Nerdy but approachable meat cookbook?

[quiet1]

My housemate is a recovered vegetarian (his description) but I end up cooking more often than not because he has no clue how to select good meat or what to do when he has it. I have discovered I am not a good teacher on this subject, either, so I'm thinking a cookbook might be a good gift. Or possibly videos if there is a good video series to point him at?

 

He's an engineering type so some discussion of how and why and so on would probably go over well. However most of my go-to books are general references like the Joy of Cooking and as useful as those are, I think he feels a little overwhelmed by all the non-meat stuff and so doesn't think to reach for them. I know there are a few meat cookbooks out there and I have some short listed to check out in person, but I thought I'd post and see if anyone had a particular favorite they reach for. Or, like I said, a video series to recommend, since sometimes it is easier to learn from watching than from reading.

[blue_dolphin]

I also have relatively little experience in selecting or cooking meat and most often cook meatless meals but I am branching out.   I'd be interested to hear which meat cookbooks you have short-listed.

 

I think a broad "meat" cookbook could be as overwhelming as the general reference type books and for starters, I might recommend choosing a technique-centric approach (grilling, sous vide, roasts, braising or stews) that could be applied to a range of animal proteins.  

 

As far as videos, the ChefSteps recipes and classes are very good.  There's a premium fee for full access but there is a lot of free content as well. 

 

A general cookbook to consider, that includes a good bit of how and why info is Kenji Lopez-Alt's Food Lab.   It's not strictly meat but it doesn't have the Joy of Cooking problem of many, many recipes for almost the same thing, he generally hones in on one or two methods that he deems "best."

 

[Martin Fisher]

1 hour ago, quiet1 said:

He's an engineering type so some discussion of how and why and so on would probably go over well.

 

Butcher Merle Ellis' books are good and dirt cheap [out of print] — a bit dated in some ways, but real good.
Cutting Up in the Kitchen: The Butcher's Guide to Saving Money on Meat & Poultry

The Great American Meat Book

 

Here's Merle:

 

[Yiannos]

3 hours ago, blue_dolphin said:

A general cookbook to consider, that includes a good bit of how and why info is Kenji Lopez-Alt's Food Lab.   It's not strictly meat but it doesn't have the Joy of Cooking problem of many, many recipes for almost the same thing, he generally hones in on one or two methods that he deems "best."

 

This is a great recommendation, good blend of geeky and practical, with lots of detailed how/why info and recipes that work well without much fuss.

[rustwood]

This may be somewhat obvious, but you might consider the Cook's Illustrated Meat Book Cookbook.  I've owned it for almost 2 years now, have skimmed it, but I haven't picked it up in well over a year - probably because it got buried under a pile of other cookbooks, maybe partly because it wasn't that exciting to me (not sure). 

[Okanagancook]

Rustwood, I have this book and have used it along with their book on poultry.  Very though as per CI usual.

[quiet1]

I have Serious Eats myself and I think the size puts him off. Although perhaps a Kindle version would work better for him since he could easily skip to the sections of interest and not have to lug a big book around. (I think he feels like he SHOULD read the whole thing, and it's huge, so he never starts?)

 

The CI book is one of the ones on my short list, I recognize the cover. I'll look up what the other ones were tomorrow. I haven't been able to go to a book store yet so I don't have any notes myself. Hopefully one of my local stores will have a decent selection so I can page though in person. (The Look Inside feature on Amazon helps, but I find for cookbooks I like to get hands on. How does it feel, how does it look, when a recipe needs a graphic to show how to do something, how well is that done, how is the information arranged, etc. Some of that gets missed out on Look Inside due to the way they only include part of the contents.)

 

I'm definitely going to grab one of the books DiggingDogFarm recommended, too. For the price even if I don't give it away, I can add it to my collection.

[Duvel]

I strongly recommend The River Cottage Meat Cookbook. It has a cradle to table approach, describing how animals are properly reared, how to select good sources and how to treat the meat (and hence the animal) with respect. Coming from a former vegetarian background I think it would make a very wholesome entry into meat cooking and enjoying ...

It contains recipes for most animals (incl. game) and a diverse selection of cuts (not completely, but almost nose to tail). I do like the book very much.

