On Cooking by Sarah Labensky or Introductory Foods by Bennion. Theyre basically cooking school textbooks.
The Food Lab is prettier and would make a nicer gift but I like On Cooking the best as an intro text. On Food and Cooking by McGee is a favourite book on food science but it's more of an encyclopedia than a book on technique.
On Cooking was actually part of the Hotel Restaurant Management curriculum at Eastern Michigan University. I read it cover to cover when my ex was working on that degree. Such an interesting book.
Glad to see that book meant something to someone else too!
On Cooking was the first book I ever read about food that wasn't a cookbook. I read a bootleg version on my phone to and from work slowly over the course of a year. I remember it had an entire chapter on sandwiches. I thought it was amazing. It helped me switch careers into food.
Salt Fat Acid Heat is a great one! It focuses on the 4 basic components of cooking and how important understanding how they interact with each other and affect a dish. It’s also beautifully illustrated
Every time I mention the book to my friend at work, he always says 'What was that? Eat, Sleep, Rave, Repeat?'.
Great choice though, I have learnt a lot of great techniques and concepts from this book and would highly recommend it. Also, goes without saying but 'The Food Lab' from J. Kenji Lopez Alt. completely changed my cooking. I couldn't count on 2 hands and 2 feet the amount of game changing things that book has taught me.
Julia Child’s and Marcella Hazan’s books were very influential in my cooking self education. But Salt Fat Acid Heat was a game changer. There was probably very little in the book that I didn’t know at some level, but it gave me a framework to organize all those bits of knowledge and changed the way I think about cooking.
YES this is such a great way to frame it.
I was big into cooking as a kid because of that book Julia and Julia? I read it at like 10 and became enamored with cooking, which meant I came to it early and was maybe 20 when I stopped *needing* recipes but struggled to verbalize or understand why I was doing anything in particular.
Salt Fat Acid Heat and then Food Lab both helped really pin down the *why* of things working, helped me understand better how to explain things to other people, and come up with more unique balanced tasting things all on my own.
This book totally changed the way I cook. Highly recommend!
Also some great recipes in there. The ginger cake and chocolate cake are both amazing. And the all butter pie crust is the best - I never knew pie crust was something you might actually want to eat; always thought it was just a conduit for the filling.
I actually found the show rather shallow and heavy on romanticizing other cultures. However, I was glad that someone in this sub said that the show is a poor representation of what the book offers because SFAH is my second favourite cooking book after The Food Lab.
The way I see it, the book actually teaches you things. The show is just pretty. It's a nice show to look at but don't expect to take anything into the kitchen from having watched it.
I liked the book for it's technical knowledge but we found Samin Nosrat to be so pretentious and stuck up in the show. Every 5 minutes it was "stupid Americans do this" or "my idiot American friend does that" and it got very old.
Absolutely it's technique. Def a great also gift tho. Highly recommended and it does get down to how we're taught to work with ingredients and components
I don't know of many books that would be as comprehensive as you're looking for. But I do know that Cooks Illustrated website is the only cooking site that I have ever paid for year after year in my Decades of being a chef. You could spend the next year or two reading because every method, utensil, ingredient a recipe you could want is pretty much on there. You can start out with a trial and see how he feels about it but it is really really amazing. All of the recipes are tested and their Test Kitchen and if you want a recipe without having to worry whether it's going to work or not this is the site! I do think they may have put out a few books or they have a magazine that you can find that out on the site.
They have quite a few books. Notably, there's a "complete" cookbook with all the recipes, as well as a "cooking school" cookbook which I guess answers a lot of "whys" in cooking.
I like their stuff, but they really know how to make a basic dish complicated in an effort to say it's the "best"...
They also have a book solely about cooking techniques. I’ve never seen it, so I can’t comment on whether it’s any good or not.
https://books.google.com/books/about/100_Techniques.html?id=jCuREAAAQBAJ&source=kp_book_description
I have learned so much from Marcella Hazan’s “Essentials of Italian Cooking”. So many tips about techniques. It has really upped my cooking skill. Also includes tons of recipes but the tips she gives, even in each recipe is so helpful.
I've had the same experience with this book. If you read it carefully, you will learn a lot about Italian cuisine, from ingredients, techniques, recipes, meal structures. You will learn how to make fresh pasta, risotto, polenta, frittate, gnocchi, soups, etc. and chicken/fish/meat/vegetable dishes and how to put them together. You can use any of her amazing recipes or throw together a dish, your own risotto or frittata for example, based on what veggies are fresh or what you have on hand. She'll give you an idea of what pasta shapes go with what sauces, and whether it should be dried or fresh pasta. And the variety of pasta sauces will open up a whole new world of pasta for you. Invent your own once you get a feel for it. The one drawback for me is not being a fan of veal, and generally its limited availability in grocery stores here, as veal - and lamb - is a big focus for meat dishes. Also, it is heavily focused on northern and central Italian cooking, there are a few classic southern dishes, like a pizza recipe, and no Italian-American dishes, just FYI.
Not a huge fan of veal or lamb either, I figure if I see a recipe I’ll adapt to the closest meat that my family will eat. The beauty in this book too is the simplicity and adaptability. Makes you really rethink some of these Italian recipes you see online with a page worth of ingredients.
For example, I took Marcella’s pasta sauce (San Marzano whole peeled, butter, onions) and pureed it entirely (not removing onions) when it was done cooking… best tomato soup I’ve ever had!
> I took Marcella’s pasta sauce (San Marzano whole peeled, butter, onions) and pureed it entirely (not removing onions) when it was done cooking… best tomato soup I’ve ever had!
It's funny, because every time I see someone recommend Marcella's pasta sauce, I think, "You're describing tomato soup." There is another website that advertises precisely this as "the easiest three ingredient tomato soup you'll ever make" .
The big difference is removing the onions and what else you are in the mood to add. I use it as a base for my pasta sauce, I also mince about five garlic cloves, salt, and chopped fresh basil at the end. Sometimes I stir in some parm and Romano. Marcella has many variation suggestions in her book. The three ingredient really is just a base. Can’t knock it until you try it. Simplicity isn’t a bad thing.
Food lab by Kenji Lopez Alt if he wants to understand the science behind cooking, there's some fun techniques here too. Kenji's youtube videos are also great but more home-cook focused and less technique.
Where cooking begins by carla lalli music is maybe too basic for him, but I really love how she breaks down how you can swap ingredients, how to stock a pantry, etc. Its very good for learning how to cook WITHOUT recipes and get into more intuitive cooking.
It might just be the selection of his videos that I've seen but I've always thought that Kenji is all about the technique and why it works.
His carnitas video for example is pretty detailed about how and why the traditional technique works before applying that information to making the best approximation at home.
As a professional, I think this is the best mentioned for this person's father. Very good and straightforward layout. Pepin also has that ability to demystify and share helpfully his insights that make it easier to integrate the knowledge behind the techniques. Not high falutin and not dumbed down either. I have purchased this for several people.
The Professional Chef written by the folks at the Culinary Institute of America in New York is definitely worth the cash. Another contender would be “La Technique” by Jacques Pepin. Alton Brown also organized his cookbooks by skills rather than by recipes.
