The Home Cook - Recipes to Know by Heart

The all-in-one cooking bible for a new generation with 300 recipes for everything from simple vinaigrettes and roast chicken to birthday cake and cocktails.

 

For Alex Guarnaschelli whose mother edited the seminal 1997 edition of The Joy of Cooking, which defined the food of the late twentieth century a life in food and cookbooks was almost predestined. Now an accomplished chef and author in her own right (and mom to a young daughter), Alex pens a cookbook for the way we eat today. For generations raised on vibrant, international flavors and supermarkets stocked with miso paste, harissa, and other bold condiments and ingredients, here are 300 recipes to replace their parents’ Chicken Marbella, including Glazed Five-Spice Ribs, Roasted Eggplant Dip with Garlic Butter Naan, Roasted Beef Brisket with Pastrami Rub, Fennel and Orange Salad with Walnut Pesto, Quinoa Allspice Oatmeal Cookies, and Dark Chocolate Rum Pie.

Hardcover: 368 pages

Publisher: Clarkson Potter (September 26, 2017)

Language: English

Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 1.2 x 10.2 inches

Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds

Reviews

"Alex is an extraordinary cook, whether in her restaurant or at home cooking for her daughter. You'll find gems to return to again and again in this wonderful new collection of recipes."

- Giada De Laurentiis 

"Alex is a one-of-a-kind cook, seamlessly weaving her expert cooking tips into one dream sequence of recipes that you absolutely must have."

- Geoffrey Zakarian

"It's a quirky, comforting collection that aspires to be a Silver Palate for a new age, the kind of reliable resource you'd turn to again and again."

- Epicurious

"Unlike many cookbooks by star chefs, Guarnaschelli's book is extremely approachable. The recipes don't have a long laundry list of ingredients, and the directions are clear and detailed."

- Eater

"I'm partial to anything Alex Guarnaschelli cooks or critiques. She has such a way with words and her recipes are doable for a home cook like me. There is a theme to her choice of flavors, so there isn't too much diversity there, but if you like those flavors as well, this is the book for you."

- Sandra S. Ward

"It’s rare that I tab nearly every recipe in a cookbook these days, but it’s clear to me that Guarnaschelli, the O.G. (or is it AG?) Chef really has set forth a masterful and memorable cookbook, one that as her introduction intimates will indeed occupy a place on my special shelf, the one with the sauce-spattered books that I take down and use all the time.

I am absolutely swooning over her pasta chapter and may simply just cook the entire chapter thru, and her updated take on that powerful left-field classic Chicken Marbella? And that whole chapter on supermarket mushrooms made sexy? Can’t wait. And game time with breaded eggplant fingers, veal meatballs, spinach, artichoke and toasted pecan dip. And that great trick she uses with roasted meats and vegetables of all types, finishing them with a delicious and quick vinaigrette. And using powdered sugar when roasting tomatoes to bring out their natural color and sweetness.

It’s all fresh, new, flavorful, exciting and most of all real, coming right from her own food memories. It’s eloquently written, and the recipes are easy to replicate. These are all modern American classics, with history. It’s broad and deep in the right way. I can’t wait to dive in.

This weekend it will be her whole spice-rubbed chicken, but I’ll do it on my smoker instead of roasting it, and laquer over the lemon fennel cinnamon sauce while it finishes since I’ll be smoking chickens for a friend anyway. Oh, and while I’m at it I think I’ll have a Dirty Blue Cheese Olive Martini. Or maybe a Bourbon Sour Cherry Slush. This book’s a keeper."

- WooPigFoodie
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About the Author

ALEX GUARNASCHELLI trained at La Varenne Culinary School in Burgundy, France, before moving to Paris and working at Guy Savoy for four years before eventually returning to New York to cook at Daniel. Since 2003, she has been the executive chef of Butter Restaurant. Alex appears on numerous Food Network shows, including as a judge on Chopped and Beat Bobby Flay and an Iron Chef on Iron Chef America. She lives in New York City with her daughter.