In the Kitchen with Le Cordon Bleu Paperback – 18 Mar. 2013

Book was purchased as a present for a friend who enjoys cooking dinner parties. Just though it might add a different dimension to her already extensive collection as it was not just recipes. Although some of the tips were a little basic the book gave many helpful tips.

As said many times above, when you pay 46 dollars for a book from Cordon Bleu you are expecting just a bit more than the floppy thin magazine wanna-be thing that came in the post today .. such a tiny font I need my magnifying glass to read the recipes .. complete rip off DO NOT BUY THIS

This is awesome

I have made three recipes from this cookbook so far with the last one done last night. My husband is a picky eater and he loved all of them. My first recipe was prawns with an avocado cream. The second was a beef tenderloin roast with five peppercorns and a sauce with port and cognac and Demi-glacé. I also made potatoes au gratin. Half the roast disappeared the first night. Lobster and care mini mushroom brochettes came next and last night was Le Cordon Bleu's version of chicken teriyaki. The recipes are easy to understand and Whole Foods carries just about all of the ingredients. This is a fun cookbook to use.

In the Kitchen is a lovely book with 100 recipes from the chefs of one of the most famous cooking schools in the world, Le Cordon Bleu. SO, this is formal French cooking -- small portions prepared using classic techniques and elegantly presented. These recipes are NOT for a Tuesday night quick dinner, but if you are making dinner for company, or someone special, and you're an experienced chef or a decent cook ready to master more formal preparations, you will find some wonderful dishes here, with a range of difficulty. I've tried several recipes so far: one came out exactly like the picture and tasted great, the other two tasted great but didn't look as nice ... but that's not their fault!There is a nice introduction that tells how this culinary institution got started, followed by chapters on: Appetizers; Small Plates; Soups; Salads; Fish; Chicken and Duck; Lamb, Beef and Veal; Pork and Game; Pasta and Vegetarian; Sides; Desserts; and Stocks, Cooking Liquids and Pastes, as well as chapters on techniques, conversion charts, a glossary, a directory to the schools, and a very good index. Each chapter has 8-10 recipes. One sample chapter is Sides, which contains: Barley Risotto, Polenta Cakes, Cream of Lentils, Ricotta Gnocchi, Asparagus with Paloise Sauce; Asparagus with Soy and Wasabi, Red and Gold Beet Puree, Orange-Glazed Daikon Radish, Celeriac and Apple Gratin, Celeriac Puree, Green Pea Puree with Smoked Bacon, Jerusalem Artichoke Puree, Grilled Vegetables with Lemon and Saffron Vinaigrette, Layered Vegetable Gratin, Porcini Mushroom Flan, Duchesse Potatoes, Potato Stacks, Potato Millefeuille, Potato Puree with Truffles, Potato Mousseline, Spicy Potato Puree with Chorizo sausage, Oven-Roasted Tomatoes with Herbs, and Turnip Puree with Lemon and Walnut Oil. Yum!Many, but not all, recipes have color pictures, augmented with black & white pictures of chefs at work. Also scattered throughout are Chef's Tips; I found these short sidebars about ingredients, culinary history and techniques to be really helpful and interesting. The recipes are well organized and clearly written in a nice clean font, with measurements given in metric and English.This is not a cookbook for a beginner, but if you are interested in trying classic French technique, wowing a boss or sweetheart, or you just want to look at dreamy luscious cuisine, this could be the book for you.

It seems to me that anyone looking to really benefit from a book like this should be a fairly skilled home cook to begin with. I'm only an intermediate level cook myself and while some of these recipes are workable for me (e.g., Thai kabobs, et al...), there are others where I'm not so sure.For me, the issue is with French technique. It's hard to find fault with the methods and procedures, but it's really a question of how much one wishes to invest. I look at some of the recipes here and find myself wondering: "will it be worth the time and energy?"I encountered the same thing with many of Thomas Keller's recipes (in the French Laundry, Ad Hoc at Home, and Bouchon). Being a subscriber to the notion of brevity as the soul of wit - and of good eats - I'm interested in a healthy balance between time spent and results obtained ... and persnicketiness can be tiresome. I'm not saying this to criticize those with a focus on precision and I do love going to restaurants where such detail is on display by professionals.But I'm a home cook and only part-time foodie. Of course, there are some dishes that are approachable and make a lot of sense to me, such as the Kashmiri-Style Chicken Korma, Prawns with Avocado Cream, Beef Tenderloin with Five Peppers, Polenta Cakes, Creme Brulee, Potatoes au Gratin, and the aforementioned Thai Kabobs.Look and feel of the book is good, but nothing special. Paperback is not the way to go here, in my opinion. I would also have preferred to see the photography devoted to step-by-step breakdowns of the techniques, rather than chefs doing what chefs do. This is after all a book of recipes, so it seems to me the focus should stay on the food.Overall, I'd say this is an interesting addition to the collection, but not essential. I've honestly had more luck with my Cook's Illustrated Cookbook. That said, it really depends on the type of cook you are and how much time you're comfortable investing. I think there are some very good recipes to be found here.