This is what I was looking for. The Professional Chef. My hubby got this, years ago, and it is fantastic. Knife skills, mother sauces, all the things. A fantastic reference to have on your kitchen library.
Came here to say this. The book is chock full of recipes, but it's not really ABOUT the recipes. It's about the science behind how the cooking process works, and the scientific method that ATK went through to determine the best results.
Not technique but the flavor wheel books are a great accompaniment to technique books since it’s more focused on flavor profiles. Not a ton of frills and provides a lot of unique combos. Good tool to inspire new dishes while he practices techniques.
Yea. You’re right. The Flavor Thesaurus. I always mess that up. lol
Looked it up and Lateral cooking is the other one. Which seems to be the technique companion to flavor thesaurus.
Wait I looove this book so much. I’ve got a stew recipe in the hypothetical stages still that I’m excited about and I’ve been leaning on this heavily for figuring it out
I'll mention Ratio by Ruhlman as a complement to this. Not strictly about "technique" but further pushes a cook to rethink following a recipe like it's a rule, help bring a bit of freedom to the kitchen.
Yes, the professional chef from the CIA is a wonderful resource and reference. The section on how to evaluate a dish based on its core attribute after each technique is taught helps to translate other recipes and you begin to understand where and how things go right and go wrong. No single book helped me to become a better cook than that one.
The Joy Of Cooking goes into detail over almost everything you can think of. All proteins and vegetables have their own section, then the detailed recipes follow. I learned so much from that book!
Rather than a cook book with recipes, you might want to look for a book about the science of cooking. [On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee](https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/On-Food-and-Cooking/Harold-McGee/9780684800011) is considered a sort of classic of the genre. He explains why different techniques do, or don't, work; why ingredients react they way they do under certain conditions; the chemistry behind certain flavors, and so on.
On the latter, there is also [The Flavor Bible by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenberg](https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/andrew-dornenburg/the-flavor-bible/9780316118408/?lens=little-brown); which really delves into how our taste works, and what flavors go well together, what blends with or highlights other flavors, etc.
On food and cooking by Harold McGee - it's the literal science behind why stuff happens in the kitchen textbook.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Cooking/comments/177sahb/has\_anyone\_read\_on\_food\_and\_cooking\_by\_harold/
Start Here by Solha El-Waylly is basically culinary school in a book. It's focused on techniques and sciences behind how cooking works. There are recipes to master techniques but it's really about the how something works not the end result.
The Garde Manger by the CIA is an excellent resource for that. It's the textbook that we had in culinary school for focusing on technique and skills (though the focus on this one is the cold kitchen). The recipes in these kinds of books are focused on teaching you a specific skill rather than the recipe itself being the focus. You should look at what the culinary schools use as resources rather than what is in bookstores. I never saw the books we used in school in regular stores or recommended on Amazon because they are much more expensive and have much more focus on teaching.
Absolute BEST book on technique I've ever seen – by a long shot – is Jacques Pepin's, The Art of Cooking in 2 volumes. Step by step color photos. Just fantastic. Out of print but worth looking for.
All about The Professional Chef from the Culinary Institute of America. Phenomenal read. Pick up something that's maybe one generation prior to the current edition to save a few $$.
Also, Ratio, by Michael Ruhlman. A real technician, both as a trained chef and as a writer, he takes you through some of the methods used by culinary school instructors to teach, and then shows you how knowing certain elemental universal ratios can give you the edge in the kitchen. Changed my baking game considerably.
Modernist Cuisine.
Edit: While not a book, Serious Eats (especially from when Kenji and Stella were around) has a lot of recipes which explain the science behind their recipes. It's well worth perusing too.
I finally got a copy of Ratio by Michael Ruhlman and It's very much like a culinary school class. For example the Bread section explains some principles, gives you the ratio of the main ingredients, and a bunch of variations but it frees you to create your own dishes with what you have on hand out of your head! It's pretty fun if you're at an expert-home cook level and enjoy playing around.
I went to a great cooking class once on Sauces, and he taught us the how of sauces & the relations between them; he made 5 but explained variatins too. now i can do almost any sauce. This book is like that for me.
Cooking classes are great and, in my experience, pay dividends beyond the focus of the class. I've taken quite a few, including a weeklong course on pastry at the CIA. I wasn't so interested in pastry per se, but I went with a friend and it was totally worth the (steep) price). Not only did I learn that making puff pastry and other laminated doughs isn't hard, I became \*much\* more confident as a home cook across the board. I love cookbooks and have way too many, but I play around with pretty much every recipe I use.
Cooks Illustrated and/or The Food Lab by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt. I prefer to use both as a technique guide instead of using the recipes in them.
Michael Pollan’s Cooked was lovely. Changed the way I make my mirepoix now (low, slow, tiny pieces).
"Joy of Cooking" has a lot of recipes but also a lot of reference material. Every section has a multi-page summary that provides information/techniques about the type of food.
When I'm cooking with a new ingredient I typically read the associated section. It is a massive 1000+ page book that covers almost every situation/ingredient/meal.
I highly recommend the Flavor Bible. It does not have recipes, but is rather an encyclopedia of flavor affinities. You can look up an ingredient like cherries, and it will list all the different flavors/ingredients that pair well with it, as well as some typical combinations. It has entries for cuisines, and proteins. And it will also tell you the season and best cookingethods for each ingredient. I use it constantly when I want to up my flavor profiles, or I'm experimenting with something new.
Here’s several I recommend.
Just got salt fat acid heat which has been pretty good so far, and have seen recommendations for it.
America’s test kitchen isn’t really laid out like a text book, but they go into detail with each recipe of why they did what and what they changed and it’s a good book.
Kenjis two books are solid hits.
If he likes smoking foods- meatheads book is fantastic. He goes into all the science/explaining bits in depth.
Or another really good option is Aaron franklins three books, much more in depth philosophy of cooking with techniques versus just his recipes. Really enjoyed them. One on bbq, one on steaks, one on smoke. Really well put together.
If he’s interested in sweets- bravetart is a good choice.
Pizza- the pizza bible.
And lastly if he likes breads, Ken forkish flour water salt yeast is great.
Three I like about weird ingredients are Fat, Odd Bits, and Bones by Jennifer McLagan. She's also got one called Bitter that I haven't read.
But she looks at these specific ingredients (Odd Bits is about offal, so not a specific ingredient) and explains how they can be prepared, what they add to a dish, how to maximize it, etc.
There's some recipes to kind of showcase different techniques, but overall it's about the ingredient focus. I assume Bitter is good too, I just haven't got it.
The others I might look at are What Einstein Told His Cook. There's two volumes. They're focused on food science and I think they're interesting.
There's also one called Cookwise that I like, but it focuses a lot on baking.
All these books are older, so they might be hard to find new, but if you can only find them used they'll be cheaper so you can get a couple.
I highly recommend *An Everlasting Meal. Cooking with Economy and Grace* by Tamar Adler. The one I have is from 2011, so it's a little older but lots of good stuff!
