Quick Cooking

I have advanced taste but very basic cooking skills, and I use this book more than any other on my shelf -- the recipes are SO EASY, so elemental, and so delicious. Bittman understands that great ingredients, particularly fish and seafood, don't need a lot of dressing up to be thrilling. The fish preparations are so good that they eventually led me to Bittman's big book on fish; I also enjoy the steak au poivre and the lamb with red wine and shallots. "Broiled Shrimp, My Way" is a major winner that tastes a lot like the Spanish tapas dish "gambas al ajillo." I disagree with the reader who's angry about the breakdown of the larger book into smaller bundles. I rarely bother with complex recipes, so this small, easy-to-handle book is just the ticket. If the publisher makes a few extra bucks, so much the better; maybe their underpaid staff will get a bonus at Christmas.

Unlike many readers, I was somewhat uncomfortable with the heft and bulk of Bittman's original master tome, "How To Cook Everything". Somehow the prospect of having to search through 1000 recipes and several hundred pages for a review of some half-remembered shred of information daunted me, and I couldn't see how the book, as packaged, could hold up to the physical wear and tear of daily cooking. (See some reviewers' remarks about problems with the binding of the Big Book). So I was actually very pleased to see the author and publisher break out these smaller recompilations based around themes like "The Basics" and "Quick Cooking". I have both these smaller tomes on my shelves and find them easy to work with and employ. One thing I've noticed about Bittman (I also have "The Minimalist Cooks DInner", and "The Minimalist At Home") is that many of these recipes are perhaps more "miminalist" than they really ought to be. Einstein once said that "things should be made as simple as possible but no simpler". There is no question that Mark Bittman knows what he is doing in the kitchen, but many of his recipes seem to skew in favor of convenience and simplicity instead of flavor and texture, and if you don't really know what you are doing, his terse directions can sometimes leave you with a 2nd rate (but still edible) dish. Even so, there are enough bits of helpful lore and advice casually sprinkled throughout his books that anyone who pays attention will improve overall in their knowledge and skills as a cook. For instance, in his recipe for a beef stir-fry, Bittman remarks about "the holy trinity of beef, onions, and ginger"; I read that and said to myself "...Yeah. YEAH. That's absolutely right, and I never thought of it quite like that!". Many reviewers have remarked on Bittman's "calm, encouraging voice", and I think this is the true virtue of "Quick Cooking" as well. Bittman is like an older brother showing you the ropes in the kitchen, casually mentioning ideas and concepts and combinations as he goes along. In that sense, reading Bittman is more like getting a "brain dump" on his approach to cooking than a structured pedagoical work; it tends to leaves out a lot of contextual detail that might help the less skilled and intuitive kitchen mongers among us climb further up the learning curve. On the other hand, I am never afraid to at least TRY one of his recipes, no matter how imposing it may seem at first glance. And even if I screw up, (you should have seen my first attempt at "Bangers and Mash"!) there will almost always be enough to enjoy about the results that you will probably decide to give it another shot. Well worth owning if you don't mind the concept of repackaged material and you don't already have the original magnum opus.

This book has great recipes and ideas for making satisfying meals with real food in 30 minutes or less. It's for cooks with busy schedules. Includes 90 easy-to-follow quick recipes.