From one of the world's best-known and most highly respected chefs comes a true publishing event: a fully up-to-date, one-volume edition of La Technique and La Methode, featuring step-by-step photographs of Pepin's hands on every page — along with his inimitably clear and concise instruction on each technique.

Jacques Pepin's Complete Techniques features everything the home cook needs to perfect his poach an egg, whisk a perfect hollandaise, knead a crispy baguette, or bake an exquisite meringue with the perfection and efficiency of a professional chef. Featured throughout the book, Pepin's classic recipes offer budding masters the opportunity to put lessons into practice with extraordinary results.

Moving from the basics (holding and sharpening knives, peeling vegetables, separating and poaching eggs, making stocks and sauces, carving meats, even folding napkins) through each food category (fish and shellfish, vegetables, poultry and meat, breads, pastry, and dessert), Jacques Pepin's Complete Techniques is the most comprehensive study of French cooking methods ever collected in one volume. It is sure to become an indispensable part of every home cook library for many years to come.

"When professionals work with ease and rapidity, it is a result of long years of practice and discipline. There are no secrets or tricks; only feats of skill (tours de main) acquired with prolonged effort. Through endless repetition, these techniques will become so much a part of you that you'll never forget them.

"People often tell me that what surprises them most is watching me cook and talk at the same time. This is because my hands are trained to the point where I do not have to think about the processes I use as I make a recipe — it's automatic. Instead of fighting the mechanics of cooking. I can concentrate on thinking about the combination of ingredients, about taste, and about texture. You may be very creative and imaginative in the kitchen, but you cannot take advantage of those qualities if you don't know the basics. A solid background must precede inventiveness." (Jacques Pepin, from the Introduction)

"This is the book that every aspiring cook should read before picking up a French knife. Concise, informative, indispensable." Anthony Bourdain, author of Kitchen Confidential and A Cook's Tour

"A through-going study of the skills of the kitchen as interpreted by an extraordinarily talented and skilled French chef. An invaluable book for anyone seriously interested in cooking with class." Helen McCully, former food editor, House Beautiful

The fully illustrated bible of cooking techniques from the world's best-known French chef is now available in paperback and one volume for the first time. 2,500 photos.

Jacques Pepin's landmark, fully illustrated guides to all of the cooking fundamentals, La Technique and La Methode, are finally available in one volume, fully updated by the author.

The publication of Jacques Pepin's Complete Techniques is sure to be celebrated by expert cooks and beginners alike. Here, the man Julia Child has called "not only a renowned chef, a foremost authority on French cuisine, a great teacher and...truly a master technician" provides easy-to-follow instructions for hundreds of culinary procedures and preparations, including:

Braising Beef - Breading Veal Scallopine - Carving Poached Salmon - Stuffing Sausage - Making Chocolate Cigarettes - Cleaning and Boning Trout - Cooking and Presenting Lobsters - Filling Cream Puffs - Filleting Fish - Folding Napkins - Topping Fruit Tarts - Making Green Noodles - Grilling Poultry - Holding the Knife - Using Ladyfingers - Lining Cake Pans - Making Pepper Steak - Rolling Pie Dough - Poaching Eggs - Preparing Mussels - Peeling Onions - Using Fish Stock - Creating Apple Swans - Separating Eggs - Making Sole Meuniere - Stuffing Mushrooms - Trimming and Cooking Meat - Braising Chicken Livers - Frying Parsley - Poaching Salmon - Carving Rib Roast - Baking Country Bread and Baguettes - Making Fruit Cake - Flaming Bananas - Glazing Cake with Fondant - Seeding a Cucumber - Cleaning Salad - Fluting Mushrooms - Coating a Cookie Sheet - Folding in Butter - Icing a Vodka Bottle - Shucking Oysters - Peeling and Preparing Green Peppers - Braising Lettuce - Trussing Poultry - and much more.

Jacques Pepin is one of America's best-known cookbook authors and cooking teachers, and has appeared regularly on PBS-TV for more than a decade, hosting or co-hosting with Julia Child or his daughter, Claudine, more than 300 cooking shows. A former New York Times columnist, he is a contributing editor to Food & Wine magazine and has published nineteen cookbooks. He serves as Dean of Special Programs at The French Culinary Institute in New York City and teaches at Boston University. Born in Bourg-en-Bresse, France, he was the personal chef to three French heads of state before moving to the United States in 1959. He now lives in Connecticut.

INTRODUCTION

EQUIPMENT 1

THE BASICS 5

SHELLFISH AND FISH 157

VEGETABLES 268

POULTRY AND MEAT 351

CARVING 530

BREADS 551

PASTRY AND DESSERT 581

CONVERSION TABLES 815

INDEX 819