The best Appetizer Cooking books: Reddit reviews

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

It's this one! There's food in there too, but the drinks are what I got it for. Ended up expanding my bar quite a bit with things I normally didn't stock, because of all the post-it marked pages with things I wanted to try.

That's an excellent book, let me add two more modern sauce books that might be a bit easier to understand and use, esp. for a beginner:

https://smile.amazon.com/Sauces-Classical-Contemporary-Making-Fourth/dp/0544819829 (my all-time favorite)

https://smile.amazon.com/Modern-Sauces-More-Recipes-Every/dp/0811878384

James Peterson's Sauces and Splendid Soups are a good place to start.

I found an old 1960s edition in a used book store, but they recently released a reprint. Highly recommended; it's basically a collection of Vincent Price's favorite restaurant recipes (along with actual menus) from around the world. Many of them are long gone, but quite a few remain, like The Ivy in London and Antoine's.

Treasury of Great Recipes on Amazon.

Check out the Complete Guide to Pressure Canning . I just got it and haven’t tried any of the recipes yet, but there are a lot of partial and ready to eat recipes that I’m excited to try.

Tiki lends itself to really good nonalcoholic punches, because there’s so much in the drink beyond just the alcohol. Check out the Trader Vic’s Tiki Party book for quite a few ideas.

https://www.amazon.com/Trader-Vics-Tiki-Party-Cocktails/dp/1580085563

This book is the GOAT.

No one's able to get it until the book ships sometime next year. But folks are already pre-ordering it which is why you keep seeing them say they got it. It's not known if it counts for your collection or if the code is a 1-time use though.

All it says is: "What's more, there's even an exclusive code in the back of the book for an ALL-NEW and limited edition avatar that you can redeem and use on the Neoboards!"

#1 thing is to use the amount of salt on foods that make them taste good. It is extremely common for home cooks to use way less than this amount of salt. If you can taste the salt, you've over-salted (or it's sitting on the surface of the food), but the rule in good restaurants is: Use just less than that amount of salt.

More generally, I like to analyze the restaurant foods I like to learn what makes them work for me. Even if it's fast food (example: Popeye's does a terrific job with fried chicken). Then I can try to incorporate those skills into my cooking

I also see home cooks frequently use way too little sauce or none at all. This is a very general trend--in other words, there are a lot of foods that need a sauce of some kind! Example: A turkey sandwich without any mayonnaise at all is just . . . really dry, you know? Also salads! I'm not saying your salad greens should be swimming (unless you like that), but under-dressed salads are just . . . too much lettuce, sitting in a bowl. Sadly even in a lot of good restaurants I've been to, the salads are under-dressed :(

James Peterson has a terrific book on sauces that I highly recommend: https://www.amazon.com/Sauces-Classical-Contemporary-Making-Fourth/dp/0544819829

One of my go-to sauces for sandwiches and basically anything else is sriracha mayonnaise, which you can buy in the supermarket to save the time spent making the exact same thing (mayonnaise + sriracha). Also have you tried Yum Yum sauce? It's great and everyone loves it. Try dunking grilled meats in it the next time you grill

These are kind of some random suggestions that I think will help. There are now so many good recipe sources (but still a lot of not-great ones, esp. with simple Google searches, for some reason). I highly recommend the ChefSteps website subscription, they're great

You need a pressure canner for this. The Ball Blue Books are good and here is one on pressure canning. https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Guide-Pressure-Canning-Everything/dp/1641520906

Is this the right 'Sauces' book? https://www.amazon.com/Sauces-Classical-Contemporary-Making-Fourth/dp/0544819829/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1QVW8KTGOKML2&keywords=sauces+book&qid=1647613935&sprefix=sauces+boo%2Caps%2C220&sr=8-3

I have this book. I've only made two of the recipes so far but they came out well, there's a lot of things in here I have never tried. https://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Pickled-Vegetables-Homestyle-Traditional/dp/480531530X/ref=sr\_1\_1?dchild=1&keywords=japanese+pickles+book&qid=1634653713&qsid=131-9446122-9458109&sr=8-1&sres=480531530X%2C1449450881%2C154045579...

So the crazy thing is it was a booked called noodles and dumplings.

The woman who wrote it, a white British lady, literally attended a NOODLE SCHOOL IN CHINA. Like, she is an actual authority on noodles and dumplings who trained in China. Fully culturally literate. She has many years studying and making the cuisine as a professional.

And this woman, said something like "why is a white woman writing about noodles?"

Absolutely bonkers.

You can Google the tweet rage thread the lady made. She's nuts and racist.

I just took a look at the book on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/Dumplings-Noodles-Over-Modern-Recipes/dp/1787135373

The "strange and alien" line is coming from a REVIEWER who gave the book one star.

Since the introduction was free, decided to read it and honestly just based upon the introduction and the free preview and one thing worth noting is that she went to a cooking school in Lanzhou China where she learned how to make noodles.

Is what she saying at least in the introduction basic, yes it is. But it's not patronizing, it's informative to people who may not be familiar with some of the ingredients that she uses in this book.

It's outrage because she's white, not because did something that's offensive.

Product Link (Gift ideas catalog - Android app - Shopping Saga)

A Treasury of Great Recipes, 50th... https://www.amazon.com/dp/1606600729?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

This has great insight into the history of food in general. It’s recipes for fine dining during the convenience food era.

We got a hot water bath canner and a pressure canner early spring. And since then we have canned everything from fruits and vegetables to sauces and meats and even whole dinners. Some of them like turkey and gravy or a beef stew are good over egg noodles with some crusty bread. What you should do is get a canning cookbook that has recipes On how to make food specifically for canning. That way if you come home late he didn’t take anything out of the freezer just open a jar and warm up dinner like beef bourguignon, Asian chicken or corn beef and cabbage. We found great recipes that we used to can chicken pork and beef dinners in this book: https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Guide-Pressure-Canning-Everything/dp/1641520906/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+complete+guide+to+pressure+canning&qid=1609967235&sprefix=the+complete+guide+to+p&sr=8-1

My favorite new book is “ A complete guide to canning everything you need to know about Canning meat vegetables stews” https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Guide-Pressure-Canning-Everything/dp/1641520906/ref=mp_s_a_1_1_sspa?dchild=1&keywords=complete+guide+to+canning&qid=1605058184&sprefix=Complete+guide+to+Can&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdG...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B087TFJFT6

Hi guys, I’ve made my Japanese inspired cookbook ‘Isolation Izakaya’ free to download. Written during a three week lockdown. Please check it out and leave a review if you have time. It would mean a lot, thank you

It is on Amazon, $16.19

Here is the LINK

The Complete Guide to Pressure Canning: Everything You Need to Know to Can Meats, Vegetables, Meals in a Jar, and More . My favorite canning book. My wife and I bought this around the time we got a pressure canner and read it before we canned anything. Before we started canning we had a list from this book of what we wanted to can first and then second and then third... https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Guide-Pressure-Canning-Everything/dp/1641520906/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=everything+you+need+to+know+about+pressure+canning&qid=1603429792&sr=8-3

We have a few other books but this one is the best so far

I just got Mary and Vincent Price's (the legendary horror actor) 1965 cookbook, A Treasury of Great Recipes, for Christmas and I have been loving it. Vincent Price was a lifelong lover of food and this book collects his favorite recipes from all the restaurants in the world that he travelled to. The book includes a lot of beautiful photography of the food and restaurants as well as some of the menus. I've only made a few of the recipes so far, but all have been great though a lot of the recipes can be kind of heavy. Lots of butter and cream.