Everyday Cooking with Jacques Pépin

“In this companion volume to his new PBS-TV series, Jacques Pépin, master of technique, turns his formidable skills to the preparation of simple, inexpensive, yet terrific food. In ‘Everyday Cooking with Jacques Pépin’, the master chef and renowned cooking teacher shows you how to create incomparable meals with economy and ease. Using the most inexpensive cuts of meat and a host of hearty vegetable- and pasta-based entrées, he provides recipes that will feed a family for pennies while thoroughly pleasing the palate. He shows you how to transform leftovers into inspired creations, turning basic everyday staples such as eggs and potatoes into easy yet elegant soufflés, ragoûts, and gratins. In addition to enlarging your repertoire of recipes, Jacques Pépin gives a mini cooking class on every page so that you learn, through his own understanding of cooking, important basic fundamentals: why one dish needs a thicker white sauce than another; why certain salad greens need stronger dressings; how to make Melba toast that won’t curl or burn; how to chop onions to keep them white and fluffy; how to pan-fry fish so that its skin stays crispy. Encouraging “recipeless cooking,” Jacques Pépin teaches simple principles which, once mastered, enable you to improvise, using whatever ingredients you have on hand to come up with your own delectable creations. The recipes in this highly personal collection are culled from memories of the foods Jacques Pépin and his brothers grew up on in Lyon, and from the food he serves family and friends day to day in his Connecticut home. They prove how easy it is to cook well, without spending a lot of time and money, and to make memorable those everyday meals you enjoy at home.”–