How to Cook Everything Fast

Starred review from August 4, 2014
New York Times food writer Bittman returns with his How to Cook series, this time focusing on recipes that consider preparation time. Bittman believes we all have time to cook, we just need better recipes—and he does an excellent job of providing these dishes. Fast cooking according to Bittman means strategy, not compromise, and he delivers on his promise of “delicious food prepared from real ingredients—and quickly.” Recipes that seem complex are broken down and reconstructed in Bittman’s signature style, rendered easier and simpler, without losing flavor. The theme of faster, better, extends to ingredients, equipment and techniques, as well as to the recipes. Salads include asparagus and kale caesar salad, and a crab and celery root remoulade. Classic sandwiches like an eggplant parmesan sub, and a chicken salad, embellished with grapes and rosemary, are featured, as are reworked favorites like linguine with clams; sesame chicken with snow peas; and a skillet meat loaf. At over a thousand pages, Bittman has delivered another brilliant, comprehensive reference.

August 1, 2014

The latest addition to Bittman's best-selling "How To Cook Everything" series focuses on homemade meals made with minimal work. Bittman has ditched the traditional practice of mise en place (preparing all ingredients in advance) in favor of a "real-time cooking" method that maximizes efficiency. In introductory sections, he advocates a less-is-more approach to stocking a kitchen and pantry, telling readers which shortcuts are useful (canned beans) and which should be skipped (pregrated Parmesan). Hundreds of recipes are smartly speedy--three-cheese lasagna substitutes egg roll wrappers for uncooked noodles, and unstuffed cabbage eliminates a traditionally time-consuming step. Prep and cooking instructions, denoted by contrasting colors, are easy to read, and sidebars offer variations, notes, and suggested side dishes. The recipes mostly stand alone; readers who'd like an efficient method for multicourse meals may enjoy Jamie Oliver's Meals in Minutes. VERDICT Bittman's latest is fantastic for busy, novice, and noncooks. It's also a practical tool for anyone who aspires but struggles to cook more often.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from October 1, 2014
Serious cooks may extol the thoughtful deliberateness of the slow-food movement, but most people with a daily responsibility to get dinner on the table more often than not must bow to time constraints that govern what's in fact possible to put on the family table. This 1,000-page compendium of speedy recipes avoids the lame shortcuts of overprocessed foods, calling only for pantry staples to supplement fresh meats, fruits, and vegetables. From just such a larder, Bittman creates a spicy Brazilian feijoada. In less than a half hour, dinner is ready, and he guides cooks to recipes for appropriate side dishes. Want to simplify even further? Bittman has alternatives. Want to make the dish even fresher? Bittman tells how. Want French instead of Brazilian? Just swap a few ingredients and transform feijoada into cassoulet. And there are hundreds more recipes, each fully and multidimensionally developed. The toughest challenge for the cook is hefting this brick of a tome onto the kitchen counter.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)