[rustwood]

50 minutes ago, Duvel said:

Coming from a former vegetarian background I think it would make a very wholesome entry into meat cooking and enjoying ...

 

That sounds like an interesting suggestion, as is @DiggingDogFarm's.  I will be adding them to my lists; however, I wonder if they contain more details than some might be ready to attend to shortly after having reversed course.  Just a thought.

[rotuts]

@DiggingDogFarm  

 

is completely right.   Cutting up in the Kitchen is a fantastic book.  look for it at the various used book stores.

 

just line drawings   but it a wonderful start.

 

a newer book worth a look :

 

Meat: A Kitchen Education

 

I recently looked over  several new books from my library.  excellent pictures 

 

this one quite good :

 

Meat: Everything You Need to Know

 

as far as I remember , none of these books discusses Sous Vide , a vital technique to understand re Meat Cookery.

Edited December 3, 2016 by Smithy
Adjusted link to be Amazon-friendly (log)

[FrogPrincesse]

10 hours ago, Duvel said:

I strongly recommend The River Cottage Meat Cookbook. It has a cradle to table approach, describing how animals are properly reared, how to select good sources and how to treat the meat (and hence the animal) with respect. Coming from a former vegetarian background I think it would make a very wholesome entry into meat cooking and enjoying ...

It contains recipes for most animals (incl. game) and a diverse selection of cuts (not completely, but almost nose to tail). I do like the book very much.

I really love that aspect of the book too, and that is why I bought it in the first place - the whole Part One about understanding meat with detailed advice about how to buy meat, what types of cuts work for certain dishes, diagrams for each animal, etc.

Two caveats. First, it's a British book, so some of the information is not directly relevant to the US (this is discussed in the notes to the US edition at the end of the book). Second, I wasn't particularly impressed with the few recipes I tried. It wasn't the reason why I had bought the book, but since recipes constitute more than half of the book, I thought I should mention it. However I like how the recipes are arranged by cooking technique (roasting, braising, grilling, etc). I think that made a lot of sense.

Edited December 2, 2016 by FrogPrincesse (log)

[quiet1]

3 minutes ago, FrogPrincesse said:

I really love that aspect of the book too, and that is why I bought it in the first place - the whole Part One about understanding meat with detailed advice about how to buy meat, what types of cuts work for certain dishes, diagrams for each animal, etc.

Two caveats. First, it's a British book, so some of the information is not directly relevant to the US (this is discussed in the notes to the US edition at the end of the book). Second, I wasn't particularly impressed with the few recipes I tried. It wasn't the reason why I had bought the book, but since recipes constitute more than half of the book, I thought I should mention it. However I like how the recipes are arranged by cooking technique (roasting, braising, grilling, etc). I think that made a lot of sense.

 

 

In what way were you not impressed? Flavors didn't turn out, or technique? Something else?

[FrogPrincesse]

Just now, quiet1 said:

 

In what way were you not impressed? Flavors didn't turn out, or technique? Something else?

Both. At some point I was testing various lamb shanks recipes from different cookbooks, and following his cooking time/temperature, the shanks ended up being tough and not cooked enough. I was a little shocked of the result, because I know how delicious they can be when I follow my tried & true recipes...

Then regarding flavors, a lot of them don't particularly appeal to me, even on paper. Let's just say that it's not the type of cuisine I naturally gravitate towards (I was born in France, and live in Southern California). This is very personal obviously, so your mileage may vary.

[quiet1]

On 12/1/2016 at 4:09 PM, blue_dolphin said:

I also have relatively little experience in selecting or cooking meat and most often cook meatless meals but I am branching out.   I'd be interested to hear which meat cookbooks you have short-listed.

 

 

My not very vetted short list is:

Meat: Everything you need to know by Pat LaFrieda

Meat: A Kitchen Education by James Peterson

The Great Meat Cookbook by Bruce Aidells

The Cook's Illustrated Meat Cookbook (as mentioned in the thread already)

The River Cottage Meat Book (also as mentioned, by the dude with the crazy hair and hyphenated last name  )

 

I should add that he has whole-heartedly embraced being not-a-vegetarian so is not squeamish or easily put off by butchery or offal. (He's actually more adventurous about different parts of the animal than I am much of the time.) Thus there are definitely books on the list that I wouldn't consider for someone a bit more sensitive about such things, like the River Cottage book. (I haven't looked at it thoroughly yet, but I watched the series when it first started when I lived in England, so I'm expecting the book to be similarly upfront about 'yes, you are eating that cute baby whatever all grown up.')

