Cookbooks for Everyone from Boston Chefs

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HEADLINE NEWS » Cookbooks for Everyone from Boston Chefs

Cookbooks always make great gifts - whether they're for the seasoned professional or an aspiring novice, they can be sources of both inspiration and instruction. Here are a handful of cookbooks from some of Boston's highly acclaimed chefs so you can find the perfect fit for any foodie.

In the Hands of a Chef:
Cooking with Jody Adams of Rialto Restaurant
Chef Jody Adams shares recipes for her favorite dishes – the ones she prepares at home for friends and family when she’s not at Rialto. By breaking the recipes down to the absolute basics – starting with what to look for at the supermarket or farm stand, and equipment essentials – Adams gives the home cook a great foundation for thinking and cooking like a chef.

Flour:
Spectacular Recipes from Boston's Flour Bakery + Cafe
Harvard smarty, baker and restaurateur Joanne Chang (also of Myers + Chang) shares essential baking tips and 150 recipes from her super successful Flour Bakery + Café, now with three locations in and around Boston. Bakers and pastry makers will learn the secrets to her perfect croissants and her infamous sticky buns in this accessible, instant classic cookbook.

The Boston Globe
Illustrated New England Seafood Cookbook
Plucked from the pages of the Boston Globe Food Section, this collection of seafood-focused recipes highlights contributions from Boston’s most acclaimed chefs including Ken Oringer of Clio, Toro and KO Prime fame, Lydia Shire of Scampo, Jasper White of the Summer Shack, Ana Sortun of Oleana and Sofra Bakery, Gordon Hamersley of Hamersley’s Bistro and Jody Adams of Rialto at the Charles Hotel.

Fresh & Honest:
Food From the Farms of New England
and the Kitchen of Henrietta's Table
A longtime proponent of sustainable dining and the use of local, farm-fresh foods, chef Peter Davis plucks some of his most tantalizing recipes, fresh from the menus of Henrietta’s Table, and puts them all together in this 218-page, full color cookbook. New England cuisine comes to life through the cooking and the farmer and purveyor profiles scattered throughout.

The Elephant Walk Cookbook:
The Exciting World of Cambodian Cuisine from the Nationally Acclaimed Restaurant
In The Elephant Walk Cookbook, author and chef Longteine de Monteiro, the wife of a diplomat who was forced into exile after Pol Pot invaded, shares her inspiring story and more than a few recipes in this fascinating introduction to the lively and sophisticated cuisine of Cambodia. Home cooks will love recreating the award-winning dishes from the trio of Elephant Walk restaurants in and around Boston.

The Olives Table:
Over 160 Recipes from the Critically Acclaimed Restaurant
and Home Kitchen of Todd English
Chef and restaurateur Todd English demystifies some of the recipes from the menu at the original Olives, the cornerstone of his restaurant empire. Home cooks will be pleasantly surprised to find that English’s special brand of deliciousness comes from layering of flavors and textures so there are no intimidating pieces of equipment or techniques.

The Figs Table:
More Than 100 Recipes for Pizzas, Pastas, Salads & Desserts
As a follow up to his Olives cookbook, chef and restaurateur Todd English shares the savory, innovative, Mediterranean-inspired food that’s made Figs such a hit. With the book’s careful instruction, home cooks will learn how to layer flavors to recreate English’s award-winning, soulful fare – including his sophisticated (and square) pizzas.

The Olives Dessert Table:
Spectacular Restaurant Desserts You Can Make at Home
Demonstrating that his culinary style and philosophy applies just as well to sweets as it does to savories, chef and restaurateur Todd English includes some of his award-winning recipes in this dessert-focused tome. Combining familiar flavors in innovative ways, English walks the home cook through recreating his exceptional desserts.

Bistro Cooking at Home
Chef-owner Gordon Hamersley lends the home cook a helping hand with an array of sophisticated but easy-to-prepare options that’ll bring that bistro vibe home. With lots of stews, roasts and braises the book is full of recipes that allow the cooker to tend to other things – some are even best if prepared a couple days ahead of time, which makes them perfect for seamless holiday entertaining. Co-owner (and wife) Fiona Hamersley offers knowledgeable, down-to-earth wine recommendations with each entrée so the home cook can recreate the whole Hamersley’s Bistro experience at home.

