Jean-Georges: Cooking At Home with a Four-Star Chef
by Jean Georges Vongerichten, Mark Bittman
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jean Georges Vongerichten, Mark BittmanEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1998-09-08
ISBN: 076790155X
Number of pages: 240
Publisher: Broadway Books
Book Reviews of Jean-Georges: Cooking At Home with a Four-Star Chef
Book Review: Model of what amateur foodie can get from a culinary master
Summary: 5 Stars
`Jean-Georges Cooking at Home with a Four-Star Chef' by chef Jean-George Vongerichten and journalist / cookbook author, Mark Bittman is one of those delightful books which lives up to both expectations set by the author(s) reputation and the goals it sets for itself.
Jean-George Vongerichten is among the very top four or five chefs in the country, sharing the limelight of culinary innovation with Thomas Keller, Charlie Trotter and Alfred Portale. He has three high very well received restaurants in New York City and a few scattered about the hinterlands, especially in Las Vegas. Mark Bittman is a food columnist for the New York Times, inheriting a portion of the mantle of Craig Claiborne as one of the leading culinary newspapermen in the country. Bittman is also the author of several well-reviewed cookbooks on his own, primarily the successfully presumptuous `How to Cook Everything' (See my review of this book).
I have to believe that this book was inspired to some extent by the book created out of the collaboration between Patricia Wells and Joel Robuchon, `L'Atelier of Joel Robuchon'. This comparison is heightened by the fact that both Vongerichten and Robuchon did journeyman cooking in the Far East and both continue to have their cuisine influenced by Asian flavors. In spite of several similarities, there are some important differences between these two books. While Robuchon's collaboration deals with his haute cuisine restaurant fare, Vongerichten and Bittman concentrate on dishes from his restaurants that work very well in the home kitchen. In fact, this is the second very authoritative source I have found which says that the home kitchen has several advantages over the restaurant in that it is not constrained by the need to produce every meal in a very short time, on demand. This leads to over-prepping, so that there is a risk that some preparations may fade by the time the end of service rolls around.
Bittman's introduction to this book sets the expectations that the recipes in this book will be relatively simple. And, I am extremely happy to report that, on average, not only are these recipes simple, they also are extremely economical with ingredients. These recipes do not wallow in foie gras, truffles, and caviar; however, some of the recipes do consume a rather large amount of wine and butter. Note that Bittman makes no claim and no apologies to the fact that these recipes are NOT about low calorie dishes! It is probably also fair to say that while most of the recipes are easy and inexpensive, they are not necessarily quick. It is simple to reduce a bottle of wine by 2/3, from 750 ml to one cup (250 ml), but it will take you at least an hour to do. So if these recipes are simple, what makes them so special.
The simple answer to this question is that they are the original creations of an exceptionally talented chef, which means that you are guaranteed a look at some really new things you can do with familiar ingredients. This is another advantage of the fact that Vongerichten uses relatively inexpensive ingredients. It opens all sorts of possibilities with things in your grocery store every day of the year. I was especially taken by the vegetable recipes. I may have several hundred recipes for green beans, but Vongerichten gives me one that adds the Asian flavor of soy sauce to this very French ingredient. In another recipe, he combines dirt-cheap beets and turnips in an utterly simple recipe with nothing more than salt and butter to create something that will be a knockout on a dinner table for guests. In fact, Vongerichten seems to have a special love for root vegetables, as beets and carrots appear in many of his recipes. He has also brought some very easy traditional French techniques to us when he makes confits of leeks and tarts of leeks and potatoes.
It is not surprising that his salads are relatively simple, but it is surprising that his soups are relatively simple too. He even makes terrific mushroom soup with water instead of chicken stock. The recipe does involve making a mushroom broth, but this is a really terrific vegetarian dish.
In spite of the Far Eastern influence, Vongerichten uses relatively few really hard to find ingredients. In his glossary of ingredients in the back of the book, the only really uncommon items were galangal, Kafir lime leaves, and amchur. Virtually every other ingredient is regularly stocked by my local megamart, and, aside from lemongrass and nam pla, few of these eastern ingredients are used in many recipes.