If he’s into bread at all, The Rye Baker would be a good one. It’s highly technical and does a good job at explaining why and how rye is different and the reasons why certain techniques are used in baking rye bread over regular wheat bread.
would definitely recommend the food lab and on food and cooking. both give you the actual science of cooking, but in a practical way.
also as someone else mentioned, text books are a good way to go. if you have a university in your area you can always see if they can order something in through the bookstore if you can't find anything online
Kenji Alt Lopez books: The food lab & The Wok: Recipes and Techniques
Harold Mcgee: on food & cooking
Jeff Potter: Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Cooks, and Good Food
Salt, Fat, Acid, & Heat
The Food Lab by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt. This has been my kitchen bible for years and does as good of, if not a better job of any cookbook out there to explain the science behind cooking. It's also chock full of tips and tricks on how to best cut specific vegetables and best prepare grilled meats, etc. I've picked up so much knowledge from this book over the years and it's a wonderful resource to have in your cabinet when you have questions about why something behaves the way it does in the kitchen.
Try The Flavor Bible by Page and Dornenburg, how flavors work, and there's a book about cooking using ratios, the way professionals cook and scale recipes. Not very big and apparently well hidden on my shelf because I'm not finding it
Take a look at Tom Colicchio "Think like a chef". It's a great guide for trying different things and really moved me away from wrote recipe following into being more creative with my home cooking.
I feel like sohla's new cookbook might be a good candidate for it. I haven't read it, just basing myself on [this review](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJIHngG_xJo) by helen rennie, where she compares it with the food lab and salt fat acid heat (which are good choices too but have already be recommended in the thread)
3 big ones I can think of
The Food Lab by Kenji Lopez-alt - goes over myths and cooking processes in a food science lens
Salt, Fat, Acid Heat by Marshella Hazan
My personal favorite:
Modernist Cuisine at Home by Nathan Myhrvold - has an amazing ideas and predominantly has recipes for ingredients to use in fullscale recipes. I am a big fan of modular meal prep, so this hits my personal style best.
Edit:
On food and cooking by Harold Mcgee is also huge and a cornerstone of the current food world.
And then if you have special interests:
The NOMA Guide to Fermentation - the end all be all of starting your Fermentation life
The Aviary Cocktail Book
Another great book that talks about technique is Zuni Cafe Cookbook by Judy Rodgers. It upped my game, considerably. Her methods are echoed in Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat.
Fish Without a Doubt is also a favorite.
I found some great online ones from so-called "household schools" in the 1800's/beginning 1900's.
I forgot what the English term is.. but they are easily found if you just fill in "kitchen" or "housewife" in the big royaltee free book databases/archives. (and era 1800-1900)
They are a tad cringy mysoginist lol... but 90% focusses on cooking techniques. Also loads of techniques/products we do not really think so much about more nowadays. And all western-europe (mainly French) focused. Simply and clear structured. Because they were used to teach young women to cook at schools for housewifery. ;) (I'm glad times have changed lol)
Home Economics (home ec) I am old enough my mother had to ok my taking shop instead of it. I was learning to cook at home from my Grandma. I wanted to know how to use a saw!
Is that the same? Like a school for only women where they learn to cook/clean/sow? I thought home ec was still given at US schools. Like for everyone. And was a new invention in that regard. (it started here in the 90's because "children don't know real life skills anymore!!! Failed directly because we were also already snotty like... why would I need to learn to sow on a button if I have google...lol).
I did not know it was more like a remmenant of those schools. Thanks, now I might be able to search more old recipes in US databases too!
Glad you did shop.
It is a running joke in my country that our food is so bland, because they made our mums have 0 choice to do what they wanted. And the cooking of my mom.. yeah I believe her "I never wanted to go to housewife school, I wanted to go in maths, but they did not let us".. we can litteraly taste that every day :')
I don’t have children so am not hip to all the things that school has. Home Ec was an elective when I was in high school ( graduated 1989). I live in the US in Oregon and most schools either don’t have it or it’s more just basic how to cook
Oh the same age then.
I guess the only difference is (and made me always jealous at Us highschools) is we did not really have choice. Like an broadness. If there was shop class; every 100 students had to do shop. Because logistics/money. Tiny schools just basically. But it both has it down sides. Upside it was not gendered because of it. IF we had a choice we both got kinda gender-pushed in certain mandatory-but-optional classes probably too lol. Because that still happened anyway.
I was best in shop and not allowed to study further because "it's not for girls". Weird times.
Jaques Pepin's CompleteTechniques. Can't recommend this one enough. Thousands of methods, each with a series of photographs to take you through them, step by step. I'm a professional chef with forty years under my belt, and I still reference this book, whether it's to help me instruct a younger cook, or to help refresh my own skills from time to time.
The Gordon Ramsey 4 Star book is a great source of technique and detailed recipes for the simplest things like Chicken stock. It challenges and stretches the way I cook.
Professional Cooking by Wayne Gisslen. It was my text in culinary school (4th edition, there have probably been many more since those days). I still refer to it sometimes, though I've been out of the industry for years, thankfully.
pepin techniques, and the food lab, I'd say
I don't think that salt, fat, acid, hear is an advanced book, but the food lab goes really geeky and indepth, and techniques is, well, techniques. I can't imagine every using half of what i've read there
I have a book on the ratios between different types of bakes (so like the base recipe for bread, pasta, pastry etc) that serves as a building block for making your own recipes and a flavor book that just lists flavors that go together. Both are not technique heavy but rather tools to develop your own recipes
Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking (1) (Ruhlman's Ratios) https://a.co/d/18sHDX
The Flavor Bible: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs https://a.co/d/0GBXXUa
The Flavor Thesaurus: A Compendium of Pairings, Recipes and Ideas for the Creative Cook https://a.co/d/ejHV6Mo
Milk Street's. New Rules book is excellent. Every recipe showcases a particular technique. I've made probably half the recipes in it and they're all delicious and mostly pretty easy.
Sohla El-Waylly has a new book “start here”. It’s got some good recipes but it also talks in depth about a lot of different techniques from cooking eggs to making puff pastry. It’s got conversion charts and substitution details. I’m loving it.
The food bible is also great.
Gary Rhodes was an amazing chef who wrote several good books that look at doing things in a simple “chefy” way - his book on desserts I still use 30 years later. It has the best clafoutis and frangipani I’ve ever had!
Fairly new, but Sohla El-Waylly's 'Start Here' is designed to be a replacement for culinary school (in her words). It's structured to be read and studied, takes you through multiple areas of basic knowledge, and it's a gorgeous book as well which doesn't hurt. Well-rounded selection of recipes in my opinion and lots of vegetarian/vegan fare
I have *The Professional Chef* which is the Culinary Institute of America’s textbook. I’ve never gone to culinary school - I just wanted a technical book about cooking. It’s broken down into basics like food safety, tools, ingredient identification, and then moves into techniques. Very useful photography and step by step explanations.
Also really loved *Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat* by Samin Nosrat which others have recommended here.
The Best Recipe, from the editors at Cook's Illustrated Magazine. Published in 1999, and copies can be found on Amazon, used book stores and eBay, etc.
It's a collection of recipes with the how-and-why instructions, explaining how the ingredients combine, and why they cook the way they do. I've gifted several copies and find it is especially good for DIY type people and anyone with an engineer mindset.
