New Cookbook: 101 Classic Cookbooks

101 Classic Cookbooks: 501 Classic Recipes (2012) is a beautiful compendium of recipes from 101 great cookbooks that span time and encompass many types of cooking, cuisines and ways of eating. I was pleased to see many of my favorite cookbook writers included, such as Mark Bittman, Alice Waters, Patricia Wells and Marcella Hazan. The book opens with a summary of each selected cookbook and scans of interior pages, showcasing the cookbook’s unique style. Following are 501 recipes selected from the cookbooks to illustrate what makes each one special. If you like to cook broadly and try new cookbooks, you can’t go wrong with a compendium like this.

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• The Only Cookbooks You Need (simplycooking.wordpress.com)

The Only Cookbooks You Need

Cover via Amazon

This week, as I was developing my weekly menu, I got to thinking about the cookbooks I have versus the cookbooks I use. Like many home cooks, I have acquired more cookbooks than I can ever possibly use on a regular basis. I love to browse through cookbooks, especially those with beautiful photography, even if I don’t make very many recipes from them. I have noticed that I used to buy a lot more cookbooks than I do now, because I used to experiment a lot more. Now, I’ve settled on the kinds of dishes that I like to cook at home and that my family like to eat, which keeps me returning to the same cookbooks again and again.

If I had to ruthlessly pare down my cookbook library, I think I could easily make do with just eight cookbooks and spend a lifetime happily cooking from them. These are the four basic cookbooks I consider essential:

• The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters
• How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman
• The Joy of Cooking
• The Foster’s Market Cookbook

The Waters book is essentially a home-cooking course for beginning cooks, and I return to its classic, simple recipes again and again. The other two contain pretty much every recipe I’d ever want to make, and they offer lots of variations so I don’t get bored. However, these all-purpose cookbooks tend to skimp on categories that I consider essential: breakfast, easy entertaining and cookies. Luckily, the Foster’s Market cookbook does a terrific job filling in those gaps (especially cookies).

Every now and then, I like to cook something more elaborate, from one of the four basic food groups: Italian, French, Mexican and Southern. I could buy hundreds of cookbooks in each of these categories, but I really only need one that’s definitive and comprehensive for each style of cooking I want to do. Over the years, I’ve settled on these four:

• Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan
  
• Bistro Cooking by Patricia Wells
• Authentic Mexican by Rick Bayless
• Sara Foster’s Southern Cookbook

Of course, your favorite regions or types of dishes will be different than mine, so I would suggest researching the cookbook offerings and locating that one definitive cookbook in each category. It’s so much easier cooking out of just a few books and getting to know them very well than it is trying to find that one recipe you want to make from among hundreds of cookbooks.

Patricia Wells’ Double Celery Soup

Over the next several posts, I’m going to be sharing some of my favorite recipes. These are recipes that I don’t make that often but that I want to remember for special occasions. Sometimes when a favorite recipe is buried in a cookbook, it can be forgotten. So my reasons for sharing them on the blog are purely selfish — I just don’t want them to get lost or forgotten over time. But I hope you will enjoy them too.

This first recipe comes from Patricia Wells’ excellent cookbook Bistro Cooking. It combines two ingredients I don’t cook with very often: celery and celery root. This unexpected combination make an absolutely delicious soup that can make an appearance at a dinner party or perk up someone who’s feeling under the weather.

This soup is most appropriate for winter or early spring, so apologies for posting out of season. As a light meal, serve it with crisp crackers and a green salad. It makes 6-8 servings, and leftovers can be frozen.

Double Celery Soup

• 1 med. celery root (about 1 pound), peeled and diced
• 10 celery ribs, cubed
• 3 leeks, trimmed, rinsed and cut into thin rounds
• 1 large sprig of thyme, 3 bay leaves and several sprigs of parsley, tied with a string
• 2 quarts chicken stock
• Salt and pepper
• Handful of fresh chopped herbs for garnish

In a large saucepan, combine the celery root, celery, leeks and whole herbs. Add the stock and season gently. Bring to a simmer over medium-high. Simmer until the vegetables are soft, about 25 minutes. Sprinkle with the chopped herbs to serve.

A Great Potato Gratin

My first challenge of the New Year was actually a challenge I set for myself for the Christmas dinner I was hosting. I wanted to finally master the potato gratin. Although many recipes go by the name gratin, the one I’m referring to is the classic Gratin Dauphinois, with cream and melted Gruyere cheese. This is one of my favorite special occasion dishes, but I had never been able to make a really good one.

