Think Like a Chef

List Price: $22.50 Buy For: $15.30
Usually ships in 24 hours


Add to Cart


Compare New & Used Prices From All Available Merchants:

Type: Book
Studio: Clarkson Potter
Release Date: 2007-11-13
With Think Like a Chef, Tom Colicchio has created a new kind of cookbook. Rather than list a series of restaurant recipes, he uses simple steps to deconstruct a chef's creative process, making it easily available to any home cook.

He starts with techniques: What's roasting, for example, and how do you do it in the oven or on top of the stove? He also gets you comfortable with braising, sautéing, and making stocks and sauces. Next he introduces simple "ingredients" -- roasted tomatoes, say, or braised artichokes -- and tells you how to use them in a variety of ways. So those easy roasted tomatoes may be turned into anything from a vinaigrette to a caramelized tomato tart, with many delicious options in between.

In a section called Trilogies, Tom takes three ingredients and puts them together to make one dish that's quick and other dishes that are increasingly more involved. As Tom says, "Juxtaposed in interesting ways, these ingredients prove that the whole can be greater than the sum of their parts," and you'll agree once you've tasted the Ragout of Asparagus, Morels, and Ramps or the Baked Free-Form "Ravioli" -- both dishes made with the same trilogy of ingredients.

The final section of the books offers simple recipes for components -- from zucchini with lemon thyme to roasted endive with whole spices to boulangerie potatoes -- that can be used in endless combinations.

Written in Tom's warm and friendly voice and illustrated with glorious photographs of finished dishes, Think Like a Chef will bring out the master chef in all of us.


From the Hardcover edition.

Outstanding, best "cook-book" that I have seen in a long time!
This is really a great book on so many levels. For fans of Tom, or of his incredible hit show 'Top Chef' there are some really great insights into his life growing up and his personal development as a chef in the early parts of the book.

But a cook book should be judged on the merrits of what it adds to the information of a cook and on that level this book is also wildly successful in my opinion. This is not a book to pick up if you just want to have something packed cover-to-cover with new recipes - though the recipes in here are outstanding from those I have tried so far.

What is so great is this book tries to not just equip a home cook not just with a few more written recipes which they can follow, but to equip them with the ability and skill to see recipes for themselves and the knowledge and confidence to try new things themselves.

From the layout of chapters and information, to the content of the "teaching" to the recipes themselves this is a great book and is far and away the best cook book I've encountered in recent memories. I can't recomend it enough.

Think like a chef
my daughter was very happy with the book, she like's chef Tom and she's enjjoying cooking school

Excellent How to Cook, Book
Best part of this book is it gets into the details on how to cook, now just what to cook.

A nice approach to teaching the topic.
This book was a quick read for me. I made it through, with kids around, in a few hours. Based on previous reviews I thought it was more of a book, with some cookbook type recipes thrown in. Now that I've been through it, it's a cookbook, organized to teach a lesson, but still a cookbook. Lot's of mouth watering pictures, plenty of recipes, and very short stories on how and why you are doing what you are doing. Each "lesson" is a quick read. The recipes look great, and help you to hone your skills and learn the craft.

I think the author did a good job in bringing his technique to the masses, and I better understand now the magic that happens in a chef's brain that allows him/her to see a few ingredients and picture a complete meal. I also respect and agree with the premise of starting with the basics, braising, blanching, etc. As with most complex endeavors, a firm background in the basics makes all the difference.

There is one complaint that I have with this book, and perhaps it will go away if I can COOK my way through the book rather than read my way through (the recipes are there for practice, not just to eat). Although I see how the professional chef combines ingredients and techniques and the end result just happens, and I understand that what is fresh at the market tells you what to make, when I get to the fresh market, I'm still overwhelmed with what to pick and what to do. Mustard greens, fresh tomatoes, turnips, carrots, lettuce, etc, etc. What goes better with pork? Can I put corn and turkey together? Apples and chicken? It's like I need a color matching wheel to match foods together and I didn't get that out of this book. I still cannot see the end of the road, the final product, and always end up with too many shelled peas and having to run back for mushrooms, which I didn't even think about. I know others who put together meals easily on the fly, so it may be some mental block in my head but I still find myself backing my way into a recipe by picking one main ingredient, then looking for something that includes it, then hunting all over for all the other ingredients.

I did build a meal on the fly one time, as the author does and professes, and it was pure nirvana. The family loved it; the ingredients were all fresh from the garden and simply prepared, and spiced up with simple additions. But don't read this book thinking it'll have "the secret." Putting these combinations together requires knowledge and experience, neither of which is fully available from a book.

Informed Cooking
I very much like this book and much of it has helped me already in my cooking. Full of simple and logical ideas on how to cook, and cook better. I am well pleased and would recommend this book to anyone.