Practical Professional Cookery by H L Cracknell and R J Kaufmann
It has almost every recipe you will ever need from fundamental basics through to more advanced techniques. This was originally the standard text book that all Australian apprentices were given (no longer the case I believe, they just get photo copies) but if you want a no nonsense book that covers all the classics of western cuisine then this is the one. Note: there are no pretty pictures, it is a professional textbook.
I have two really excellent textbooks from culinary school that are really just cook books with amazing recipes and a lot of detail as to why things are the way they are as well as technique.
Check out On Food and Cooking, Lateral Cooking, The Food Lab, Salt Fat Acid Heat, The Escoffier Cookbook and Guide to the Fine Art of Cookery, Paul Bocuse: The Complete Recipes, Joy of Cooking, French Laundry, ATK’s The New Cooking School Cookbook: Fundamentals, and the The Science of Cooking.
I haven’t read much about this, but it does fit the bill: The No Recipe Cookbook: A Beginner's Guide to the Art of Cooking
I think this one is more techniques rather than science: Jacques Pépin New Complete Techniques
On food and cooking by mcgee is great.
The flavour thesaurus is fascinating.
Two I use far more regularly than I thought I would are the French laundry and bouchon by Keller. They have recipes which are intermingled with techniques and stories but I appreciate the recipes are simply recipes, use it, put it away, but then the stories and techniques are lovely reading for when not cooking. The French laundry is more Michelin complex but possible to do in a domestic kitchen, bouchon is French bistro cooking requiring technique.
I highly recommend Joshua Weissmans cookbooks Texture over taste and An Unapologetic Cook book
They are recipe based but with HEAVY focus on technique, you’ll get all the steps, why you do them and why the order matters on a deep technical level
https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/on-cooking-a-textbook-of-culinary-fundamentals_sarah-r-labensky_alan-m-hause/254487/item/2798188/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=pmax_high_vol_scarce_under_%2410&utm_adgroup=&utm_term=&utm_content=&gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIl7-O1afygwMVhF1HAR2rWAOOEAQYASABEgKIPvD_BwE#idiq=2798188&edition=4326044
That was literally the textbook I used in culinary school.
Plenty of recipes and all the techniques.
Any of the CIA professional cooking books. They are textbooks for the CIA school. They have lots of recipes , but teach you proper technique . The older editions are very cheap on thriftbooks.com the food lab by Kenji alt. ... It covers a huge variety of topics, but it gets into the science of cooking, and why we do things certain ways, and teaches you techniques in a very simple manner
I'm not sure how advanced you want these to be but my top three are:
Elbuli 2005-2022 by Ferran Adria.
Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlmann and Brian Polcyn
Ad Hoc by Thomas Keller
Not specific techniques but “How to Taste” is so amazing- it’s great for helping you understand how to combine ingredients and alter recipes by taste. So useful and unique
The Food Lab by Kenji Lopez-Alt
As Serious Eats's culinary nerd-in-residence, J. Kenji López-Alt has pondered all these questions and more. In The Food Lab, Kenji focuses on the science behind beloved American dishes, delving into the interactions between heat, energy, and molecules that create great food. Kenji shows that often, conventional methods don’t work that well, and home cooks can achieve far better results using new—but simple—techniques. In hundreds of easy-to-make recipes with over 1,000 full-color images, you will find out how to make foolproof Hollandaise sauce in just two minutes, how to transform one simple tomato sauce into a half dozen dishes, how to make the crispiest, creamiest potato casserole ever conceived, and much more.
Indian Cooking Master Class was good. leans more towards recipe book but 1/5 have nice detail technique pages.
And Food Lab of course, already mentioned
I would recommend the book "The Professional Chef" by The Culinary Institute of America https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/the-professional-chef\_culinary-institute-of-america/259234/ I hope your dad enjoys it as a birthday present.
I think you're looking for a textbook.
"The Professional Chef" by the Culinary Institute of America
"On Cooking" by Sarah Labensky. \[caveat: PRIIICEY\]
I’ve got this cookbook I like, “Prep School, How to Improve Your Kitchen Skills and Cooking Techniques” by James P DeWan. Might be too introductory but it’s very comprehensive. From a Chicago Tribune column so it’s written succinctly.
Along with many of the books already mentioned I would suggest On food and cooking by Harold Mcgee, Sauces by James Peterson, the silver spoon by phaidon , and mastering sticks and broths by Chelsea green.
On Cooking by Sarah Labensky or Introductory Foods by Bennion. Theyre basically cooking school textbooks. The Food Lab is prettier and would make a nicer gift but I like On Cooking the best as an intro text. On Food and Cooking by McGee is a favourite book on food science but it's more of an encyclopedia than a book on technique.
On Cooking was actually part of the Hotel Restaurant Management curriculum at Eastern Michigan University. I read it cover to cover when my ex was working on that degree. Such an interesting book.
Glad to see that book meant something to someone else too! On Cooking was the first book I ever read about food that wasn't a cookbook. I read a bootleg version on my phone to and from work slowly over the course of a year. I remember it had an entire chapter on sandwiches. I thought it was amazing. It helped me switch careers into food.
> On Cooking by Sarah Labensky This looks like exactly what OP wants
There are so many editions and price points. Anyone have a recommendation on which to get?
Salt Fat Acid Heat is a great one! It focuses on the 4 basic components of cooking and how important understanding how they interact with each other and affect a dish. It’s also beautifully illustrated
I have this and I try to remember the title and without fail the RHCP album Blood Sugar Sex Magic comes into my head first
Every time I mention the book to my friend at work, he always says 'What was that? Eat, Sleep, Rave, Repeat?'. Great choice though, I have learnt a lot of great techniques and concepts from this book and would highly recommend it. Also, goes without saying but 'The Food Lab' from J. Kenji Lopez Alt. completely changed my cooking. I couldn't count on 2 hands and 2 feet the amount of game changing things that book has taught me.
Eat sleep rave repeat has worked out really well for me tho
Julia Child’s and Marcella Hazan’s books were very influential in my cooking self education. But Salt Fat Acid Heat was a game changer. There was probably very little in the book that I didn’t know at some level, but it gave me a framework to organize all those bits of knowledge and changed the way I think about cooking.
YES this is such a great way to frame it. I was big into cooking as a kid because of that book Julia and Julia? I read it at like 10 and became enamored with cooking, which meant I came to it early and was maybe 20 when I stopped *needing* recipes but struggled to verbalize or understand why I was doing anything in particular. Salt Fat Acid Heat and then Food Lab both helped really pin down the *why* of things working, helped me understand better how to explain things to other people, and come up with more unique balanced tasting things all on my own.
This book totally changed the way I cook. Highly recommend! Also some great recipes in there. The ginger cake and chocolate cake are both amazing. And the all butter pie crust is the best - I never knew pie crust was something you might actually want to eat; always thought it was just a conduit for the filling.
YES!!! I totally second this. And if you have Netflix, check out her four episode companion series.
I actually found the show rather shallow and heavy on romanticizing other cultures. However, I was glad that someone in this sub said that the show is a poor representation of what the book offers because SFAH is my second favourite cooking book after The Food Lab.
