How to Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food

Great food is simple to prepare. Mark Bittman has written a comprehensive book for every cook—aspiring and experienced—who longs for simple recipes that yield delicious food. It is for first-time cooks who want to learn the basics of good cooking from a reliable, contemporary source. It is for cooks who are time-pressed and need to get healthful meals on the table with a minimum of fuss. It is for old pros who yearn to brighten their repertoires with innovative recipes and tempting flavors. This is the cookbook of today's generation of cooks, setting new standards in good home cooking. How to Cook Everything^™ was written for you. Here are more than 1500 recipes and variations for all occasions that reflect the way you cook today. The recipes are simple to prepare. More than half can be completed in less than 30 minutes, and many more in less than 60 minutes. The emphasis is on fresh, widely available ingredients, basic equipment, and healthful techniques. How to Cook Everything^™ covers, quite literally, everything. The recipes are accompanied by sound advice on serving suggestions and time-saving techniques. More than 250 explicit step-by-step illustrations make preparation easier than ever. If you want to prepare healthful, delicious food with confidence and ease; if you are searching for a collection of reliable recipes that reflect the pure flavors and simple techniques of contemporary cooking; if you enjoy a cooking experience that is both pleasurable and creative; How to Cook Everything^™ is the book you will want to own. You'll find these special features and many others in this extraordinary book:

• Over 1500 inspired recipes and clever variations for all occasions
• Cooking times for every recipe
• Roasting times and temperatures as well as measurement conversions
• More than 250 detailed drawings of food preparation techniques, plus a list of the illustrations for easy reference
• Numbered steps in every recipe for ease in keeping your place
• Helpful sidebars, such as "Twenty-Three Pasta Sauces You Can Make in Advance"
• An exhaustive menu-suggestion section
• A vast glossary of terms and techniques
• A comprehensive index that makes finding what you need a snap
• A selected list of mail-order sources
• A list of recipes that take only 30 minutes or less to complete
• A list of recipes that take 60 minutes or less to complete.

Nationally known cooking authority Mark Bittman shows readers how to prepare great food for all occasions using simple techniques, fresh ingredients, and basic kitchen equipment in this relaxed, straightforward approach to cooking.

How do you update a classic? For his bestselling, award-winning How to Cook Everything—the modern bible of home cooking—Mark Bittman started from scratch, going page by page, recipe by recipe, carefully blending the best of the beloved original with appealing new recipes and fresh, current information. The result is an even more useful and authoritative cookbook, ready to inform, inspire, and guide new and accomplished cooks alike—the single book to turn to for every kitchen endeavor.

Bittman has added hundreds of new dishes, and completely updated the remaining recipes and every line of guidance. New features abound: Each chapter now opens with "Essential Recipes," a section that highlights the core dishes for every cook's repertoire, such as building blocks for simple soups or ten ways to cook any seafood. He has also expanded the chapters on vegetables and fruits, grains, beans, and desserts. New charts will help you customize recipes with a variety of flavors and ingredients, and new how-to illustrations bring the total to nearly 400. With this revision, Bittman also tags fast, make-ahead, and vegetarian recipes with icons for easy menu planning.

The new How to Cook Everything provides a lifetime's worth of quick, simple, and delicious options. Its 2,000 recipes and variations cover everything from Pad Thai and Carrot Salad with Cumin to Simplest Whole Roast Chicken, Six Ways and Traditional Apple Pie. All of the recipes are easy to prepare—more than half can be completed in 30 minutes (many in even less time)—and none requires special equipment or fancy techniques. Throughout, the emphasis is on fresh, widely available ingredients and healthy, uncomplicated preparations.

As always, Bittman's recipes are instantly appealing, uniquely accessible, and refreshingly straightforward. And many of the special features you loved in the original are still here, too, fully updated. Bittman's thoughtful and inspiring sidebars and lists (like "Twenty-Five Pasta Sauces You Can Make in Advance") and suggested menus for every occasion make How to Cook Everything more valuable and indispensable than ever—the one cookbook you need for fast and flavorful home-cooked food every day of the year.

Mark Bittmanis among the country's most widely respected and beloved food writers and home cooks. His must-see weekly New York Timescolumn and videos, "The Minimalist," and his regular appearances on the Today show showcase his mastery of teaching the art of cooking. Bittman has written more than a dozen cookbooks, including the blockbuster How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. He is also the host of an ongoing series of public television shows based on How to Cook Everythingand other books.

 Acknowledgments.

Introduction.

Kitchen Basics.

Sauces, Condiments, Herbs, and Spices.

Appetizers.

Soups.

Sandwiches and Pizza.

Salads.

Vegetables and Fruit.

Beans.

Grains.

Pasta, Noodles, and Dumplings.

Fish and Shellfish.

Poultry.

Meat.

Eggs, Breakfast, and Dairy.

Bread.

Desserts.

Menus.

The 102 Essential Recipes in This Book.

My Top 100 Fast Recipes.

My Top 100 Make-Ahead Recipes.

My Top 100 Vegetarian Recipes.

Sources.

Index.