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Look & Cook by Anne Willan may be the simplest,
yet most useful cookbook you can buy. If you have every gotten
halfway through a recipe before realizing that you didn't
have the right equipment or that you didn't fully understand
a certain cooking technique, Look & Cook has the
perfect approach. Not only is every finished recipe shown,
but there are also additional photographs of every ingredient
and piece of equipment you will be using. You will know at
a glance if you have the correct accouterments to make each
recipe.
But what separates this cookbook from all the others that
I have used is that every step of the cooking process
is again, fully photographed. If you have ever blown off a
recipe because you didn't understand how to truss a chicken
or julienne vegetables, Look and Cook holds your hand
every step of the way--making it a fantastic guide for the
new or timid cook. All intimidating terms and techniques are
clearly defined, both verbally and visually.
Also every recipe has a variation. So if Chicken with Curry
Dressing and Saffron Rice sounds a little suspicious, try
Chicken with Tarragon Dressing and Rice. And again, every
finished product has a picture.
Although there are a number of delicious recipes that only
require 10-20 minutes of actual work time, some of the recipes
do require a little bit of a time commitment. Lots of extra
chopping, slicing, mixing and whatnot can keep you chained
to the stove for up to an hour or more. But, as you might
expect: forgetting nothing, Willan estimates both the work
time and the cooking time at the beginning of each recipe.
The Look & Cook series not only includes the
Chicken Classics, but also books featuring appetizers, desserts,
Asian cooking and many more. Every book essentially provides
an at-home cooking school for dozens of fabulous recipes.
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