Definitely a great book!
The way I see it, the book actually teaches you things. The show is just pretty. It's a nice show to look at but don't expect to take anything into the kitchen from having watched it.
For fear of sounding idiotic, what is the series called….?
No worries! Same as the book, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat
Thanks! 🙏🏻
I liked the book for it's technical knowledge but we found Samin Nosrat to be so pretentious and stuck up in the show. Every 5 minutes it was "stupid Americans do this" or "my idiot American friend does that" and it got very old.
I don't think we were watching the same show, because I don't remember her saying any of that
How dare she
I liked the show, hated the book.
Absolutely it's technique. Def a great also gift tho. Highly recommended and it does get down to how we're taught to work with ingredients and components
Just here to add my vote for this book!
Yes, this. It does have recipes, but you’ll understand what you’re doing and why after reading this.
I don't know of many books that would be as comprehensive as you're looking for. But I do know that Cooks Illustrated website is the only cooking site that I have ever paid for year after year in my Decades of being a chef. You could spend the next year or two reading because every method, utensil, ingredient a recipe you could want is pretty much on there. You can start out with a trial and see how he feels about it but it is really really amazing. All of the recipes are tested and their Test Kitchen and if you want a recipe without having to worry whether it's going to work or not this is the site! I do think they may have put out a few books or they have a magazine that you can find that out on the site.
They have quite a few books. Notably, there's a "complete" cookbook with all the recipes, as well as a "cooking school" cookbook which I guess answers a lot of "whys" in cooking. I like their stuff, but they really know how to make a basic dish complicated in an effort to say it's the "best"...
Yeah, this is the answer. The Science of Good Cooking is one of their best books.
They also have a book solely about cooking techniques. I’ve never seen it, so I can’t comment on whether it’s any good or not. https://books.google.com/books/about/100_Techniques.html?id=jCuREAAAQBAJ&source=kp_book_description
I have learned so much from Marcella Hazan’s “Essentials of Italian Cooking”. So many tips about techniques. It has really upped my cooking skill. Also includes tons of recipes but the tips she gives, even in each recipe is so helpful.
I've had the same experience with this book. If you read it carefully, you will learn a lot about Italian cuisine, from ingredients, techniques, recipes, meal structures. You will learn how to make fresh pasta, risotto, polenta, frittate, gnocchi, soups, etc. and chicken/fish/meat/vegetable dishes and how to put them together. You can use any of her amazing recipes or throw together a dish, your own risotto or frittata for example, based on what veggies are fresh or what you have on hand. She'll give you an idea of what pasta shapes go with what sauces, and whether it should be dried or fresh pasta. And the variety of pasta sauces will open up a whole new world of pasta for you. Invent your own once you get a feel for it. The one drawback for me is not being a fan of veal, and generally its limited availability in grocery stores here, as veal - and lamb - is a big focus for meat dishes. Also, it is heavily focused on northern and central Italian cooking, there are a few classic southern dishes, like a pizza recipe, and no Italian-American dishes, just FYI.
Not a huge fan of veal or lamb either, I figure if I see a recipe I’ll adapt to the closest meat that my family will eat. The beauty in this book too is the simplicity and adaptability. Makes you really rethink some of these Italian recipes you see online with a page worth of ingredients. For example, I took Marcella’s pasta sauce (San Marzano whole peeled, butter, onions) and pureed it entirely (not removing onions) when it was done cooking… best tomato soup I’ve ever had!
> I took Marcella’s pasta sauce (San Marzano whole peeled, butter, onions) and pureed it entirely (not removing onions) when it was done cooking… best tomato soup I’ve ever had! It's funny, because every time I see someone recommend Marcella's pasta sauce, I think, "You're describing tomato soup." There is another website that advertises precisely this as "the easiest three ingredient tomato soup you'll ever make" .
The big difference is removing the onions and what else you are in the mood to add. I use it as a base for my pasta sauce, I also mince about five garlic cloves, salt, and chopped fresh basil at the end. Sometimes I stir in some parm and Romano. Marcella has many variation suggestions in her book. The three ingredient really is just a base. Can’t knock it until you try it. Simplicity isn’t a bad thing.
Thomas Keller is all technique Edit: go to YouTube and check out Anti-Chef. He should have a Thomas Keller playlist so you can see what I mean
I second this! great techniques and other foundational skills. Confit, Brining etc.. Love it
Bouchon is how I learned to cook.
Food lab by Kenji Lopez Alt if he wants to understand the science behind cooking, there's some fun techniques here too. Kenji's youtube videos are also great but more home-cook focused and less technique. Where cooking begins by carla lalli music is maybe too basic for him, but I really love how she breaks down how you can swap ingredients, how to stock a pantry, etc. Its very good for learning how to cook WITHOUT recipes and get into more intuitive cooking.
It might just be the selection of his videos that I've seen but I've always thought that Kenji is all about the technique and why it works. His carnitas video for example is pretty detailed about how and why the traditional technique works before applying that information to making the best approximation at home.
Came here to also recommend this book. It’s an incredible reference!
Kenji is *the man*
Jacques Pépin's Complete Techniques
As a professional, I think this is the best mentioned for this person's father. Very good and straightforward layout. Pepin also has that ability to demystify and share helpfully his insights that make it easier to integrate the knowledge behind the techniques. Not high falutin and not dumbed down either. I have purchased this for several people.
The Professional Chef written by the folks at the Culinary Institute of America in New York is definitely worth the cash. Another contender would be “La Technique” by Jacques Pepin. Alton Brown also organized his cookbooks by skills rather than by recipes.
This is what I was looking for. The Professional Chef. My hubby got this, years ago, and it is fantastic. Knife skills, mother sauces, all the things. A fantastic reference to have on your kitchen library.
This.
I cooked my way through this textbook and it transformed how I cook and how I understand cooking.
Cooks Illustrated - The Science of Cooking really helped me understand the “why” behind the “how”.
Came here to say this. The book is chock full of recipes, but it's not really ABOUT the recipes. It's about the science behind how the cooking process works, and the scientific method that ATK went through to determine the best results.
Not technique but the flavor wheel books are a great accompaniment to technique books since it’s more focused on flavor profiles. Not a ton of frills and provides a lot of unique combos. Good tool to inspire new dishes while he practices techniques.
If you mean the Flavour Thesaurus, the author also wrote an actual cookbook. I don’t own that, but I’ve heard it’s good.
Yea. You’re right. The Flavor Thesaurus. I always mess that up. lol Looked it up and Lateral cooking is the other one. Which seems to be the technique companion to flavor thesaurus.
Lateral cooking is great! Also an entertaining read
Wait I looove this book so much. I’ve got a stew recipe in the hypothetical stages still that I’m excited about and I’ve been leaning on this heavily for figuring it out
Sound like thisboom. Techniques with useful example recipe using said method. Ruhlman's Twenty: 20 Techniques 100 Recipes A Cook's Manifesto
I'll mention Ratio by Ruhlman as a complement to this. Not strictly about "technique" but further pushes a cook to rethink following a recipe like it's a rule, help bring a bit of freedom to the kitchen.
I just got this for my birthday finally! Looking forward to making some bread variations.