The Fearless Chef:
Innovative Recipes from the Edge of American Cuisine
Taking your cooking to the next level takes a touch of fearlessness – luckily Tremont 647 chef-owner Andy Husbands has fearlessness to spare. With some guidance from the pages of this cookbook, home cooks can expand beyond their usual repertoire and explore the edge of American cuisine. Husbands teaches the home cook how to incorporate bold global flavors to spice up the most basic meal.

Kinkead's Cookbook:
Recipes from Washington D.C.'s Premier Seafood Restaurant
Bob Kinkead, chef-owner of Washington D.C.’s popular fish and seafood restaurant, Kinkead’s, and one of the two brothers behind Boston’s Sibling Rivalry, brings his seafood expertise and American brasserie style right into the home cook’s kitchen with 120 recipes that combine international influences with sensibly balanced flavors. Kinkead shares some of his tips for selecting and preparing fresh seafood, and some behind-the-scenes stories from the restaurant industry.

Stir: Mixing It Up in the Italian Tradition
A self-taught chef and Boston native, chef Barbara Lynch discovered her passion for cooking in Home Economics. Lynch’s hunger for knowledge, hard work, and raw smarts enabled her to create her own distinct culinary style and build a successful restaurant empire, which includes No. 9 Park, B&G Oysters, The Butcher Shop and Sportello. For this, her first cookbook, she culls 150 recipes that combine her award winning sophistication and practicality to help the home cook create a stir at home.

Wine Mondays:
Simple Wine Pairings with Seasonal Menus
Chef-owner Frank McClelland compiles some of his greatest hits and adapts them for the home cook for his first cookbook. Plucked from the menus of Wine Mondays, L’Espalier’s weekly wine dinner series, the recipes are all accompanied by suggested wine pairings, which allows the home cook to focus on mastering McClelland’s award-winning French fare instead of what to pour with them.

Grill It!
East Coast Grill’s Chris Schlesinger and John “Doc” Willoughby, combine forces for the ultimate grilling guide. Filled with the essential techniques and key tips, the book provides over 200 delicious recipes inspired by flavors from around the world from appetizers and snacks, to steaks, wings, and everything in between. If they can grill it, they will. Now you can, too.

Let the Flames Begin:
Tips, Techniques, and Recipes for Real Live Fire Cooking
Masters of the grill, Chris Schlesinger of East Coast Grill and John “Doc” Willoughby, share all of their tricks for live fire cooking offering detailed instructions on different techniques from how to get that perfect smoky flavor to how to manage each fire’s distinct personality. At home cooks can apply their newfound skills to any of the 250+ featured recipes.

Quick Pickles:
Easy Recipes for Big Flavor
Put away those mason jars and double-boilers. The famous duo of Chris Schlesinger and John “Doc” Willoughby show you just how quick and easy pickling can be. With their handy tips and tools, cooks will learn the basics (Old Fashioned Bread & Butter Pickles) and the exotic (Mango Pickles with Scorched Mustard Seeds) and ways to incorporate healthy, flavorful pickles into everyday meals.

Lettuce in Your Kitchen:
Flavorful and Unexpected Main-Dish Salads and Dressings
East Coast Grill’s Chris Schlesinger and John "Doc" Willoughby have written what might be the definitive volume on salads. Herbivores will learn all there is to know about the leafy food group from its history in ancient Egypt to tips on choosing and cleaning greens as well as over 100 fun and innovative dressing ideas to spice up your dish whether it’s an appetizer, main dish, or even dessert.

License to Grill:
Achieve Greatness at the Grill with 200 Sizzling Recipes
In this follow-up to their award-winning The Thrill of the Grill, Chris Schlesinger of East Coast Grill and John "Doc" Willoughby discuss even more tricks of the grilling trade while adding several new, lighter dimensions to their repertoire with recipes highlighting vegetables, seafood, pasta, and even fruit. The book features sections on skewers, Hobo Pack Cookery (otherwise known as Boy Scout cooking), salad and pasta dishes, high-heat dishes, and tons more.

