Alison Walker (1)

If you are looking to bring a bit of a traditional country feel into your kitchen then The Essential Cook’s Kitchen can help. Covering topics such as curing, bottling, cheesemaking, cakes, breads, and pastry the author hopes to help you adapt country cooking to fit your lifestyle.

Using modern technology, and old-fashioned techniques, the author brings you country cooking joy. Simple, hearty, thrifty, honest food is how the author describes it. And that is exactly what you get.

The basic chapters covered are:

Baking
Dairy
Preserving
Bottling & Liqueurs
Curing & Potting

Each section includes detailed information regarding ingredients, equipment, techniques and other information you will need to proceed. The recipes for each chapter begin with the basics and work their way up from there.

Many of the basic recipes include step-by-step photos to help you along the way. The rest of the recipes include full color photos, most of them full page as well.

Perfect Encyclopedia Of Country Cooking

This is the kind of cookbook that you will refer to again and again. It has excellent references from which you can build a more extensive repertoire.

It covers a wide variety of recipes, from simple to complex, something for every occasion. There aren’t a lot of surprises in the recipes offered, the beauty is in the level of detail in helping you create them.

Taken in order, the recipes increase in difficulty, until you have the skills needed to complete the more complex creations. Start with jams, try some chutney, then move on to pickling!

I particularly liked how the author included bottling instructions after the preserves recipes. I have always been a little intimidated by the “canning“ process, and feel a little bit more confident now.

In all, this is an excellent resource and would make a terrific gift as well. Beautifully presented and full of information that even an experienced country cook would refer to often.

See the full review and the recipe for Basil Oil at The RecipesNow! Reviews And Recipes Magazine. This review is written in response to a complimentary hard copy of the book provided by the publisher in hopes of an honest review.… (mais)