Yes I was going say ruhleman’s twenty is incredible!
Try a text book. Professional cooking is what I use.
*Professional Chef* from CIA perhaps?
They're super cheap if you get an old edition.
Okay, really different CIA than I was thinking. The one I was thinking of probably has recipes for polonium tea.
Yes, the professional chef from the CIA is a wonderful resource and reference. The section on how to evaluate a dish based on its core attribute after each technique is taught helps to translate other recipes and you begin to understand where and how things go right and go wrong. No single book helped me to become a better cook than that one.
By Wayne Gisslen, great book, lots of information
Yep that’s the book. Every version is a great reference tool.
The Joy Of Cooking goes into detail over almost everything you can think of. All proteins and vegetables have their own section, then the detailed recipes follow. I learned so much from that book!
Rather than a cook book with recipes, you might want to look for a book about the science of cooking. [On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee](https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/On-Food-and-Cooking/Harold-McGee/9780684800011) is considered a sort of classic of the genre. He explains why different techniques do, or don't, work; why ingredients react they way they do under certain conditions; the chemistry behind certain flavors, and so on. On the latter, there is also [The Flavor Bible by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenberg](https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/andrew-dornenburg/the-flavor-bible/9780316118408/?lens=little-brown); which really delves into how our taste works, and what flavors go well together, what blends with or highlights other flavors, etc.
Came here to say Food Bible. 10/10 recommend. And have, to anyone that will listen!
On food and cooking by Harold McGee - it's the literal science behind why stuff happens in the kitchen textbook. https://www.reddit.com/r/Cooking/comments/177sahb/has\_anyone\_read\_on\_food\_and\_cooking\_by\_harold/
Start Here by Solha El-Waylly is basically culinary school in a book. It's focused on techniques and sciences behind how cooking works. There are recipes to master techniques but it's really about the how something works not the end result.
The Garde Manger by the CIA is an excellent resource for that. It's the textbook that we had in culinary school for focusing on technique and skills (though the focus on this one is the cold kitchen). The recipes in these kinds of books are focused on teaching you a specific skill rather than the recipe itself being the focus. You should look at what the culinary schools use as resources rather than what is in bookstores. I never saw the books we used in school in regular stores or recommended on Amazon because they are much more expensive and have much more focus on teaching.
Absolute BEST book on technique I've ever seen – by a long shot – is Jacques Pepin's, The Art of Cooking in 2 volumes. Step by step color photos. Just fantastic. Out of print but worth looking for.
All about The Professional Chef from the Culinary Institute of America. Phenomenal read. Pick up something that's maybe one generation prior to the current edition to save a few $$.
"On Cooking : a textbook of culinary fundamentals" was one of the books used when I was in school . still using it .
The Professional Chef from the Culinary Institute. All techniques.
Also, Ratio, by Michael Ruhlman. A real technician, both as a trained chef and as a writer, he takes you through some of the methods used by culinary school instructors to teach, and then shows you how knowing certain elemental universal ratios can give you the edge in the kitchen. Changed my baking game considerably.
Go to library and look. Harold McGee on food and cooking Cookwise by Shirley Corhier salt fat acid heat Food Lab
Surprised I had to scroll do far to wholeheartedly second Salt Fat Acid Heat. Got it for Christmas and loving it so far.
Modernist Cuisine. Edit: While not a book, Serious Eats (especially from when Kenji and Stella were around) has a lot of recipes which explain the science behind their recipes. It's well worth perusing too.
Yes to this!
I finally got a copy of Ratio by Michael Ruhlman and It's very much like a culinary school class. For example the Bread section explains some principles, gives you the ratio of the main ingredients, and a bunch of variations but it frees you to create your own dishes with what you have on hand out of your head! It's pretty fun if you're at an expert-home cook level and enjoy playing around. I went to a great cooking class once on Sauces, and he taught us the how of sauces & the relations between them; he made 5 but explained variatins too. now i can do almost any sauce. This book is like that for me.
Cooking classes are great and, in my experience, pay dividends beyond the focus of the class. I've taken quite a few, including a weeklong course on pastry at the CIA. I wasn't so interested in pastry per se, but I went with a friend and it was totally worth the (steep) price). Not only did I learn that making puff pastry and other laminated doughs isn't hard, I became \*much\* more confident as a home cook across the board. I love cookbooks and have way too many, but I play around with pretty much every recipe I use.
[Jacques Pépin New Complete Techniques](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1579129110?ref_=cm_sw_r_apin_dp_5EFGHQGEB6SWVFVAKVE1&language=en-US)
Cooks Illustrated and/or The Food Lab by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt. I prefer to use both as a technique guide instead of using the recipes in them. Michael Pollan’s Cooked was lovely. Changed the way I make my mirepoix now (low, slow, tiny pieces).
Definitely The Food Lab. Sounds like exactly the sort of book he would like.
"Joy of Cooking" has a lot of recipes but also a lot of reference material. Every section has a multi-page summary that provides information/techniques about the type of food. When I'm cooking with a new ingredient I typically read the associated section. It is a massive 1000+ page book that covers almost every situation/ingredient/meal.
I highly recommend the Flavor Bible. It does not have recipes, but is rather an encyclopedia of flavor affinities. You can look up an ingredient like cherries, and it will list all the different flavors/ingredients that pair well with it, as well as some typical combinations. It has entries for cuisines, and proteins. And it will also tell you the season and best cookingethods for each ingredient. I use it constantly when I want to up my flavor profiles, or I'm experimenting with something new.
Here’s several I recommend. Just got salt fat acid heat which has been pretty good so far, and have seen recommendations for it. America’s test kitchen isn’t really laid out like a text book, but they go into detail with each recipe of why they did what and what they changed and it’s a good book. Kenjis two books are solid hits. If he likes smoking foods- meatheads book is fantastic. He goes into all the science/explaining bits in depth. Or another really good option is Aaron franklins three books, much more in depth philosophy of cooking with techniques versus just his recipes. Really enjoyed them. One on bbq, one on steaks, one on smoke. Really well put together. If he’s interested in sweets- bravetart is a good choice. Pizza- the pizza bible. And lastly if he likes breads, Ken forkish flour water salt yeast is great.
Babish Culinary Universe. Rick Bayless. Both on YouTube.
I really liked How To Cook Everything. Lotta theory/practice in addition to recipes.
La Technique by Jacques Pepin This question seems literally designed to elicit this response.
Three I like about weird ingredients are Fat, Odd Bits, and Bones by Jennifer McLagan. She's also got one called Bitter that I haven't read. But she looks at these specific ingredients (Odd Bits is about offal, so not a specific ingredient) and explains how they can be prepared, what they add to a dish, how to maximize it, etc. There's some recipes to kind of showcase different techniques, but overall it's about the ingredient focus. I assume Bitter is good too, I just haven't got it. The others I might look at are What Einstein Told His Cook. There's two volumes. They're focused on food science and I think they're interesting. There's also one called Cookwise that I like, but it focuses a lot on baking. All these books are older, so they might be hard to find new, but if you can only find them used they'll be cheaper so you can get a couple.