It seems like a simple dish. It contains only four or five ingredients: potatoes, cream, Gruyere cheese, salt and maybe garlic. But every time I made it before, it either turned out very gloppy, with a lot excess liquid, or the potatoes didn’t get tender enough. It was time to stop fooling around and get serious.

For help, I turned to Patricia Wells’ Bistro Cooking, which practically has a whole chapter dedicated to potato gratins. I ended up combining steps from two different recipes, and the results were magnificent. The gratin was crusty and cheesy, the potatoes were tender and redolent with cream, and I couldn’t resist going back for seconds.

Here’s what I learned about making a really good gratin. First, slice the potatoes thinly and consistently. If you only get out your mandoline once a year, now is the time. I sliced mine 3/8 inch thick, which seemed a little thick to me, but they cooked up beautifully.

Second, pre-cook the sliced potatoes at a low simmer — not a boil — for about 10 minutes. This ensures they will be tender after they come out of the oven.

Finally, choose a shallow dish for baking. I don’t have a proper gratin pan, so I used a lasagna baking dish. I made two layers of potatoes and cheese, and that worked out very well. The gratin itself was cooked and beautiful ahead of schedule, at just 45 minutes.

Now that I know how to make a really good potato gratin, it will be a challenge not to make it more often. Here’s the recipe as I prepared it.

Potato Gratin

Yield: 4 to 6 servings

• 1 garlic clove, peeled and halved
• 2 pounds baking potatoes, such as russets, peeled and very thinly sliced
• 1 cup freshly grated French or Swiss Gruyere cheese
• 1 cup heavy cream
• Salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the potatoes in a large saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a low simmer over medium heat, stirring occasionally so that the potatoes do not stick to the bottom of the pan. Reduce the heat to low and cook, stirring from time to time, until the potatoes are tender but not falling apart, about 10 minutes.

Thoroughly rub a shallow baking dish with the garlic. Using a slotted spoon, transfer half of the potatoes to the dish. Sprinkle with half the cream and half the cheese. Sprinkle with salt. Cover with the remaining potatoes, and sprinkle again with the remaining cream and cheese. Sprinkle again with salt. Bake, uncovered, until crisp and golden on top, 45-60 minutes. Serve immediately.

French Onion Soup

Patricia Wells is my new best friend. I have had her cookbook, Bistro Cooking, for a while but only recently began cooking out of it. The recipes are simple but hearty French bistro fare that rely on the best ingredients for flavor, and each one I have attempted has been delicious. Her Marinated Goat Cheese, for instance, should be a pantry staple; it keeps for a long time, and it is a tasty snack and a useful ingredient to have on hand for salads and other dishes.

This week I made two soups from Bistro Cooking: a superb French Onion Soup that relies on braising the onions in wine rather than sauteing them for its deep flavor (recipe follows), and a surprisingly delicious Double Celery Soup of celery, celery root and leeks, which has to be extremely good for you as well as just being good. Both soups are so simple that they absolutely rely on homemade chicken stock for their foundation — otherwise, they would have no body.

Wells’ book Bistro Cooking encourages you to keep great ingredients on hand in order to quickly put together satisfying meals that don’t require the fussy handling and intricate preparation we often associate with French cooking. I love turning my kitchen into a French bistro.

French Onion Soup

Yields: 2 servings
Time to make: ~1 hour

What you need:

• 1 lg. onion, thinly sliced
• 1 cup white wine
• 1 tbsp. butter
• 2 cups homemade chicken stock
• 2-4 slices baguette or French bread
• 2/3 cup grated Gruyere or Emmenthal cheese

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees
2. Combine the onion, butter and wine in a shallow baking dish, and braise in the oven until the liquid has been absorbed, about 45 minutes
3. While the onion is cooking, bring the stock to a simmer
4. Remove the onion and toast the bread in the oven until crisp, about 5 minutes
5. Divide the onion among two oven-proof bowls and ladle the stock over
6. Top each portion with 1-2 pieces of toast and half the cheese
7. Heat the broiler
8. Broil the soup until browned and bubbly, about 5 minutes

Notes: For a lower fat version, omit the bread and cheese, and puree the soup. Whisk in a little butter to finish. Adapted from Bistro Cooking by Patricia Wells.

More classic French bistro recipes from other blogs…

• Croque Monsieur Ham and Chese Sandwich from Simply Recipes
• Chicken with Mustard Sauce from Petit Pois
• Hangar Steak with Shallots from Lunch for Two