Lobel's Meat and Wine: Great Recipes for Cooking and Pairing

"Lobel's Meat and Wine: Great Recipes for Cooking and Pairing" comes from the Lobel family of New York, purveyors of meats. Their knowledge allows for more than just another meat cookbook: "Lobel's Meat and Wine" covers all the basics, ranging from if one should marinate before cooking meat, to understanding how salt affects meat flavorings, to what happens during browning. Additionally, this basic knowledge is accompanied with fail-safe, tested recipes paired with detailed wine notes . Add color photos throughout and you have a winner any public lending library will want and one which would grace any dedicated kitchen cook's personal reference collection. Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch

This is a very interesting book to read and play with, especially since there is such a dearth of books that advise on food / wine pairings beyond simple colors. This book not only recommends kinds of wines, but explains the why and how of it - additionally, most of the recipes - almost all of them - include wine as an ingredient. This is a big book, and it can lay flat, which is also a plus. It's really a sort of hybrid cookbook, recipes along with advice and a crash course in wine. Of course, it's all about cooking meat, so your results will be directly proportionate to the quality of the cut of meat that you use. Reading these recipes, it's obvious that a better cut will pay off in preparation. I would have liked more pictures, though, as there are only about four or five per chapter, although they are full color and full page. I just like to see what i'm aiming for, and my girlfriend likes looking at good food photos too (her English isn't so good, so the pictures help even more). Still, it's a minor niggle compared to the quality of this oversized hardcover, and it is highly recommended for more serious kitchen cooks - I wouldn't recommend it for a straight up beginner, though.

`Lobel's Meat and Wine' by Stanley, Leon, Evan, Mark, and David Lobel (of Lobel's Meats in upper East side Manhattan) plus Mary Goodbody and David Whiteman totally reversed my negative attitude toward `cooking with wine' books, and has seriously brought into question my review of the Lobel's earlier book, `Lobel's Prime Cuts'. For starters, it is perfectly obvious to limit a book on wine cookery to meats (including poultry and game meats), as wine is simply not an important player in cooking practically everything else, including finfish and shellfish. But the main interest is perfectly stated in David Rosengarten's Foreword where he says the two introductory chapters, `How to Choose Food-Friendly Wines' and `Cooking with Meat and Wine in Today's Kitchen' are simply worth the price of the book all by themselves. The best part of the first chapter is that it describes wines for the total novice, like me. It also tickles me to see it treat with importance one of the very few corners of wine knowledge I happen to have visited, that being the wines of Austria, which are famous for their very young, green, almost raw white wines. The heart of the whole book is the second of these two chapters, which is nothing less than a monograph reporting on a series of cooking experiments varying wine cooking with various different styles of dishes. I am impressed that the authors say that even they were surprised by some of the results based on time-honored techniques. After these groundbreaking findings are eight (8) chapters of recipes with the usual categories of meat and poultry recipes. Just another little touch to make this book even better is the fact that all recipes are listed after the chapter title page. These chapters are: Beef (15 recipes) with a fair selection of all our favorite beef and wine classics such as `Beef in the Style of Burgundy' and `Hungarian Beef Goulash'. The authors go the extra mile in providing a superior recipe for making classic Hungarian dumplings to go along with this dish. As in all the other chapters, the authors are not claiming these are all `classic' or `traditional' recipes, since some traditional ingredients may be left out here and there, but they are all close, as far as I can see. Veal (9 recipes) including classic Roman `Veal Scallopini with Prosciutto and Sage' and `Traditional Milanese-Style Braised Veal Shanks'. Pork (10 Recipes) including `Pork Cutlets with Apples, Onions, and Marjoram' and `Medallions of Pork with Prunes in the Style of the Loire Valley'. Lamb (12 Recipes) including `Marinated Greek-Style Lamb Kabobs and `Rioja-Style Grilled Lamb Chops'. Chicken and Rabbit (13 Recipes) including `Classic Chicken in Red Wine' and `Portuguese-Style Jugged Chicken'. Game Birds and Other Game (7 recipes) including `Venison Stew with Grappa-Herbed Cream' and `Squab with Sweet Tuscan Wine Sauce'. Organ and Mixed Meats (6 Recipes) including `Tuscan Style Meat Loaf' and `Madrid-Style Tripe with Oxtail and Ch