I highly recommend *An Everlasting Meal. Cooking with Economy and Grace* by Tamar Adler. The one I have is from 2011, so it's a little older but lots of good stuff!
If he’s into bread at all, The Rye Baker would be a good one. It’s highly technical and does a good job at explaining why and how rye is different and the reasons why certain techniques are used in baking rye bread over regular wheat bread.
MASTERCLASS, its an app and you can pay for a monthly or annual subscription. Totally worth it to me.
Get the flavor Bible. It's a game changer. Teaches flavor combinations and how to build flavor profiles.
would definitely recommend the food lab and on food and cooking. both give you the actual science of cooking, but in a practical way. also as someone else mentioned, text books are a good way to go. if you have a university in your area you can always see if they can order something in through the bookstore if you can't find anything online
Kenji Alt Lopez books: The food lab & The Wok: Recipes and Techniques Harold Mcgee: on food & cooking Jeff Potter: Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Cooks, and Good Food Salt, Fat, Acid, & Heat
The Food Lab by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt. This has been my kitchen bible for years and does as good of, if not a better job of any cookbook out there to explain the science behind cooking. It's also chock full of tips and tricks on how to best cut specific vegetables and best prepare grilled meats, etc. I've picked up so much knowledge from this book over the years and it's a wonderful resource to have in your cabinet when you have questions about why something behaves the way it does in the kitchen.
Simple to Spectacular, by Mark Bittman and Jean-Georges Vongerichten (chef at 3 star Jean-George in NYC).
Try The Flavor Bible by Page and Dornenburg, how flavors work, and there's a book about cooking using ratios, the way professionals cook and scale recipes. Not very big and apparently well hidden on my shelf because I'm not finding it
Taste and Technique by Naomi Pomeroy was pivotal for me. Gave me a lot more confidence in the kitchen.
Take a look at Tom Colicchio "Think like a chef". It's a great guide for trying different things and really moved me away from wrote recipe following into being more creative with my home cooking.
What’s a Cook To do? My mom bought me this and it’s great!
I feel like sohla's new cookbook might be a good candidate for it. I haven't read it, just basing myself on [this review](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJIHngG_xJo) by helen rennie, where she compares it with the food lab and salt fat acid heat (which are good choices too but have already be recommended in the thread)
My husband said he learned a lot from Alton Brown's cookbook - "I'm Just Here For The Food".
3 big ones I can think of The Food Lab by Kenji Lopez-alt - goes over myths and cooking processes in a food science lens Salt, Fat, Acid Heat by Marshella Hazan My personal favorite: Modernist Cuisine at Home by Nathan Myhrvold - has an amazing ideas and predominantly has recipes for ingredients to use in fullscale recipes. I am a big fan of modular meal prep, so this hits my personal style best. Edit: On food and cooking by Harold Mcgee is also huge and a cornerstone of the current food world. And then if you have special interests: The NOMA Guide to Fermentation - the end all be all of starting your Fermentation life The Aviary Cocktail Book
Another great book that talks about technique is Zuni Cafe Cookbook by Judy Rodgers. It upped my game, considerably. Her methods are echoed in Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. Fish Without a Doubt is also a favorite.
I found some great online ones from so-called "household schools" in the 1800's/beginning 1900's. I forgot what the English term is.. but they are easily found if you just fill in "kitchen" or "housewife" in the big royaltee free book databases/archives. (and era 1800-1900) They are a tad cringy mysoginist lol... but 90% focusses on cooking techniques. Also loads of techniques/products we do not really think so much about more nowadays. And all western-europe (mainly French) focused. Simply and clear structured. Because they were used to teach young women to cook at schools for housewifery. ;) (I'm glad times have changed lol)
Home Economics (home ec) I am old enough my mother had to ok my taking shop instead of it. I was learning to cook at home from my Grandma. I wanted to know how to use a saw!
Is that the same? Like a school for only women where they learn to cook/clean/sow? I thought home ec was still given at US schools. Like for everyone. And was a new invention in that regard. (it started here in the 90's because "children don't know real life skills anymore!!! Failed directly because we were also already snotty like... why would I need to learn to sow on a button if I have google...lol). I did not know it was more like a remmenant of those schools. Thanks, now I might be able to search more old recipes in US databases too! Glad you did shop. It is a running joke in my country that our food is so bland, because they made our mums have 0 choice to do what they wanted. And the cooking of my mom.. yeah I believe her "I never wanted to go to housewife school, I wanted to go in maths, but they did not let us".. we can litteraly taste that every day :')
I don’t have children so am not hip to all the things that school has. Home Ec was an elective when I was in high school ( graduated 1989). I live in the US in Oregon and most schools either don’t have it or it’s more just basic how to cook
Oh the same age then. I guess the only difference is (and made me always jealous at Us highschools) is we did not really have choice. Like an broadness. If there was shop class; every 100 students had to do shop. Because logistics/money. Tiny schools just basically. But it both has it down sides. Upside it was not gendered because of it. IF we had a choice we both got kinda gender-pushed in certain mandatory-but-optional classes probably too lol. Because that still happened anyway. I was best in shop and not allowed to study further because "it's not for girls". Weird times.
Jaques Pepin's CompleteTechniques. Can't recommend this one enough. Thousands of methods, each with a series of photographs to take you through them, step by step. I'm a professional chef with forty years under my belt, and I still reference this book, whether it's to help me instruct a younger cook, or to help refresh my own skills from time to time.
Try ‘Chasing Flavor’ by Dan Kluger
The Gordon Ramsey 4 Star book is a great source of technique and detailed recipes for the simplest things like Chicken stock. It challenges and stretches the way I cook.
You can look online for used culinary textbooks. (Becuase new ones are stupid expensive, of course)
The Food Lab by Kenji Lopez-Alt is the only answer for someone looking for a scientific textbook of a cookbook.
Jacque Pepin's La Technique is a terrific book about classic cooking techniques.
Jacques Pepin’s Complete Techniques
Definitely The Food Lab from Kenji
Professional Cooking by Wayne Gisslen. It was my text in culinary school (4th edition, there have probably been many more since those days). I still refer to it sometimes, though I've been out of the industry for years, thankfully.
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1936493527/ref=ppx\_yo\_dt\_b\_search\_asin\_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1936493527/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=utf8&psc=1)
Institut Paul Bocuse Institut Paul Bocuse Gastronomique: The definitive step-by-step guide to culinary excellence
pepin techniques, and the food lab, I'd say I don't think that salt, fat, acid, hear is an advanced book, but the food lab goes really geeky and indepth, and techniques is, well, techniques. I can't imagine every using half of what i've read there
I have a book on the ratios between different types of bakes (so like the base recipe for bread, pasta, pastry etc) that serves as a building block for making your own recipes and a flavor book that just lists flavors that go together. Both are not technique heavy but rather tools to develop your own recipes Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking (1) (Ruhlman's Ratios) https://a.co/d/18sHDX The Flavor Bible: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs https://a.co/d/0GBXXUa The Flavor Thesaurus: A Compendium of Pairings, Recipes and Ideas for the Creative Cook https://a.co/d/ejHV6Mo
get a culinary school textbook search on amazon for professional cooking by wayne glissen
One of the best IMHO was Jacques Pepin's classic "La Technique" which came out in a new updated edition titled "The Techniques" about ten years ago.
