How to Cook Everything: 2,000 Simple Recipes for Great Food,10th Anniversary Edition

I'm an experienced home cook, but finally had enough of cooking the same things again and again. I'm fine with techniques, but don't have the knowledge to know which herbs/spices work best together, nor how much of each to use. That's what I wanted, and that's what HTCE delivers. Yes, most reference cookbooks offer variations on their recipes. But none of them offer them in the sheer numbers that Bittman does.After borrowing Joy of Cooking, Better Homes & Gardens, Betty Crocker, Fannie Farmer, Cook's Illustrated and Good Housekeeping from the library, I narrowed it down to this book and Joy. I spent weeks cooking with both of them. Then I added straight technique books like The Science of Good Cooking, 12 Recipes, On Food and Cooking and even How To Cook Everything Fast. None of them could beat this one for ideas to customize the given recipes.Bittman's got the standard chapters, Appetizers, Soups, Grains, Meats, Fruits/Vegetables, Breads, Desserts and more, including a chapter on Sandwiches, which I find a nice inclusion. He begins each chapter with tips on identifying, handling, and buying the food. Essential Recipes follow. These are his master techniques and include many sidebar boxes listing the variations that were a big draw for me. Then he moves on to other recipes, getting more specific. For example, in Poultry, the Essential recipes include roasting chicken parts, grilling or broiling boneless chicken, a very simple stir fry, whole roast chicken, roast turkey and so on, with many, many options. Then he spends another 55 pages going into more depth with techniques, illustrations, recipes and variations for chicken, turkey and duck, but also pheasant, squab and quail.Cheese Fondue - 14 variationsStuffed vegetables - there are 7 veggies and 7 stuffings, mix and match (Veg/Fruit chapter is almost 200 pages!)Simply cooked fish (roasted, grilled, pan-cooked or broiled) - 13 seasonings and 21 saucesThe 3 examples listed above are representative of what you'll find in the book. What makes this design so nice is that when I know I want to cook some boneless chicken breasts, but want something different, it's easy to gain inspiration by going to that section of the Poultry chapter and checking out the many ways to season, marinate, sauce and cook them. When I know exactly what I want to cook, the index is very good. Nothing is more frustrating than indexes that only include recipes by title (I'm looking at you, Beth Hensperger!) or only list each recipe one time. HTCE's 60-page index is complete, with most recipes listed in several places.I'm a fan of his serving sizes, too. Where most recipes still yield 2-3 servings per pound of meat, Bittman gives us 3-4 servings. A seasoned cook can look at the ingredients and know how many it will feed and can easily scale it, but for new cooks, not so much. The smaller portion sizes fit the way more of us eat today. He also includes an index of menus, and charts of the 102 Essential Recipes, his top 100 fast recipes (out of 453 that are 30 min or less), top 100 make-ahead and top 100 vegetarian recipes. He's got sources for equipment and foods. The Kitchen Basics chapter will enable anyone to equip their kitchen using his must-have, want to have and nice to have lists. Last are the doneness charts for proteins. He gives the temperatures that most experienced cooks prefer and also the USDA chart with it's higher temperatures. We get to choose.Whether you're just learning to cook or are have been cooking for many years and want to expand your repertoire, this is an excellent cookbook, a welcome addition to the pantheon of well-regarded reference cookbooks. This is the book I'll be giving to all new cooks from now on. No question.