 

I'm thinking that possibly the preparing and cooking aspect is more important than the selection of a piece of meat, although knowing which cut to get would be helpful. I can explain why this piece of meat instead of that one in a store more easily than I can explain why I'm doing things in the kitchen. When I cook I get into a zone where I just do things and forget to point out that I'm doing them, or how I know when it is time to do something, etc. I'm not a natural instructor in the kitchen for sure. 

 

[quiet1]

11 minutes ago, FrogPrincesse said:

Both. At some point I was testing various lamb shanks recipes from different cookbooks, and following his cooking time/temperature, the shanks ended up being tough and not cooked enough. I was a little shocked of the result, because I know how delicious they can be when I follow my tried & true recipes...

Then regarding flavors, a lot of them don't particularly appeal to me, even on paper. Let's just say that it's not the type of cuisine I naturally gravitate towards (I was born in France, and live in Southern California). This is very personal obviously, so your mileage may vary.

 

Interesting that the technique was actually off. I wouldn't expect that so much from that type of cookbook. (River Cottage stuff is hardly slapped together recipes from the Internet to take advantage of a cooking fad, you know?)

 

I can understand the flavors, though - there are personal preferences plus I recall from watching the tv show sometimes feeling like the combinations of flavors he used weren't what I'd reach for. That is one of the things where I find it easier to look at a book in person and skim multiple recipes to get a feel for the flavoring tendencies of the author(s). When I moved to England (born and raised in the US) there were definitely some flavor combinations that tasted very strange to me and were not at all what I was expecting. Some of them I got used to, some of them not so much.

[FrogPrincesse]

Just now, quiet1 said:

 

Interesting that the technique was actually off. I wouldn't expect that so much from that type of cookbook. (River Cottage stuff is hardly slapped together recipes from the Internet to take advantage of a cooking fad, you know?)

 

Me neither, hence my shock. I had a similar issue, although not as extreme, with the roasted chicken. Then I stopped trusting the recipes... but I still kept the book because I thought the general information it provided was very valuable.

 

[FrogPrincesse]

More book suggestions in this previous thread.

 

 

[quiet1]

On 12/1/2016 at 10:54 PM, rustwood said:

This may be somewhat obvious, but you might consider the Cook's Illustrated Meat Book Cookbook.  I've owned it for almost 2 years now, have skimmed it, but I haven't picked it up in well over a year - probably because it got buried under a pile of other cookbooks, maybe partly because it wasn't that exciting to me (not sure). 

 

'This is the one I ended up going with, after checking several out in person so I could flip around to different sections. It seemed the most appropriate option in terms of practical aspects and readability. (I had to make myself put down the River Cottage book, but that was because I wanted to read it, not because it would have been a good gift.) It definitely isn't what I would call exciting, but seems like just what you need if you don't already know a ton.

 

His son also found him a book from America's Test Kitchen called something like "What Good Cooks Know" and between those two it looks like he should have a good place to start which will let him branch out to other cookbooks and recipes later, having learned the terminology and skills and so on. Since kiddo needs to learn to cook too, I think they are going to tackle both books together as a father-son activity.

[gfweb]

CI/ATK are just right for beginners.

 

An oldie that you can still find is James Beard's Theory and Practice of Good Cooking. Readable, helpful to the noob, still useful to the more experienced; it was what got me started decades ago.  Its not all meat, but most of it is. Nothing ground-breaking, certainly no sous vide. Just real cooking and good recipes and explanations of why.

 

Edited December 29, 2016 by gfweb (log)

[quiet1]

45 minutes ago, gfweb said:

CI/ATK are just right for beginners.

 

An oldie that you can still find is James Beard's Theory and Practice of Good Cooking. Readable, helpful to the noob, still useful to the more experienced; it was what got me started decades ago.  Its not all meat, but most of it is. Nothing ground-breaking, certainly no sous vide. Just real cooking and good recipes and explanations of why.

 

 

 

I'll keep an eye out for that one.