How to Cook Everything The Basics: All You Need to Make Great Food--With 1,000 Photos

Mark Bittman

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Mar 12, 2012 - Cooking - 496 pages

The next best thing to having Mark Bittman in the kitchen with you

Mark Bittman's highly acclaimed, bestselling book How to Cook Everything is an indispensable guide for any modern cook. With How to Cook Everything The Basics he reveals how truly easy it is to learn fundamental techniques and recipes. From dicing vegetables and roasting meat, to cooking building-block meals that include salads, soups, poultry, meats, fish, sides, and desserts, Bittman explains what every home cook, particularly novices, should know.

1,000 beautiful and instructive photographs throughout the book reveal key preparation details that make every dish inviting and accessible. With clear and straightforward directions, Bittman's practical tips and variation ideas, and visual cues that accompany each of the 185 recipes, cooking with How to Cook Everything The Basics is like having Bittman in the kitchen with you.

• This is the essential teaching cookbook, with 1,000 photos illustrating every technique and recipe; the result is a comprehensive reference that’s both visually stunning and utterly practical.
• Special Basics features scattered throughout simplify broad subjects with sections like “Think of Vegetables in Groups,” “How to Cook Any Grain,” and “5 Rules for Buying and Storing Seafood.”
• 600 demonstration photos each build on a step from the recipe to teach a core lesson, like “Cracking an Egg,” “Using Pasta Water,” “Recognizing Doneness,” and “Crimping the Pie Shut.”
• Detailed notes appear in blue type near selected images. Here Mark highlights what to look for during a particular step and offers handy advice and other helpful asides.
• Tips and variations let cooks hone their skills and be creative.

What people are saying

Great Instructional Cookbook

User Review  - madampince - Overstock.com

Im a selftaught cook and have never really familiarized myself with common techniques but Mark Bittmann has made it incredibly easy with this latest in the How to Cook Everything series. I own three ...

This book is excellent and easy to use.

User Review  - jesusfreak2 - Overstock.com

I was not sure what to expect when I order the book. But it turned out it was a great find. It is a hardback easy to read easy to follow great pictures great illustrations and it totally focuses on ...

Contents

• Getting Started: 1
• Breakfast: 41
• Appetizers and Snacks: 69
• Salads: 107
• Soups and Stews: 135
• Pasta and Grains: 171
• Vegetables and Beans: 215
• Meat: 263
• Poultry: 305
• Seafood: 345
• Breads: 381
• Desserts: 419
• Back Matter: 456
• Back Endpapers: 487

About the author

MARK BITTMAN is the author of more than thirty books, including the How to Cook Everything series and the #1 New York Times bestseller VB6: Eat Vegan Before 6:00 to Lose Weight and Restore Your Health . . . for Good. He was a food columnist, opinion columnist, and the lead magazine food writer at the New York Times, where he started writing in 1984 and remained for more than thirty years.
 
Bittman has starred in four television series, including Showtime’s Emmy-winning Years of Living Dangerously. He is a longtime Today regular and has made hundreds of television, radio, and podcast appearances, including on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Real Time with Bill Maher, and CBS’s The Dish; and on NPR’s All Things Considered, Fresh Air, and Morning Edition.
 
Bittman has written for countless publications and spoken at dozens of universities and conferences; his 2007 TED talk “What’s wrong with what we eat?” has almost five million views. He was a distinguished fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, and a fellow at the Union of Concerned Scientists. He has received six James Beard Awards, four IACP Awards, and numerous other honors.
 
Bittman is currently special advisor on food policy at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, where he teaches and hosts a lecture series. He is also the editor in chief of Heated. His most recent book is his history of food and humanity, Animal, Vegetable, Junk.

Bibliographic information

• Title: How to Cook Everything The Basics: All You Need to Make Great Food--With 1,000 Photos
• Author: Mark Bittman
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012
• ISBN: 0544186966, 9780544186965
• Length: 496 pages
• Subjects: Cooking / Methods / General; Cooking / Methods / Quick & Easy; Cooking / Reference; Cooking / Regional & Ethnic / American / General