Kristen Kish Cooking

I’ve got another cookbook review for you today–Kristen Kish Cooking! If her name sounds familiar, it may be because you recognize her as the winner from Season 10 of Top Chef!

Kristen Kish Cooking: Recipes and Techniques

By Kristen Kish with Meredith Erickson

Genre: Food/Cooking
Pages: 287

Kristen Kish Cooking starts off with an introduction on how she got started in the world of culinary arts–I really liked how candid she was, and I loved reading about her experience on Top Chef. (I avoid reality TV like the plague, but I make an exception for show about food.)

“Techniques and Terms” goes over primary techniques (e.g. blanching, braising, brining, curing, emulsifying, frying, smoking, searing, reducing, rendering, pickling, making custard, confit, fresh pasta, meringue…just to name a few) and different cooking terms. I really enjoyed this section because there are still a lot of things I’ve never tried with cooking, simply because I never knew how–I think there’s a lot I could learn to do with this book! :]

Afterward, it’s divided into the following chapters:

• Snacks
• Beginnings
• From the Sea
• Pasta and Grains
• Meat
• Sweet
• Acknowledgements
• Index

Snacks includes recipes for Seared Avocado Salad, Puffed Rice Crackers, Potato and Mushroom Toast, Roasted Garlic Scapes…

Beginnings includes recipes like Roasted Whole Hen-of-the-Woods, Squash and Coconut Milk Custard, Egg Pudding, Smoked Vegetable Salad…

From the Sea includes recipes for Hamachi (with Sweet Onion, Bacon, Miso, + Potato–pictured above!), Steamed Red Snapper (with Sorrel, Crispy Fish Skin, Hazelnut Oil), Octopus (with Chorizo Puree + Celery Salad), Lobster (with Brioche Sauce, Lemon, Celery, Black Truffle)…

Pasta and Grains teaches you how to make your own pasta(!). It includes a recipe for basic pasta dough, as well as recipes like Tagliatelle with Champignon Sauce, Rigatoni with Walnuts, Bechamel, Sage + Fried Shallot, Cavatelli with Corn, Roasted Tomato, and Thai Basil…

Fried Chicken Thigh (with Caramelized Honey, Calabrian Chile, Labneh)

The “Meat” chapter includes recipes for Seared Foie Gras (with Honey Tea Broth, Husk Cherry + Brioche Crumble), Cornish Game Hen (with Parmesan Sauce, Cipollini Onion + Celery), Braised Beef Cheeks (Fines Herbes, White Miso Potato Puree), Stuffed Cabbage Rolls, and some other more exotic recipes (e.g. rabbit loin, veal sweatbreads)…

“Sweet,” if you haven’t already guessed, is the dessert chapter, and probably my favorite chapter aside from the pasta one! :] Everything looks amaazing. Examples of things you could learn to make from here include Whipped Mascarpone (with Fig, Rose Water, Pistachio), Jasmine Tea Ice Cream (with Toasted Rice Pudding, Seville Orange–pictured above!), Matcha Custard (with Berries, Sable, Olive Oil), Sprouted Grain Cake (with Chocolate Peanut Caramel Mousse, Salted Vanilla Custard Ice Cream)…

Fried Sweet Buns

There are over 80 recipes in Kristen Kish Cooking, and each includes the serving size, a short introduction, a list of ingredients, the instructions, some tips/notes where applicable, and suggestions on how to serve it. I liked that each of em’ also included the different cooking techniques that the recipe would require (so you can go back to the 2nd chapter to refresh if you need to)!

This cookbook kindasorta reminded me of Seven Spoons, in that it’ll likely have to be a cookbook I “work up to.” I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see the recipes shared in this book showing up in a super high-class restaurant (if it hasn’t already!)–I’ll be starting with the less complicated recipes first! ;o

• Do you watch Top Chef or any other cooking shows?
• What’s the fanciest dish you’ve ever made?!

Check out my other book reviews!