Everything I have said about Vongerichten's savory dishes carries over to his dessert recipes. There are some recipes for tarts and tuilles that may be a challenge if you are not adept at these techniques to begin with, but if you are, these are `easy as pie'. For the pastry challanged, there are utterly simple fruit `salads', confits, and `soups' which take no more than the patience to clean your produce carefully and have the time to be sure that the cooked preparations cool down to a good serving temperature. My favorite discovery is a simple apple confit that uses nothing more than sugar, oranges, and apples. The biggest cost to this recipe is the very long (five to six hours) cooking time in a 300 degree oven.
The fish recipes fall heavily to dishes made of scallops, lobster, shrimp, cod, halibut, mussels and crab. The last thing about the book pleases me is the fact that the authors include several recipes for lamb. This is partially offset by the fact that most of the meat and poultry choices are from somewhat more expensive cuts or birds.
This book is a model of what a leading chef can offer the amateur foodie! There are very few recipes in this book I do not want to make now, today, immediately.
Summary of Jean-Georges: Cooking At Home with a Four-Star Chef
The cooking of Jean-Georges Vongerichten--sophisticated yet startlingly uncomplicated, hinting at French and Asian influences yet entirely original--has earned endless raves and accolades from every quarter. Why? Because Vongerichten has invented a culinary style that is highly creative and intensely flavorful but uses few ingredients and is remarkably simple.Now, Jean-Georges, with award-winning coauthor Mark Bittman, brings this extraordinary cuisine to the home kitchen. There are no mile-long lists of instructions, the recipes use readily available ingredients, and many can be prepared in thirty minutes or less. Some of the recipes are taken directly from the kitchens of Vongerichten's three restaurants--Jean Georges, Vong, and JoJo. They not only sound simple but are simple--and irresistible. Fennel and Apple Salad with Juniper. 10-minute Green Gazpacho. Sautéed Chicken with Green Olives and Cilantro. Warm, Soft Chocolate Cake.
Jean-Georges's signature dishes are all here and made easy for the home cook. Scallops and Cauliflower with Caper-Raisin Sauce. Chicken Soup with Coconut Milk and Lemongrass. Salmon and Potato Crisps. Looking for simple, midweek fare? Try the quickly-put-together Savoy Slaw with Citrus, Ginger, and Mustard and the Dill-Stuffed Shrimp with Baked Lemon. For weekend entertaining, start with Beet and Ginger Salad, move on to the Gently Cooked Salmon with Mashed Potatoes, and dazzle your guests with the spectacular Apple Confit.
This long-awaited cookbook makes it easy to turn your kitchen into a four-star restaurant. All it takes is the inspired recipes and innovative techniques of Jean-Georges.
Interested in terrific food? Good. The first thing to do is buy this book. Then clear your calendar for the next 150 days. At a recipe a day, that's how long it will take to go from cover to cover. Your old life? Buy this book and kiss your old life goodbye. You won't regret it.
Most recipes that come out of high-end restaurant kitchens either aren't feasible in a home kitchen with home cooking skills, or they produce the kind of contrived food you wouldn't think to serve--the kind of food you go out to a restaurant to have served to you.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten, on the other hand, has moved in the direction of ultimate, minimal simplicity with heightened, surprising flavors as the payoff. His Steak with Red Wine Reduction and Carrot Purée, a popular restaurant dish, simply asks that the cook reduce a bottle of red wine to a single cup, stir in carrot purée, and use this as a sauce on a grilled steak. If that sounds like a gimmick, consider that his Manhattan restaurants--Jean-Georges, Vong, JoJo--receive lavish, stunning reviews. And it's all about the food. It's all about finding flavors and textures in your mouth that have never been there before.
In his life and career, Jean-Georges Vongerichten has moved from the foods of his home in France, across Asia, and finally to New York. When the food media was first beginning to talk about "fusion" cuisine, that all-too-often forced marriage of classic French and Asian cooking techniques and ingredients, Jean-Georges had already blown on by into a realm of his own making.
The results of his insight and energy are in this book. This is easy, elegant, flavorful food: Cold Tomato Soup with Cucumber and Cantaloupe, for example, or Salmon in a Cardamom Broth. You won't cook, eat, or taste anything the same old way once you tuck this book and this food experience under your wing. --Schuyler Ingle
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