Six Basic Cooking Techniques: Culinary Essentials for the Home Cook

Welcome to New York City's most popular cooking class -- now in a book! This vividly photographed manual is a peek inside culinary instructor Jennifer Clair's best-selling class her cooking school, Home Cooking New York (homecookingny.com), where just six cooking techniques lay the groundwork for a solid culinary foundation. You'll learn the proper way to handle a chef's knife, cook meat to perfection, create impressive pan sauces, and prepare restaurant-worthy vegetable dishes. Plus, you'll discover which ingredients truly make a difference in a home kitchen (kosher salt, extra-virgin olive oil, and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, to start). Each technique chapter includes a collection of flavorful recipes, so you can practice your newfound skills while cooking delicious meals. And throughout the book, myth-busting "Students Ask" and "Chefs Say" columns feature pearls of indispensable kitchen wisdom (why you should never mince basil, mint, or sage; why blanching vegetables is better than steaming; what are the three key flavors that make all food taste better; and more). Confidence is what makes a great cook, and this practical culinary guide is filled with the teachings you need to gain control of your kitchen.

About the Author :
Jennifer Clair is a culinary instructor and the founder of the cooking school Home Cooking New York. She honed her culinary and editorial chops as a Food Editor at Martha Stewart Living and the Recipes Editor at The Wall Street Journal. She is the author of Gourmet Cooking on a Budget. She lives in Hudson Valley, New York. Meredith Heuer is a lifestyle photographer, focusing on personal portraits, food, and travel. Her work has taken her around the world for publications such as Fortune, Gourmet, and The New York Times. She lives in Beacon, New York.

Review :
"The clarity of Clair's book has three sources: her 16 years as a teacher and owner of Home Cooking New York, her expertise as a recipe writer, and the book's plentiful photography." --Steve Fowler, Hudson Valley Magazine "Those hoping to learn fundamental skills and techniques will find this to be a terrifically helpful guide." --Publishers Weekly "Manhattan cooking-school founder and food journalist Clair's second cookbook (following Gourmet Cooking on a Budget, 2010) is a good substitute for Cooking 101, teaching the basics that make the foundation of a good home chef." --Booklist "Profusely illustrated and exceptionally well written and thoroughly 'user friendly' in organization and presentation." -- Midwest Book Review "Six Basic Cooking Techniques breaks down the most need-to-know skills to give you the confidence to prepare anything you need in the kitchen." --Metro New York "Sometimes you need the bare-bones basics all in one place... Six Basic Cooking Techniques by Jennifer Clair does a good job of culling the canon to a set of essentials." --The Kitchn (blog) "A refreshing back-to-basics approach to gaining confidence in the kitchen."--The Valley Table "Jennifer Clair has assembled some essential lessons in a book, using straightforward text and photos to cover knife skills, meat cookery, pan sauces, roasting vegetables, blanching vegetables and preparing leafy greens. Each section gives a handful of recipes, mostly simple and very sound." --Florence Fabricant, The New York Times "The recipes are all sound and easily accessible to the intermediate cook. Each recipe is presented with the purpose of giving the reader an opportunity to put the main technique of the chapter into practice and includes a short introduction that offers helpful hints and informative tidbits that add to the learning process." --Foreword Reviews