I like to cook, and lately I’ve been interested in reading up on cooking technique, so I can improve my home cooking skills. I’ve also been trying to find books explaining how cooking processes work – stuff along the lines of McGee’s On Food and Cooking, or Alton Brown’s I’m Just Here for the Food. I read the Alton Brown book recently and thought it had useful information. I’ve tried to read the McGee book about six times now, and have gleaned some useful stuff from it, but am finding it impossible to read straight through. I guess it’s a bit dense for me.
Anyway, I’m looking not for actual cookbooks, but for books explaining the how and why of cooking… how to properly sear a steak, why eggs cook the way they do, and that sort of thing. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
The Joy of Cooking (originally by Irma Rombauer, with others in later editions) is an old standard. It has lots of recipes, but each section opens with background info on the major ingredients and techniques. I, at least, wouldn’t even try reading it through, but it’s great to dip into.
I’m with Minnie Purl on this one, though I think Shirley Corriher’s CookWise is probably closer to what you’re looking for than How to Cook Without a Book (which I also frequently recommend to people). Another title to check out is Robert Wolke’s What Einstein Told His Cook: Kitchen Science Explained.
If you have a local university that teaches a food prep curriculum, ask them what text they use, then go to the U. book store and purchase it. Or order “The Professional Chef” by the Culinary Institute of America from Amazon. This is the definitive text for those in chef school. It tells you not only the how, but the why for the questions you mentioned.
You will learn something and be thoroughly entertained if you read The Man Who Ate Everything by Jeffrey Steingarten and Cooking for Mr. Latte by Amanda Hesser.
It is more about the how than the why, but a useful book to have around is Jacques Pepin’s Complete Techniques. It provides step-by-step lessons with pictures on how to perform just about any cooking task you can imagine, from chopping an onion to roasting a chicken to icing a vodka bottle.
I have the first two books on this list, by Nigel Slater, and they’re absolutely without doubt the best cookery books I’ve ever read. They teach you very comprehensibly about techniques and also the best approaches to cooking - i.e. it’s fun - don’t sweat it for God’s sake - and the recipes are totally sublime. He’s a genius.
Oh, sorry. Here’s a better link - and if that doesn’t work, type “Nigel Slater” into the search box of Amazon.com. The books I have are “Nigel Slater’s Real Food” and “Appetite”, though I hear the others are very good too. Make sure you buy the US editions, as cooking measurements and terms vary across the Atlantic!