Review by Barb & Ron Kroll

Cookbook Title:

Martha Stewart's Cooking School
- Lessons and Recipes for the Home Cook
(Clarkson Potter) ISBN 978-0307396440 0307396444

Theme:

Martha Stewart helps home cooks, both new and experienced, to cook from scratch, with 200 step-by-step recipes for everyday and company meals. Martha Stewart's Cooking School is a reference cook book for every kitchen. Packed with culinary lessons, the cooking guide gives readers basic to advanced cooking techniques, such as how to French a rack of lamb, how to clean soft-shell crabs, how to make dashi, how to make consommé and how to caramelize fruit.

Sample Recipes:

Chestnut turkey stuffing. Indian yogurt marinade. Pear chutney. Curry paste. Hollandaise sauce. Glace de viande. Lamb tagine. Stir fried shrimp with black bean sauce. Buttermilk fried chicken. Fish tacos. Marinated artichoke hearts. Tempura vegetables. Individual chocolate soufflés. Cream puffs. Watermelon sorbet.

Notable Elements:

Martha Stewart's Cooking School teaches techniques for lemon zesting, supreming, juicing by hand and with a handpress juicer. A nine-image sequence, with step by step instructions, shows readers how to remove lobster meat from shells. Photos illustrate how to sharpen a knife on a whetstone.

A chapter describes basic herbs: tender (basil, chervil, chives, cilantro, dill, mint, parsley and tarragon) and robust (bay leaf, curry leaf, lemongrass, marjoram, oregano, rosemary, sage, savory and thyme). Cooks learn how to make a chiffonade, how to make a bouquet garni, how to store herbs and how to make a sachet d'epice and herb oils.

A lesson on seasonings includes types of salt (Kosher, fleur de sel, maldon, table), types of peppercorns (black, red, white, green, Szechuan), cayenne, paprika, pimenton (Spanish paprika), juniper, mustard, cumin, coriander, turmeric, cardamom, saffron, anise, fennel, clove, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and allspice. Martha Stewart explains how to toast and grind spices in a mortar and pestle and an electric spice grinder.

Charts list best cuts of beef, lamb, pork, poultry and fish for grilling, braising and stewing. Another chart explains how to cook grains (pearl barley, buckwheat groats or kasha, bulgur, farro, kamut, millet, oat groats, quinoa, spelt and wheat berries) including liquid amounts and yields.

The soup chapter describes how to make soup garnishes such as frico (Parmesan cheese crisps), leek frisée, lardons, crostini, herbed croutons and fried tortilla strips.

Tone / Style:

Presented as culinary arts courses, Martha Stewart's Cooking School is informative and educational, with well-illustrated and detailed basic cooking classes, such as how to make mayonnaise, evolving to more advanced recipes like how to bake a soufflé.

Every chapter of the 504-page cookbook includes several culinary lessons, with information on ingredients and cooking techniques, followed by recipes and serving tips. For example, the tutorial on fish and shellfish describes how to buy the best fish, addresses questions like fresh or frozen fish, farmed or wild fish, and describes label terms such as certified organic, natural, local and heritage. The sole à la meuniere recipe includes tips on how to skin Dover sole, how to dredge the sole with Wondra (instant flour) and how to make clarified butter for frying it. Step-by-step photos show you how to remove fish fillets from the bone for serving.

Cooking skills include tips, like how to fix a broken emulsion when making mayonnaise or a sauce. (Put one teaspoon of cold water, if it is a warm emulsion, or one teaspoon of warm water, if it is a cold emulsion, into a bowl, then whisk the sauce into the water until it is smooth.)

Visuals:

Photographs by Marcus Nilsson and portraits by Ditte Isager illustrate Martha Stewart's Cooking School. More than 500 detailed step-by-step images depict cooking skills, finished dishes showing plating, simplified drawings of cuts of meat and pictures of Martha Stewart cooking. Full-page color photos portray ingredients like varieties of dried beans (cranberry, kidney, fava, cannellini, borlotti, navy, garbanzo etc.) to accompany descriptions (e.g., flageolets are immature kidney beans, great in salads and with spring lamb).

Contents:

• Basics
  • A cook's golden rules
  • Equipment
  • Knives
  • Herbs
  • Seasonings
  • Onions
  • Citrus
• 1. Stocks & Soups
  • How to make white stock
  • How to make chicken soup
  • How to make brown stock
  • How to make fish fumet
  • How to make vegetable stock
  • How to make dashi
  • How to make cream soups
  • How to make pureed vegetable soups
  • How to make consommé
• 2. Eggs
  • How to boil
  • How to poach
  • How to fry
  • How to scramble
  • How to make an omelet
  • How to coddle
  • How to bake
  • How to make a frittata
• 3. Meat, Fish & Poultry
  • How to roast
  • How to grill
  • How to braise and stew
  • How to steam, poach and simmer
  • How to sauté and fry
• 4. Vegetables
  • How to steam
  • How to wilt
  • How to blanch
  • How to simmer, boil and poach
  • How to roast and bake
  • How to sauté
  • How to fry
  • How to stir-fry
  • How to braise and stew
  • How to grill
  • How to make a green salad
• 5. Pasta
  • How to make fresh pasta
  • How to make filled pasta shapes
  • How to make gnocchi
  • How to make tomato sauce
  • How to make ragu
  • How to make baked pasta dishes
• 6. Dried Beans & Grains
  • How to cook dried beans
  • How to cook grains
• 7. Desserts
  • How to cream butter
  • How to cut butter into flour
  • How to make meringue
  • How to make soufflé
  • How to make gènoise
  • How to make custard
  • How to make paté a choux
  • How to make sorbets and granitas

Authors:

Martha Stewart and Sarah Carey

 
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More Martha Stewart cookbooks:

The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook - The New Classics

Martha Stewart's Dinner at Home

Martha Stewart's Pies & Tarts