail Stew with Grapes; Osso Buco with Fennel and Leeks; Veal Kidneys with Juniper Sauce; Lamb Tagine with Raisins, Almonds, and Saffron; Terrine of Foie Gras; and more.
 
No matter the level of your culinary skills or your degree of kitchen confidence, the recipes and guidance in Meat will help you create scores of satisfying meals to delight your family and friends. This comprehensive volume will inspire you to fire up the stove, oven, or grill and master the art of cooking meat.
Winner – 2011 James Beard Cookbook Award – Single Subject Category

About this title

Review:

Fall into Cooking Featured Recipe from James Peterson's Meat: Roast Rack of Lamb

Meat is based on the seemingly paradoxical philosophy that we should eat less meat than the 8 ounces per person per day Americans put away now. Instead of so much meat, we should eat better meat. Insisting on better quality and approaching meat with a degree of understanding will lead butchers and ultimately the meat industry to raise animals in a humane and sustainable way.

I give a recipe for rack of lamb because it's one of those cuts that intimidates but that is really very simple. The whole trick is cooking it to the right degree of doneness. This is very easy to determine by pressing against the two ends of the rack and taking it out of the oven as soon as the two ends feel firm and bounce back to the touch. --James Peterson

Makes 4 main-course servings

Ingredients

1 American rack of lamb (8 chops) or 2 New Zealand racks of lamb (16 chops total), about 1 1/2 pounds, ribs frenched
Salt
Pepper
1 pound lamb stew meat or trimmings, cut into 1/2-inch strips
1/2 onion, coarsely chopped
2 cups chicken broth

Let the rack(s) come to room temperature and season all over with salt and pepper. Preheat the oven to 450°F.

Spread the stew meat and onion on the bottom of a roasting pan just large enough to hold the rack(s). Place the rack(s) on top. Slide the pan into the oven and roast for about 25 minutes, or until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the center of the roast without touching bone reads 125°F to 130°F or until the meat feels firm when you press both ends of the rack(s).

Transfer the rack(s) to a platter or cutting board, tent loosely with aluminum foil, and let rest for 15 minutes before carving.

While the rack(s) are resting, make the jus. Put the roasting pan on the stove top over high heat and stir around the pieces of meat until the meat is browned and any juices have caramelized on the bottom of the pan. Discard the fat and return the pan to high heat. Deglaze the pan with 1/2 cup of the broth, scraping up any brown bits on the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. Boil down the broth until it caramelizes into a crusty brown layer with a layer of clear fat on top. Pour off the fat, return the pan to high heat, and deglaze the pan with a second 1/2 cup broth, again boiling it down. Deglaze the pan with the remaining 1 cup broth, stirring until the crust has dissolved into the liquid, and then strain the liquid through a fine-mesh strainer into a warmed sauceboat.

Carve the rack(s), cutting between the ribs. Pass the jus at the table.

About the Author:

James Peterson is a food writer, cooking instructor, and photographer who began his culinary career as a restaurant cook in Paris in the 1970s. Returning to the United States in the 1980s, he honed his French cooking techniques during his tenure as chef-partner at Le Petit Robert in New York. A highly regarded cooking instructor for more than two decades, Peterson teaches at the Institute of Culinary Education (formerly Peter Kump’s New York Cooking School). His first book, Sauces, won two 1992 James Beard Awards; Vegetables, Glorious French Food, Cooking, and Baking have earned him four more James Beard Awards. Peterson cooks, writes, and photographs from Brooklyn, New York.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ten Speed Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1580089925
• ISBN 13: 9781580089920
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 336