Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)[Review written Jan 2006]
My wife grabbed this book for me from a $1 discount rack someplace. It appears to be part of a series of chap-book sized books called "Quick & Easy Books".
Let me get straight to the point ...
Strengths:
PHOTOS: There are lots of pretty photos for those who enjoy such things - and that's about the only positive thing I can say. Unfortunately, the photos are one of my complaints, so that's not really saying much. Weaknesses: In no particular order. LENGTH: I'm sorry, but an undersize (7.5"x 6.5") soft cover chap book of only 65 pages (yes, you read that correctly ... only sixty five pages), half of them photos, hardly qualifies for a cover price of $8.95.
UNSUPPORTED STATEMENTS: The absurdly terse and inane introduction makes some overly brief and unsupported medical claims - such as (paraphrase) "all you need to do to lose weight is to eliminate dietary fat". Sorry, no dice. Life isn't that simple. It wouldn't surprise me to see angry torch-wielding mobs of registered dieticians, nutritionists, and exercise physiologists appearing for all quarters, to take exception with that sort of trite and vapid assertion.
HEADNOTES: There aren't any. None of the recipes are introduced or explained in any meaningful way. They appear to have been just unceremoniously dumped into the book, and roughly sorted by type.
PHOTOS: The photos themselves aren't too shabby - you can see what the finished dish is supposed to look like. However, there aren't any procedural photos, and I don't care for photos that are inconsistent with the recipes they're supposed to document ... such as the photo of rabbit in wine sauce on p.43 - the photo shows a quarter of rabbit, but the recipe calls for cutting the rabbit into 6 pieces. There's also a garnish of blanched brussel spout leaves, which appears nowhere in the recipe. There's also 5 whole braised shallots in the photo, when the recipe only calls for 2 halved shallots for the entire dish. The sauce in the photo (which appears to be a bi-color pool of olive and some colorless oil) also bears no resemblance to the sauce in the recipe (which is a w.wine sauce with parsley finished with corn starch and yogurt - and which should therefore appear cloudy, have bits of green in it, and be milky and somewhat thickened). The dish is also garnished with a fresh bay leaf - despite the fact that the dish called for the bay leaves to be added at the start of braising. In short, the photo bears only a passing resemblance to the recipe - and this appeared to be typical of many of the recipes throughout the book. Need another example ? Here's one at random - Fennel Nicoise (p.12) calls for sliced fennel and diced skinned tomatoes to be braised 45 mins - yet the photo clearly shows the fennel was merely blanched, and the tomato is simply scattered on top, like a garnish.
USELESS INFORMATION: The book barely scratches the surface on the subject of selecting, cooking with, and caring for ceramic cookware - and in their discussion about sizes they're talking as if they had a particular product line in mind ... but they forget to mention what it is. Also, selecting ceramic cookware is not nearly as simple as they naively portray. For instance, there are ceramic pots that can be used on the stovetop - not mentioned at all. There are certain types of ceramics that should be avoided because they're not food safe or intended for cooking - no mention of that either. In fact, their introductory blurb is more of a study in that they neglect to cover in meaningful detail rather than what they actually do say.
GUESSED COOKING TIMES: Most cooking times appears to be guesses, at best (most of them start with putting unheated ceramic into unheated ovens, and then turning the oven on) and combined with a lack of safe target internal temperatures for fish, poultry and meat, it's basically Russian roulette regarding whether or not your food will be under or overdone.
IMPROPER TECHNIQUE: The author robotically uses ceramic baking containers for everything, whether it's appropriate to do so or not. For instance - what ninny is going to fire up their oven, and dirty a ceramic pot, making tomato rice soup ? That's a stove-top dish. There's also a recipe for basmati rice that over simplistically calls for the rice to just be dumped into a baking dish with water, covered, and then placed in a cold oven (along with whatever ceramic-esconsed entrée you've planning to heat alongside it) and baking it for an hour. The photo shows the rice all nice and fluffy in a pristine clear Pyrex container. Well guess what - if you do it that way, you're going to wind up with a stuck-together mass - and possibly scorched too, depending on the type of oven you have, the shape of the dish (not to mention whether it's opaque or not, and how full you fill it) and where you put it. In other words, the rice in the photo was cooked by other means, then fluffed and cooled, and then put neatly into a clear Pyrex photo for a composed photo shot. I know at least a half dozen different ways to make basmati rice, and that's one of the most inane and unhelpful I've seen.
