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This is just what it says on the cover. A comprehensive guide to just about everything that goes on the kitchen and that enters or leaves it. It assumes nothing, starting with the basics. It's unlikely to set the fashionable world on fire, but there will always be an enormous demand for a straightforward, modern tutorial in cooking techniques and ingredients. This is one such. The majority of the book is taken up with Essential Know-How and a long section dealing with Ingredients, but a limited number of mostly classic recipes are appended, for reference as it were. Essential Know-How dives in with the Batterie de Cuisine--knives, pots and pans, pastry and cake-making equipment--following that up with Cooking Terms and Techniques. This starts, interestingly enough, with pastry and cakes (quite an emphasis laid on these two), before moving on to the savoury techniques of stuffing, boiling, braising and so forth. The central Ingredients sections is extremely thorough, and covers all categories: fish and shellfish, meat, poultry and game, dairy, pulses and grains, vegetables, fruits and nuts, and flavourings. Under the entry for duck, for example, you may learn about the different varieties of duck likely to be available, storage of their carcasses, how to prepare them for the different cooking methods (quartered, breasts removed and grilled, or roasted whole), together with some detailed instructions for a handful of recipes and suggestions for more. The Good Housekeeping Institute bases its reputation on total reliability, which this book can only enhance. --Robin Davidson
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