How to Cook Without a Book: Recipes and Techniques Every Cook Should Know by Heart

2018 edition
Excellent for the right audience. My husband, despite being great with 'scrambled eggs with stuff in them' and despite my introduction to the book, did not understand it at all, couldn't understand the idea of templates, refused to consider looking in the fridge to see what kinds of combination to come up with... he's still the kind of recipe follower who can't substitute green onions for scallions.... :sigh:

My middle son, otoh, is avidly trying to learn how to free himself from recipes, and when I see him next I'll show him this book. I think he'll love it.

I do this all the time, but I still got several good ideas so I made myself a cheat sheet.
And this time I'm not going to tell you what those ideas are.
Instead I'm going show more to encourage you to check this out yourself. And if your library doesn't have it, ask them to buy it. It's the kind of thing more of 'today's busy families' really need so they don't rely on take-out and don't waste leftovers. Gift it as a housewarming present if the person hasn't already mastered everyday cooking. show less

The concept of this book intrigued, and the author's background with Cook's magazine seemed a good recommendation. I've been doing this kind of cooking my whole life, so I wondered what I would learn. I learned a lot, actually.

I liked the author's writing style and her emphasis on methods that bring together a good, classic meal in less than an hour (though I think my all-gas stove may have different temperature ranges and some of the time/temp notes were off-- pork chops cut from the loin as she specified needed 5-6 minutes per side rather than 3).

In particular, I learned a better way to 'saute' and 'sear' meats... but I admit my kitchen's puny fan doesn't really have the oomph to cope with the smoke from her searing method. I like her show more steam/saute vegetable method, though I found it worked better with greens than broccoli-- but her suggested add-ins were great. We tried her butterflied roast chicken, and again had a smoke problem, but the chicken itself was outstanding and a 6 pound chicken cooked in 60-70 minutes. Her suggestion for marinating stir fry meat, even if only briefly, in a soy-based marinade made a huge difference in my stir fry; and her instructions for making a classic pan sauce raised my technique several notches while giving me scope for my 'what have we got in the cupboard and what goes well together' fun.

Some of her choices seemed incongruous-- using spaghetti for pad thai because you can't depend on getting rice noodles? And yet expecting that the reader will have access to unfried papadums? (The papadums in particular seemed a wierd throw-in to round out one of her sample menus.) But I look forward to trying her pad thai recipe, and using the various add-in and sauce suggestions. Warning: thi is not a diet book: there's plenty of fats and carbs in her dishes, though there are also salads and near-plain veggies. show less

3.5 stars

This book basically gives tips on cooking. The idea is that if you know how to do a few things without needing a recipe, you can change up those things to make it interesting, and you don’t need as much time to cook. The tips are more than the “formulas” for cooking the various things without a recipe; there are other time-saving tips, as well.

It was good. I had the ebook that I looked at on my 2nd generation Kobo (Touch), so the photos, unfortunately, were black and white. I bookmarked some things to make a note of before returning the book to the library (though it says “without a book”, it will take a few tries to make some of the things before I can go from memory).

I don’t like cooking. Some of these things show more will still take more time than I’d like, and I rarely eat meat, so I kind of skimmed over some of those parts. I did appreciate that for some things, she did make vegetarian/vegan suggestions, as well. In addition to the formulas, the author gave examples. For instance, a formula might say XX amount of starches, XX amount of protein, etc. Then she would also list a bunch of starches or proteins you can use (which is helpful when you don’t cook!).

I don’t tend to just read cookbooks, so I was glad that this book was more than that. Although it says “without a book”, I do feel like this is a useful book to own to go back to for the tips. That being said, I don’t plan to go buy it. show less

I love this because it uses formulas for basic dinner ideas so that you can experiment with whatever you have on hand. A must-have for anybody who has to get dinner on the table after work on a regular basis.

Filled with tips, techniques and suggestions, this book is a great reference when you're experimenting with new recipes and ingredients. Whether you're a by-the-book recipe follower or a make-it-up-as-you-go-along home cook like me, the recipes work well whether you're coloring inside the lines or freestyling it. I refer to the book for shellfish, pasta sauce or chicken techniques at least once a week and it has made me a better cook -- and much better at improvising.
I'd love to have a book like this for desserts and baking!

My mom got me a copy of this when I moved into my first apartment; it's definitely a good gift book for those who don't have a lot of cooking experience. There are some recipes, with lots of suggestions for variations, but the focus is on techniques (what's sauteeing?), and there are good tips about grocery shopping and kitchen equipment too.

This is one of the few non-vegetarian cookbooks that I use and highly recommend. It gives great ideas for starting to cook without a predefined recipe and to free you up in the kitchen. It gives suggestions for vegetarian options in a way that makes it easier to substitute things.

She takes a basic concept, like salad, and talks about the general preparation methods, the core techniques and typical basic ingredients and then gives several examples and combinations that you can start from.

I've given this as a gift more than once and most recently to someone just graduated from high school.