Bouchon
by Thomas Keller
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Book Reviews of Bouchon
Book Review: Raising the Bistro Food Standards to High Level
Summary: 5 Stars
Keller is known as one who is serious about the best in food, both ingredients and technique joining to provide the ultimate culinary experience. From firsthand experience I will attest that until one trys his approach personally, the suspicion of why all this extreme effort and care will not pay off. However, attestation can also be given to once invoked, this guy's skill and attention does pay off: I tried his unique Bliny recipe with huge payoff! Never going to use another nor purhase Bliny again.
Here he shifts from the French Laundry approach to one his favorite ways of dining, French bistro style. For him bistro is about technique, so he refines and refines the refinement to a high standard which is provided here in this large format recipe collection.
Keller teamed up with Jeff Corciello to form Bouchon, dedicated to the best in bistro. Their outpouring here is enhanced by the same high standards of publishing which gave us the French Laundry Cookbook, huge format with rich photographay and grand wordsmithing by Michael Ruhlman. This collaborative team produces a huge resource that is magnificent in its style and layout, easy to keep spread open and cook with.
The recipes exude the bistro style of few, usually plain ingredients prepared in tried and true technique, here enhanced by Keller and associates to the ultimate level of richness and taste explosion.
An example of this care of prep can be exhibited by one of my favorites here taken to heights: Roasted Beet Salad. His tips of selection and prep are key, and for best results should be adhered to: buy beets with tops attached, utilizing fresh squeezed OJ. This is sensuous salad, which I can vouch even non-beet lovers will!
Second, if you're a afficianado of Onion Soup, here is the recipe, carefully crafted and layered for unbelievable result! How about two pages of intro about the vessel, carmelization, size of onion slices, broth vs. salt, etc. before even beginning? This is the care and extent to which this collection goes, so the naive cookbook owner who doesn't share this passion to truly turn out a work of love in an Onion Soup will be repelled by such. For those who love providing such, this recipe is typical of this collection. Rewarding will be the effort.
There are truly some true gems of recipes here! Try the likes of Duck Confit with Brussels Sprouts and Mustard Sauce. Or Cod with a Stew of Sweet Peppers. Braised Beef with Red Wine has been tried by this reviewer from many different sources in many different creations, but this one is special, due to the details here suggested in the Bouchon refinements of the classic.
For finisher, try the succulent Apple Ice Cream with Calvados, made with a creme fraiche base which gives it a richness level to delight! Also, the Profiteroles for the Cream Puffs with Vanilla Ice Cream and Chocolate Sauce will satisfy and excite the Chocolate Lover in your dining group!
There is a Basic Building Block Section for prep and technique as well as brief one page listing of sources.
This will remain untouched by many who buy or recieve this who are not yet to the point of taking time and patience of lavish food preparation with the best in ingredients. This book does have the distinct advantage though of not the exotic ingredients of the French Laundry fame, although it will be intimiating for many. For those however, this will be a beautiful coffeetable work.
Book Review: A Gold Standard For French Bistro Cuisine
Summary: 5 Stars
Bouchon is a beautifully photographed coffee table cookbook. Its 360 pages are filled with some of the restaurant's most popular recipes that have been tested for the home cook. Keller provides detailed instructions, essays and informative tips and techniques to achieve French bistro perfection.
Keller, chef and proprietor of The French Laundry, opened Bouchon in Napa Valley in 1998. Unlike The French Laundry, Bouchon is fashioned after the many bistros in France, with bistro comfort food that Keller truly enjoys. Keller explains in his introduction that "bistro food is not about specialized ingredients, rather it is about precision of technique brought to bear on ordinary ingredients."
Bouchon covers the vast array of classic French bistro fare, everything from hors d'oeuvres, onion soup, frisee salad with bacon and poached egg, quiches, savory tarts, croque madame and other sandwiches, mussels, stews, roasts, and steak frites to crème caramel, chocolate mousse, dessert tarts and even profiteroles. Dishes are stylishly photographed. Close-up photos allow the reader to see proper techniques and results.
Recipes titles are in both English and French. The recipe for My Favorite Simple Chicken-Mon Poulet Roti has only six simple ingredients. Keller explains to salt and pepper the cavity, how to truss the bird, and provides valuable tips and techniques to achieve a crisp, salty and flavorful skin. The adventurous cook will find recipes, like boeuf bourguignon and duck confit, well laid out.
"The Importance of Onion Soup", one of the twelve informational essays, demonstrates Keller's passion for his craft and a true respect for high-quality ingredients. His sidebars, tips and techniques offered throughout the book, explain how the home cook can achieve perfect, satisfying results. A mini cooking lesson captured on each page that will engross the reader.
The last chapter, "Basic Preparation and Techniques", will allow the home cook to lay the foundation that so important to build upon. It includes recipes to prepare stocks, sauces, aioli, butters and sweet dough and creams. How to prepare a bouquet garni or sachet is also covered, as well as, instructions for brining.
