Cookbook for Chef's on Herbs
Rating:
5 / 5
I've been gourmet cooking and growing most of my own herbs now for years, some successfully, and others not so. In looking for some aid with what ails my herb garden, sought this one out as possibility.
It provided what I needed and more. What I needed was some specific help with cultivation and amount of each herb for the kitchen. Exactly one of the main portions of this book. The bonus is the exciting recipe collection that composes this award winning cookbook.
Feast your eyes and tastebuds on: Roasted Asparagus Salad with Fried Sage; Smoked Trout and Corn Pudding; Individual Crab and Lemon Thyme Souffles with Chervil Sauce; Shrimp and Tarragon Risotto; Poached Salmon Fillets with Tarragon Sauce; Grilled Flank Steak with Oregano Marinade; Apple-Rosemary Souffle; Red Pepper and Hazlenut Sauce.
If you're serious about cooking, this is must have on your shelves. Herbs and fresh ones are a must, and this provides advice from a pro oriented towards whatever size garden one can have.
My favorite cookbook--Easy Elegance!
Rating:
5 / 5
Growing up in the Seattle area, the Herbfarm Restaurant was our local version of Napa's French Laundry: very difficult to get into, very expensive, but a 'must-do' culinary experience where you'd likely be served the meal of your life. In the late 90s, I worked with a guy who held another job as a part-time prep cook at the Herbfarm. After the restaurant burned down and chef Jerry Traunfeld was finishing up this cookbook during the re-build, that prep-cook brought in a few of the recipes for me to preview before the book went to press. After trying the pork with sage, onions and prosciutto served over toasted coriander mashed potatoes and runner beans with summer savory, I was hooked! I had to go out and buy the cookbook, and I still use it more than any other.Most of the recipes in this book contain only a few ingredients and are quick and easy to prepare (I'd say most can be put together on a busy weeknight), but you've never know it based on the flavor and presentation of the each dish. Other easy, elegant favorites of mine include: dilled chicken piccata, rosemary grilled chicken, the delicata squash with sage, the trout with rosemary and thyme...every recipe is delicious. Enjoy!
A real treasure
Rating:
5 / 5
The recipes in Jerry Traunfeld's The Herbfarm Cookbook will make your taste buds perk up and sing. And they'll have your friends begging for dinner invitations.After reading an essay by the author on growing herbs, I bought this book to learn about herb gardening. Three months later, I find it my favorite--and most-used-- new cookbook since I discovered Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking thirty-odd years ago. The Herbfarm Cookbook is not merely an extraordinary source of scrumptious recipes; it has transformed the way I cook--even the way I think about food. Traubman uses herbs to intensify the flavors of foods--in glorious combinations. He infuses the cream for a panna cotta with ginger and lavender or turns a simple white gazbacho into the essence of summer with the addition of mint, parsley and tarragon. Purees of fresh herbs form bases for relatively light yet rich-tasting sauces. While he may call for a half cup of basil here or � cups of tarragon there, none of his dishes are overpowered by a too-dominant flavor. In fact, the amazing thing about cooking with herbs in this manner is the way they underscore the tastes of star ingredients. Vegetables as ordinary as parsnips and carrots become sublime. The simplest roast chicken or linguine in clam sauce gains intriguing overtones and new interest.
Halibut roasted in an herbal green robe. Couscous salad with cumin, cilantro and apricots. Appetizers of broiled figs sprinkled with thyme on gorgonzola-slathered croutes or mussels on little beds of broiled mint pesto. Every recipe I have tried has been amazing. And most of them have been surprisingly simple. The author is the chef of one of America's most acclaimed restaurants. Yet his book is a joy for an amateur like me who doesn't keep truffles and foie gras on hand or have access to even one helper. Even the herbs are, for the most part, easy to find, and there are plenty of suggestions for substitutes. Best of all, cooking from this book has given me a firsthand understanding of the excitement of modern American cuisine. Bringing out the very essence of a food...giving the taste buds a new thrill of recognition...taking the familiar and making it new and wonderful. For someone who loves to explore ways of making food delicious, The Herbfarm Cookbook is a revelation. And by the way, it's also a fabulous guide to herb gardening.
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