I am sure these books have already been listed. I just wanted to list some of my favorite cook books as a cook. I really fell in love with each of these books. I have a longer list....but I trimmed it down for this post. You can read the full list if you want. However, the descriptions on these few are the exact same there are just a few more books!. I hope I gave proper credit for the pictures? All of them are from Amazon, also check out the links to the books! It helps support his awesome forum!...I didn't connect the first one because I still can't believe the price.......
Grand Livre de Cuisine by Alain Ducasse
This is by far my favorite recipe book. When I worked at the Herbfarm and did a lot of the pastry, I would pour through this book. The pictures are fantastic, and the recipes are great. Now that is a rare find. I do often find it is a trade off, good pictures, bad recipes or the other way around. This one is fabulous. Jut look at the picture on the front cover, this dessert is so simple, but is so delicious. Each page has pictures and recipes like that. Most of which are doable at home. Ducasse really had a way with desserts, and food in general. This book is worth every penny if I was rich...
Nothing in this book really should challenge a home cook. The difference between what a chef and a home cook would make in the end is purely technique. The chefs would just have a better executed product...or we have a problem. So don't think you can't do these recipes. I believe in you.
I am not sure if the price is accurate on Amazon.com!!! It was putting it close to 900-1000 USD. I find that so hard to believe. However, I never had to pay for it..
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The first book I would recommend any aspiring chef, cook even hobbyist is the flavor bible. It is not a cook book, it is more of a reference book. It helps develop any bodies understanding of how flavors work with each other. Don't worry about getting the fanciest cook books with the freshest techniques. Instead, especially as a cook starting out, your goal should be to understand food at the lowest levels. Dishes will come with time and experience. It is more important to understand what flavors pair well with thyme, paprika, lemons and so on. This book is great because it is written in such a way that any one can understand. You don't need any fancy kitchen equipment, or vacuum sealing machine. Just a few ingredients and time to read. It highlights the best flavor combinations in bold, and bold and stars for those that are classic, holy grail level combos. It even has example dishes from restaurants. Including a blurb from my old kitchen, Cafe Juanita![PIC FROM AMAZON.COM]
On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee
Before we start getting into the cook books, I have one more reference book I would recommend everybody who wants to be good at cooking get or read is On Food and Cooking. If you want to understand the science behind cheese, sweetness, and food in general. This book is amazing. When I first started at the Herbfarm, the current Sous Chef the time handed me this book and I couldn't get enough of it. Don't expect any pretty pictures, only basic diagrams of microbes and fauna here! Like the previous recommendation, I am a firm believer in understanding something at its lowest point first and then building from there. That way you can really make it your own. I say this a lot. However, if you want to break the rules like a master, learn the rules like a pro. Once you can wax on and wax off. No one can beat you! Not that this is a competition or anything.
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For the most part, I tend to dislike modern Chef recipe books. They often have impossible techniques for home cooks to try and it is not always a skill thing. Sometimes it is a equipment problem, a miscommunication in the recipe, maybe even just getting an ingredient. Cooking out of a Chef cook book is like any "Expectations vs. reality meme ever(Don't even get me started on Alinea's Cook book). Manresa was probably one of the better cook books that a home cook has some chance of scaling. If anything...the pictures are beautiful. The fossilized vegetables is a pretty cool dish. I have even followed some forums that have home cooks talking about making this specific dish. It does require pickling lime (if you don't want to pay for Manresa's Calx which is super expensive). This particular dish has you slow roast root veg that have been soaked in a pickling lime solution. In the end, it creates a petrified look and shell on the outside and a super soft inside. More than a little cool for a cook book. Again, if anything the pictures are great.
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Alice Waters :The Art of Simple Foods
I am a little bit of a history nerd. Not necessarily do I know everything about history. However, I love knowing how concepts, movements, etc, got from point A to point B. One such movement is the slow food movement. This book was written by one of the Chefs that has played a large role in this movement. She came along much after the inception. Nevertheless, you can't here about Berkley or American slow food without Alice Waters coming into the conversation. She just has such a simple and beautiful way about food. There is no fuss or muss. She just makes good food. Alice Waters in not necessarily the first person to do it, and every country has had it's own start. In fact, I got to meet a lady very closely intertwined with the Beirut Slow Food Movement. It is however, a great bit of history to read into!
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