Big Flavors of the Hot Sun:
Recipes and Techniques from the Spice Zone
East Coast Grill’s Chris Schlesinger and John "Doc" Willoughby highlight over 240 fiery, flavorful, simple dishes inspired by cuisines of hot-weather locales. The chefs breakdown each recipe describing its cultural context and background, the various different cooking techniques, and even interesting facts and anecdotes about the spices used.

Salsas, Sambals, Chutneys and Chowchows
This book is a celebration of condiments and side dishes from hot-weather places all around the world. East Coast Grill’s Chris Schlesinger and John "Doc" Willoughby bring you over 40 original and innovative recipes that pack a punch with simple steps. Learn all about salsas, marmalades, relishes, chowchows, catsup, and everything in between. The Chefs show just how these little dishes can spice up any recipe.

The Thrill of the Grill:
Techniques, Recipes, & Down-Home Barbecue
Chris Schlesinger of East Coast Grill and John "Doc" Willoughby have created the ultimate grilling bible as they guide home cooks through each step of the process from picking the right grill to laying the fire and finally putting together a plate. In addition to a hefty collection of grillable dishes, they even suggest beverages and down-home desserts.

How to Cook Meat
Want to really learn about meat? East Coast Grill’s Chris Schlesinger and John "Doc" Willoughby explore which cuts of meat to buy, what cooking methods suit each, how to judge doneness correctly, the difference between purchasing from a butcher and from a supermarket, and so much more. Learn all about beef, veal, lamb, and pork. This is the perfect book for the meat lover

It's About Time:
Great Recipes for Everyday Life
Home cooks will come back to chef Michael Schlow’s cookbook again and again for its inspirational stories, informative sidebars, helpful tricks, and most of all, for its broad range of never-fail recipes that are easy to follow and always special. Among the book’s 248 pages are 150 painstakingly tested recipes – ones for 30 minute meals and ones for more elegant meals like the ones you might expect at Radius, Via Matta or Alta Strada.

The Boston Chef's Table:
The Best in Contemporary Cuisine
Clara Silverstein pulls together more than 100 recipes from Boston’s best and brightest chefs for this cookbook. Among the chefs customizing their restaurant recipes for the home cook are Ming Tsai of Blue Ginger, Lydia Shire of Scampo, Jasper White of the Summer Shack, Todd English of Olives, Jody Adams of Rialto and Geoff Gardner of Sel de la Terre. The collection includes some traditional regional fare (like the lobster roll and Boston baked beans) as well as more contemporary fare.

Spice:
Flavors of the Eastern Mediterranean
In this beautifully realized, and much-anticipated cookbook, Oleana chef-owner Ana Sortun shows readers how to use the philosophy of spice to create wonderful Eastern Mediterranean dishes from their very own kitchens. Organized by spice, the book details the ways in which certain spices complement each other, helping the home cook gain confidence and a more intuitive way of using spices in their own cooking.

Blue Ginger:
East Meets West Cooking with Ming Tsai
In chef Ming Tsai’s first cookbook, the popular chef and TV host shares the technique and philosophy behind the award-winning east-meets-west-cuisine that’s put Blue Ginger, his Wellesley restaurant on the national culinary map. Bursting with tips for working with unfamiliar ingredients and preparations, Blue Ginger is an outstanding introduction to the pleasures of cross-cultural cooking.

Simply Ming:
Easy Techniques for East-Meets-West Meals
In his sophomore effort, Blue Ginger’s Ming Tsai applies his innovative east-meets-west skills to everyday cooking, transforming standard fare like spaghetti, burgers and chicken wings into delicious and exciting new dishes. With a versatile array of master recipes for sauces, rubs, dressings and more, Tsai minimizes last-minute prep and makes fusion fare approachable for the home cook.

