The Basic Basics How to Cook from A-Z

This is the handbook for the starter cook – ingredients and techniques are listed alphabetically for quick and easy reference – everything from Apples to Zesting. Want to know how to make croutons? Want to know how to poach an egg? Never remember how to cook corn on the cob? You’ll find it here. With over 150 entries, this book does what no recipe book does, it gives you the basic methods and techniques for preparing vegetables, fruits, meat, fish, poultry, grains, legumes, pulses, breads, pasta, - with advice on how to clean, store, prepare and cook each ingredient. There are many line drawings clearly showing techniques such as dicing, slicing, coring fruit, rubbing in fat. Where appropriate there are very simple recipes which will use the skills you will develop from reading the book. Not only is this unique book essential for the beginner, it is also perfect for the experienced cook as well, in providing all those basics that most of today’s sophisticated, complicated chef-orientated cookbooks never have in them.

Janet Macdonald has published books on numerous subjects. Her first book on naval history was Feeding Nelson's Navy: The True Story of Food at Sea in the Georgian Era; her second, the British Navy's Victualling Board, 1793-1815: Management Competence and Incompetence. She took her MA in Maritime History at the Greenwich Maritime Institute, London, and her PhD at King's College London, where she was awarded a Laughton Scholarship. Her thesis was on the administration of naval victualling. Her most recent books are From Boiled Beef to Chicken Tikka: 500 Years of Feeding the British Army, Sir John Moore: The Making of a Controversial Hero, Horses in the British Army 1750-1850 and Supplying the British Army in the First World War.

This is a handbook for the starter cook. Ingredients and techniques are listed alphabetically for quick and easy reference, and it provides the basic methods and techniques for dealing with vegetables, fruits, meat, fish, poultry, grains, legumes, pulses, breads and pasta, with advice on how to clean, store, prepare and cook each entry. Line drawings illustrate techniques such as dicing, slicing, coring fruit and rubbing in fat, and where appropriate a very simple recipe - such as a basic broth or pie - is included, which allows the reader to develop the skills demonstrated. Entries also cover simple but easily-forgotten information such as how to poach an egg, the quantities for a Yorkshire pudding batter, and what temperature to roast a chicken at.

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