MISSING DESCRIPTIONS: There's a recipe for olive-crusted lamb loin on p.33 - a premium cut that costs a small fortune, yet the author omits doneness temperature (Russian roulette cooking times) and neglects to explain how to carve it to people who've never used that cut before. I know how (courtesy of Jacques Pepin's "Complete Techniques")... but probably 95% of most home cooks (and 75% of most professional cooks) don't. Don't even get me started on how anemic the recipe is too (no sautéed mirepoix, no seared meat for fond development, water and wine instead of broth, etc.) - talk about making a sow's ear out of fine silk !
Bottom line ? Save your money. This vapid offering is only good for decorating coffee tables, and not much else. In my opinion, it's not even worth buying at a substantial discount, as a used book. I was wholly dissatisfied with it, from cover to cover. Deeply disappointing & far below average.
----------- {addendum #1}
I forgot 1 (heck, I probably forgot a lot more, but this is enough for now):
INCOMPLETE RECIPES: the recipe for Sauerbraten with Pine Nuts (p.34) instructs the reader, in step one, to "remove sauerbraten from marinade".
Um, hello ? What marinade ? Most novice cooks and non-Germans don't have the faintest idea what cut of meat to use for sauerbraten, much less how to marinate it - and the author conveniently ignores both seemingly unavoidable points.
Is it asking too much of a recipe that includes "sauerbraten" in the title to include steps on how to make sauerbraten ... or, at the very least, to include a definition of what it is, for the benefit of people who've never had, much less made it, before ?!
That ranks even higher, on the inanity scale, than including "first, catch yourself a chicken" in a modern-day cookbook.
----------- {addendum #2}
I have more to add on my earlier point regarding "Improper Technique".
Let's cover the entire book, section by section:
Vegetables, Appetizers and Snacks: All but 2 of the recipes in this section can be made better, and faster, with either foil pouches, silicone bake mats, or foil-lined baking sheets - and the cleanup would be faster and easier too.
Soups, Stews and Casseroles: All of the soups can be made faster, and easier, on the stove-top. Most of the casseroles can be made faster in a standard covered baking dish or, better still, in a heavy-duty dutch oven {because you can usually (but not always) assemble the ingrediets while hot, and place it in a pre-heated oven, rather than assemble them cold and put it in a cold oven}. All of the stews could be made faster either way (countertop or dutch oven), as applicable.
Meat, Poultry and Game: All of the recipes (including the 2 roasts) can be done faster, and better, in a standard heavy duty dutch oven - better, because you can pre-sear the ingredients for better flavor development, and faster because you're putting an already-simmering pot into a pre-heated oven, rather than dumping cold ingredients into a cold pot and putting it into a cold oven (talk about lousy and uninspired technique). The roasts can be done faster, and better, with standard roasting pans - as long as you have a minimally vague clue what you're doing.
Fish and Seafood: All of these recipes, with one exception, can be made faster, and just as well, with simple homemade foil pouches, baking dishes, or a standard heavy duty dutch oven, as applicable. The only exception is the mussels, which are best done stove-top, in a large covered pot with a steamer insert - mussels are delicate, and they're very easy to over/under cook, and the line between the two is as little as 2-3 minutes ... something the author's 30 minute baking time wholly ignores.
Desserts and Breads: This is pretty much the only chapter in which I see recipes that benefit from the qualities of ceramic.
To sum up - in her rush to extoll the virtues of ceramic cookware, the author appears to have missed the boat on the purpose and qualities of the various types of traditional cookware that can (and do) give faster and better results for most dishes. At the same time, the author fails (with only a few exceptions) to include recipes in which ceramics are the better choice.
The author's misguided attempt to use ceramic bakeware for ALL forms of cooking, rather than the specific types of cooking it's intended for, is akin to trying to drive nails with a rubber mallet...Read more›
Click Here to see more reviews about: Cooking in Clay: Full Flavor the Subtle Way (Quick & Easy (Silverback))
Cooking in Clay introduces a variety of distinctive dishes.The clay pot used as the cooking vessel in these recipes imparts unique flavors and textures wether you're baking breads, roasting meats, or making a Ratatouille Nicoise.Cooking in Clay provides techniques, recipes, and tips crucial to getting the most out of this healthy style of cooking.
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