Simply Ming:
Easy Techniques for East-Meets-West Meals
In Simply Ming One-Pot Meals (his first cookbook in seven years) Blue Ginger chef Ming Tsai tackles the four basic needs in everyday cooking today - taste, healthfulness, simplicity and affordability. Using ingredients that can be found easily online or at your local market, Tsai breaks 80 recipes down into seven techniques of one-pot cooking – braising, wokking, sautéing, roasting, steaming and flash frying, tossing and soups. Each recipe minds its fat intake and allergens (keeping it healthful); every dish costs roughly $20 for a family of four (keeping it economical); and each dish can be prepared in one vessel (keeping it simple).

Simple to Spectacular
How to Take One Basic Recipe to Four Levels of Sophistication
In Simple to Spectacular, two titans of the food world - Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Mark Bittman - have created a groundbreaking cookbook featuring 250 superb recipes arranged in a uniquely useful way: basic recipes (grouped by technique) accompanied by four increasingly sophisticated variations. This ingenious organization enables cooks of all levels of expertise to understand how a dish is created and to re-create it in their very own kitchen.

Asian Flavors of Jean Georges
Chef and restaurateur Jean-Georges Vongerichten brings together the best of his pan-Asian recipes, inspired by simple home cooking and street food, in one exciting book. The secret is his subtle and surprising combinations, introducing Asian flavors to traditional Western-style dishes and cooking techniques. From taste-tempting appetizers, soups, and salads, to irresistible fish, meat, poultry, and vegetable dishes, to special sauces and one-of-a-kind sweets, this collection will make dining at home as exciting as an evening out any of his fabulous restaurants.

Jean-Georges
Cooking at Home with a Four-Star Chef
With the help of award-winning coauthor Mark Bittman, Jean-Georges Vongerichten brings his sophisticated yet uncomplicated cuisine to the home kitchen. There are no mile-long lists of instructions, the recipes use readily available ingredients, and many can be prepared in thirty minutes or less. With these recipes, some taken directly from the menus at Jean Georges, Vong and JoJo, home cooks will feel like they're eating in a four-star restaurant.

Simple Cuisine
First published in 1990, Simple Cuisine has been declared a classic by publications like the New York Times and Eating Well magazine. Using simple, quick cooking techniques – steaming, sautéing, and stir-frying – and flavorful, low-fat sauces, Jean-Georges Vongerichten proves that robust restaurant tastes can be recreated by home cooks.

50 Chowders:
One Pot Meals - Clam, Corn, & Beyond
Chef Jasper White blows the lid off the whole genre with a cookbook featuring fifty chowder recipes that go well beyond corn and clam varieties. Once they master the chowder basics (real chowder consists of chunks of local seasonal ingredients served in a moderate amount of broth) home cooks will, with a little guidance from the man behind the seafood-laden menus at The Summer Shack, discover the diversity of ingredients that can be incorporated to create chowders like they never imagined.

The Summer Shack Cookbook:
The Complete Guide to Shore Food
Summer Shack chef-owner and seafood expert Jasper White brings the flavors and foods of summer in New England right into the home kitchen with this book of more than 200 easy-to-make recipes. White demystifies summertime favorites (like clam rolls or lobster rolls) and the requisite skills each one requires (like shucking clams and cracking open a lobster) so the home cook can enjoy the style, fun, and flavors of the shore all year long—without any fuss.

Lobster at Home
Lobster may seem like a luxurious special occasion treat but when enjoyed at home, lobster can make a relatively affordable and healthful meal – it’s low in calories and packed with Omega 3 acids. In 256 pages full of all sorts of words of wisdom, Summer Shack chef-owner Jasper White will walk the home cook through how to get the most from each delicious crustacean. The book explains everything (how to choose just the right lobster; how to steam it; and how to extract every last morsel of meat) and includes recipes that range from simple to sublime.

Jasper White's Cooking from New England:
More Than 300 Traditional Contemporary Recipes
Even before becoming Boston’s seafood maven, Summer Shack chef-owner Jasper White was considered an expert in all things New England – culinarily speaking, that is. In this, his first cookbook, he explores the wide-ranging depth of traditional and contemporary New England cookery, offering delicious recipes for fish, venison, poultry, and other foods. His dishes, steeped though they are in tradition, also reflect contemporary health concerns.

POSTED: 01/06/11

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