When I started to get more into cooking, I wanted to revamp my cookbook collection and bought numerous books, one of the first was the first edition of How to cook everything. I bought it at the same time as Joy of Cooking 75th anniversary edition and without any bias I found myself cooking with Bittman more and more and Joy was seldom used. When this edition came out, I wasnt sure how it could be better, but it is just incredible. It starts off with some of the key recipes that he marks with a star and what I love about this book is that it offers a ton of variations on the same recipe. Unlike most cookbooks where it has numerous recipes for the same thing, filling up different pages and taking up space, Bittman will have a master recipe and anywhere between 2-3, sometimes more variations of the main recipe. The thing I love about this book is that the confidence Bittman exudes with each recipe, he gives a great rundown on each recipe and it just gives you full confidence that the recipe will not screw up lol!I am very much a scatter brain and the directions were simple to follow and it is very inspiring for the home cook like myself. At heart Bittman is a minimalist which basically means he will try to use the fewest ingredients possible and focusing on technique which i can appreciate, often times cookbooks will slather on the ingredients and i just feel overwhelmed and dont even want to cook anymore...What made me appreciate this book more is that it was one of the top general cookbooks in the last 25 years according to cooking light magazine. I became curious and purchased some of the other books on that list such as Jamie Oliver's Cook with Jamie, Gourmet Today, Radically simple and also purchased a highly rated Cooks illustrated cookbook by America's test kitchen. While those do have their strengths and weaknesses I just feel that Bittman's book is more engaging, more versatile and will be my #1 gift for anyone who wants to cook or is mildly curious. When I talk about it being engaging and versatile, some examples are found on page 513, it has a list of 32 pasta dishes that can be made when you are boiling the pasta, page 516 has a list for "12 alternative pasta toppings", page 520, "27 vegetable and legume dishes to toss with pasta" and many more. Every few pages, he gives great ideas how recipes in one section blend with another recipe in another section in the book. Since I am scatter brained at times, to have a list of different options is an enormous help, I have yet to find this in any other cookbook. There are probably around 100 of these, it is really helpful when you find yourself in a culinary rut so to speak and are overwhelmed going through recipe after recipe, it's nice to know cause something may just jump out to you!I'm trying to keep this short but I simply cannot say enough good things about this book, the only downside is that I dont think there are that many adventurous recipes. If there were I dont think I would try them that much as I simply dont have all day to cook so I just wanted to point that out as it seems most cookbooks now a days pride themselves on being "different" at the risk of having recipes that actually work.The bottom line is that if you want to start a cookbook collection or if you like to cook or anything else in between, this will most likely become your #1 resource for years to come. As a younger guy (28) and recently married hoping to start a family one day, I hope to raise my kids with some of the great recipes in this book! I didnt grow up on recipes like some older people did with Joy and Fannie Farmer, but I am growing with this book!Hope this helps!!

I was looking for a replacement for Joy of Cooking. I checked out wide swaths of cookbooks from the library, including the new edition of the Joy of Cooking. The new edition of Joy had removed not one, but ALL all of the recipes I liked. Yes, I did a comparison between my sad, broken one, and the new one. I only had a 75% success rate with the recipes anyway. Don't get me wrong! We used the crap out of joy.How to Cook Everything simplifies a lot of cooking processes, giving me a lot of time back. The alternative ingredients really help a lot for variety. I like that the ingredient lists are not endless, and the directions are very clear. It definitely has a broad pallet approach, where other general cookbooks seem focused on the middle of the road recipes. It isn't perfect. It doesn't have everything, but ultimately it helps me be more creative in the kitchen rather than sticking fast to a recipe.I tested the book on my spouse. If they can use it, it's a bonus!Unfortunately I like to take notes in my cookbooks. That's frowned upon in library circles, so I finally had to buy the the thing. Poor me.

Great cookbook. Always buy it for wedding shower gifts. Mark Bittman is aces with his books.

It's really detailed, and don't think that you need to be an expert to have this cookbook, there are many many recipes in there that are actually super simple !

I've been longing to buy this book since 2013. A Treasury of great recipes for sure. Simple language. A must have for everyone who wants/love to cook. Has so many Asian recipes too. And it's a huge book!

I got this book today and I have to say it has really blown me away!I have a few cookbooks; not an impressive collection by any stretch of the imagination, but it includes Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and Larrouse's Gastronomique, plus a few cooking "bibles", yet...Something was missing..I needed ideas for everyday dinners, and after browsing this book, I can tell it will deliver...Why do I say this, having tried only one recipe, so far?Because it explains the BASICS of many dishes, with any number of variations..!I looked up old recipes in the index that I have tried before and I can see the possibilities!The explanations and diagrams are so straightforward!To the people that have taken off stars from their reviews for measurements not being metric: conversion tables?, anyone?? Hello?!It is really no biggie to convert as you go and, voilà!Tonight I cooked and aced something that had always eluded me (I am no expert cook): a stir-fry! And it was yummmmy...! :-D

TOP !

I bought this as a gift and haven't seen it, but it was appreciated by my son who is not a beginner, and likes to try out new things. He said it was good as a reference book