Conran Cookbook

This book is an amazing good reference on cooking techniques, equipment and ingredients. Is like having a chef teaching everything related to food. Here you will very detailed advice on how to select different kind of food (fishes, crustaceans, beef, lamb, pork, vegetables, etc.), with step-by-step descriptions and pictures on how to cut and prepare them, all this even before you see a recipe. That is way I say this is not really a cookbook, but a fantastic textbook about cooking. The third part of the book is the one dedicate to actual recipes. Buy this book if you want to learn how to use kitchen equipment, how to select and prepare food, and as a bonus find excellent recipes where you can put into practice what you have learned.

I had the first (1980) edition of this book, but I lost that copy. I found this one a few years ago and continue to be amazed at the clarity and simplicity of the explanations of everything from details of different vegetables and fishes to how to use kitchen equipment. The recipes in the second half of the book are excellent. They are not the hautest of haute cuisine, but they enable an average cook to prepare an excellent dish. Most important is that the Conran Cookbook teaches one how to prepare food and how to think about its preparation. The recipes illustrate these principles. When I am looking for a basic British-American dish, this is the first place I look for a good recipe. The book is richly illustrated showing technique and equipment. Buy it. You will use it.