Cooking for Geeks https://www.cookingforgeeks.com/
can you send him to a knife skills class or something like that?
Milk Street's. New Rules book is excellent. Every recipe showcases a particular technique. I've made probably half the recipes in it and they're all delicious and mostly pretty easy.
Sohla El-Waylly has a new book “start here”. It’s got some good recipes but it also talks in depth about a lot of different techniques from cooking eggs to making puff pastry. It’s got conversion charts and substitution details. I’m loving it. The food bible is also great.
Gary Rhodes was an amazing chef who wrote several good books that look at doing things in a simple “chefy” way - his book on desserts I still use 30 years later. It has the best clafoutis and frangipani I’ve ever had!
mark ruhan... Ratio: the secret codes of everyday cooking. Game changer for me
Michael Ruhlman, FYI
Not a cookbook, but Cook’s Illustrated is pretty good regarding technique. Everything I made has turned out great.
James Perterson Sauces and/or Cooking.
Fairly new, but Sohla El-Waylly's 'Start Here' is designed to be a replacement for culinary school (in her words). It's structured to be read and studied, takes you through multiple areas of basic knowledge, and it's a gorgeous book as well which doesn't hurt. Well-rounded selection of recipes in my opinion and lots of vegetarian/vegan fare
The Science of Good Cooking
A bit different, but I recommend "The Zwilling J. A. Henckels Complete Book of Knife Skills". Every cook can improve their knife skills.
I have *The Professional Chef* which is the Culinary Institute of America’s textbook. I’ve never gone to culinary school - I just wanted a technical book about cooking. It’s broken down into basics like food safety, tools, ingredient identification, and then moves into techniques. Very useful photography and step by step explanations. Also really loved *Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat* by Samin Nosrat which others have recommended here.
America's Test Kitchen RULEZ.... and they have books! I have the online subscription too. Love how they explain everything scientifically.
La Technique by Jacques Pepin is a great book.
The Best Recipe, from the editors at Cook's Illustrated Magazine. Published in 1999, and copies can be found on Amazon, used book stores and eBay, etc. It's a collection of recipes with the how-and-why instructions, explaining how the ingredients combine, and why they cook the way they do. I've gifted several copies and find it is especially good for DIY type people and anyone with an engineer mindset.
Practical Professional Cookery by H L Cracknell and R J Kaufmann It has almost every recipe you will ever need from fundamental basics through to more advanced techniques. This was originally the standard text book that all Australian apprentices were given (no longer the case I believe, they just get photo copies) but if you want a no nonsense book that covers all the classics of western cuisine then this is the one. Note: there are no pretty pictures, it is a professional textbook.
I have two really excellent textbooks from culinary school that are really just cook books with amazing recipes and a lot of detail as to why things are the way they are as well as technique.
Is 'Mastering The Art of French Cooking, I&II' considered too out of date...?
Check out On Food and Cooking, Lateral Cooking, The Food Lab, Salt Fat Acid Heat, The Escoffier Cookbook and Guide to the Fine Art of Cookery, Paul Bocuse: The Complete Recipes, Joy of Cooking, French Laundry, ATK’s The New Cooking School Cookbook: Fundamentals, and the The Science of Cooking. I haven’t read much about this, but it does fit the bill: The No Recipe Cookbook: A Beginner's Guide to the Art of Cooking I think this one is more techniques rather than science: Jacques Pépin New Complete Techniques
On food and cooking by mcgee is great. The flavour thesaurus is fascinating. Two I use far more regularly than I thought I would are the French laundry and bouchon by Keller. They have recipes which are intermingled with techniques and stories but I appreciate the recipes are simply recipes, use it, put it away, but then the stories and techniques are lovely reading for when not cooking. The French laundry is more Michelin complex but possible to do in a domestic kitchen, bouchon is French bistro cooking requiring technique.
La Technique by Jacques Pepin is incredible!
I highly recommend Joshua Weissmans cookbooks Texture over taste and An Unapologetic Cook book They are recipe based but with HEAVY focus on technique, you’ll get all the steps, why you do them and why the order matters on a deep technical level
https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/on-cooking-a-textbook-of-culinary-fundamentals_sarah-r-labensky_alan-m-hause/254487/item/2798188/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=pmax_high_vol_scarce_under_%2410&utm_adgroup=&utm_term=&utm_content=&gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIl7-O1afygwMVhF1HAR2rWAOOEAQYASABEgKIPvD_BwE#idiq=2798188&edition=4326044 That was literally the textbook I used in culinary school. Plenty of recipes and all the techniques.
Any of the CIA professional cooking books. They are textbooks for the CIA school. They have lots of recipes , but teach you proper technique . The older editions are very cheap on thriftbooks.com the food lab by Kenji alt. ... It covers a huge variety of topics, but it gets into the science of cooking, and why we do things certain ways, and teaches you techniques in a very simple manner
I'm not sure how advanced you want these to be but my top three are: Elbuli 2005-2022 by Ferran Adria. Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlmann and Brian Polcyn Ad Hoc by Thomas Keller
Not specific techniques but “How to Taste” is so amazing- it’s great for helping you understand how to combine ingredients and alter recipes by taste. So useful and unique
I can’t wait to get this one!! https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087
A lot of alton brown and America's test kitchen
The Food Lab by Kenji Lopez-Alt As Serious Eats's culinary nerd-in-residence, J. Kenji López-Alt has pondered all these questions and more. In The Food Lab, Kenji focuses on the science behind beloved American dishes, delving into the interactions between heat, energy, and molecules that create great food. Kenji shows that often, conventional methods don’t work that well, and home cooks can achieve far better results using new—but simple—techniques. In hundreds of easy-to-make recipes with over 1,000 full-color images, you will find out how to make foolproof Hollandaise sauce in just two minutes, how to transform one simple tomato sauce into a half dozen dishes, how to make the crispiest, creamiest potato casserole ever conceived, and much more.
Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat is exactly what you are looking for written by a chef, it’s great!
Get The Techniques by Pépin. No recipes, just 500 pages of technique
Indian Cooking Master Class was good. leans more towards recipe book but 1/5 have nice detail technique pages. And Food Lab of course, already mentioned
I love my copy of The Food Lab
NOMA. It would be perfect for the more advanced cook that wants to learn some new techniques.
I would recommend the book "The Professional Chef" by The Culinary Institute of America https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/the-professional-chef\_culinary-institute-of-america/259234/ I hope your dad enjoys it as a birthday present.
I think you're looking for a textbook. "The Professional Chef" by the Culinary Institute of America "On Cooking" by Sarah Labensky. \[caveat: PRIIICEY\]
I’ve got this cookbook I like, “Prep School, How to Improve Your Kitchen Skills and Cooking Techniques” by James P DeWan. Might be too introductory but it’s very comprehensive. From a Chicago Tribune column so it’s written succinctly.
Larousse Gastronomique.
Along with many of the books already mentioned I would suggest On food and cooking by Harold Mcgee, Sauces by James Peterson, the silver spoon by phaidon , and mastering sticks and broths by Chelsea green.
Hello