James Peterson (2)

This book lost a star because there is no American barbecue sauce recipe. I believe that barbecue sauce is the quintessential American sauce and it should have been included. You could argue that tomato ketchup and yellow mustard are the most American sauces, but there aren't recipes for those in this cookbook either. You could also say that ranch dressing is the most American sauce of them all, but you won't find that amongst the "salad sauces". The only sauce from the Americas is Mexican show more salsa and there's not even a chimichurri sauce.

What this cookbook is great for are ALL of the classical French & (mostly western) European sauces, cheffy fine-dining sauces, molecular gastronomical sauces, medieval European sauces!!!, a whole chapter of Asian sauces, and Italian pasta sauces. Many of the sauce recipes have a recipe to show how to use the sauce in a finished dish. Quite a lot of the sauces have suggestions for how they can be improved with all of the chemicals of molecular gastronomy, but the majority of the recipes can be made with ingredients available at your neighborhood grocery store plus an average liquor store if you avoid the recipes that call for truffles and sea urchin.

For me, the book is worth the purchase price for the medieval, renaissance-era, and other historical recipes. That was a pleasant surprise to find in the book! Despite being a book geared toward chefs, the recipes aren't too complicated. show less

This book is the deepest and most comprehensive book on classical sauce making, history and trivia that you can find in a single volume. As Professorx's review says, it is definitely geared toward the professional chef (which is why I love it: it's so hard to find cookbooks for professionals that aren't actually culinary school textboks). Peterson always seems to be on his game no matter the culinary topic, and SAUCES is no exception. With the history and origins of so many sauces explained, show more this book is as much a literary adventure as it is an instructional manual. As a bonus for the more experimental cooks out there, Peterson includes several recipes and techniques for recreating truly medieval and ancient sauces, from pigeon dressings to gold-plated chickens to Roman garum.

As I said though, it is a book on classical sauce-making; though it contains several dozen pages on Asian and Indian sauces, these final chapters lack the depth and polish of the rest of the book (and make no mention at all of Middle Eastern or African sauces). It's probably a matter of space constraints more than anything; these regions have their own incredibly diverse techniques and histories. Perhaps someday Peterson can devote a volume to them exclusively (unless I beat him to it :)

Despite those omissions, SAUCES remains a solid 5 out of 5 stars and one of the most useful books in my kitchen. Highly recommended. show less

I was first entranced as I paged through this cookbook and repeatedly marked page after page of soups I want to try! They all sound so good!

But sounding good is only the first part; tasting good is what's important. I've tried 2 of the easier recipes thus far, and they were so great that I am eager to try many more!

Both I tried happened to be Chinese in inspiration. We made the soup with bay scallops and sugar snap peas first, and it was easy and elegant and a delight to eat. It takes may an show more hour, all told; all the ingredients are readily available, and it can mostly be made ahead of time with a 2-minute finish.

This version of Hot and Sour soup was a nice compromise between very authentic versions and easy ones- at least for us. The trick is that it does call for 3 ingredients that most people do not have in their pantries, but which are readily available online: dried shiitakes, dried tree ears/black fungus; and dried lily buds. The use of these, plus a LOT of white pepper to provide the heat, is what makes it authentic, though, and they are easy to deal with once you have them. We did cut the pepper in half, and it was perfect for us. 3 proteins were listed as options along with the tofu; we used the chicken, but it's nice to have a choice. I think next time we'll thicken the broth a hair more, and add a bit more sesame oil. We ate it with homemade ham-and-egg fried rice; it would also be excellent for a light supper with scallion pancakes and/or a stir-fried vegetable.

While I chose 2 Chinese-inspired recipes to try first, this book literally spans the world! I look forward to trying soups from all over the globe!

There's also a nice mix of pretty easy soups like the above, all the way through to quite elaborate. I may pick my next one to be one of the more complicated ones.

Very recommended! show less

Some cookbooks are good for browsing, but not so good for cooking. Some are great collections of recipes but don't lend themselves well to browsing at length. Peterson's book is full of recipes that guide the cook clearly and carefully through to splendid completion, but is also full of wonderful asides, hints, and background information about various techniques and ingredients. I have learned more about general cooking techniques than I expected to while trying out new recipes from this book.