Like Julia Child's, Mastering the Art of French Cooking; Keller and his collaborators have created the gold standard for classic French bistro cuisine. This alluring book will have the reader starting at the beginning and working their way through to the end. A must-have for any lover of French food.
Book Review: Simple doesn't mean fast
Summary: 5 Stars
Keller's homage to simple French bistro fare (after "The French Laundry Cookbook") wins the knock-your-chef's-hat-off prize for stunning presentation. For starters, you need to lift this oversized 6.5 pound book with both hands. Open it at random and you're likely to land on a two-page close-up of ingredients or finished presentation, or maybe Keller demonstrating technique. The recipes also spread across two pages
"I used to joke that I opened Bouchon, styled after the bistros of Paris, so that I'd have a place to eat after cooking all night at the French Laundry." (his elegant white-tablecloth restaurant next door in the Napa Valley). In this book he emphasizes technique above all, and interspersed in each chapter (organized by course) are brief essays on "The importance of" the pig, brown butter, slow cooking, glazing and more. He also gives brand and tool recommendations and includes a list of sources.
This may be "homey" fare, but most home cooks aren't going to caramelize the onions for their onion soup for five hours and frogs legs and stuffed duck neck aren't likely to appear at many New England tables. There is a tantalizing little section on potted foods, including a Foie Gras Terrine and Rabbit Pāté and recipes for Duck Confit and Rabbit Confit are simple, time-consuming dishes to warm up a gloomy weekend.
Most of the fare is classic, traditional and inspiring. Like Boeuf Bourguignon (Braised Beef with Red Wine), or several versions of Roast Chicken, and Crepes with Chicken and Morels to use up the leftovers. Salads include Lentils Vinaigrette and Roasted Beet; among the side dishes are Macaroni Gratin and Gnocchi with Mushroom and Butternut Squash, and Desserts include Profiteroles and French Toast with Apricots. The final chapter, Basic Preparations and Techniques, is the most important, including the "building blocks" of confits, sauces, and stocks and the all-important, patient, techniques.
This is a book for the home cook who enjoys spending weekends building the blocks for sumptuous weeknight fare. It also would look great on the coffee table.
Book Review: nice watch - shame about the book design
Summary: 3 Stars
My immediate reaction on unpacking this was 'yuck'. This is the book equivalent of a roast chicken with little paper toques on the legs - the target audience looks to be the sort of people who enjoy reading in-flight magazines, and who store the major part of their libraries under the coffee table. This first reaction was immediately reinforced by sentences that told me things like that 'a good quiche is like sex' (or maybe 'a quiche is like good sex' - I'm not sure, I quote from memory), and a general impression that Keller is to Bistro food what Marie-Antoinette was to cheese making.
Nevertheless, if you can muscle your way past the gag reflex, there are a healthy number of good ideas and recipes here within a coherent (if somewhat Baroque) framing perspective.
In summary, technical content is actually very good, but I won't be filing it beside Elizabeth David, where people can see it.
One other thing - does Keller have a watch endorsement deal? A large chunk of expensive looking (but not actually identifiable) steel is on display on his wrist in many of the pictures - I don't think I have ever seen a watch on a chef's wrist before in technique photos, never mind displayed so prominently).
Note added (31.05.08) W.r.t. watches, it appears Keller is just ahead of the curve: I just got Heston Blumenthal's two 'Perfection' books in the mail, and he also sports a large chunk of mechanical timepiece. Blumenthal's books are infinitely more attractive than Keller's - if nothing else, Blumenthal has a well-developed sense of irony, something Keller appears completely to lack.
Book Review: Keller restrained by his own obsessiveness . . .
Summary: 5 Stars
Having said that, I love the book and have a great respect for Keller as a chef and even as a cookbook author. While his tone is a bit dry and lecturing, he is an articulate and effective teacher. Keeping in mind, however, the type of cuisine we're dealing with here - Bistro food - Keller misses the point for the home cook. Bistro food is casual, economic and comforting. You can't help but draw comparisons to Tony Bourdain's cookbook on the same subject which was released at relatively the same time. Bourdain will say that the home French cook crafted this food to make certain food more appetizing and nurturing for his or her family. Hence, Bourdain's insistence on the inclusion of his "Blood and Guts" chapter - a French cook would use the "whole animal," so to speak, in order to economize on and maximize the animal's use as food for the family.
While I'm "shocked and awed" by Keller's endless use of technique, it does border on the obsessive. If you are a career chef and want to make the best possible Bistro food, then this is the way to go. If you just want to up the ante on your family's dinner repertoire or impress the friends with boeuf bourginon but not spend countless hours in the kitchen and prodigious amounts of mental energy worrying about the clarity of your sauce, then eschew this book (or banish it to the coffee table) and pick up Bourdain's book instead.