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The Complete Robuchon: French Home Cooking for the Way We Live Now with More than 800 Recipes: A Cookbook
An incomparable culinary the definitive guide to French cooking for the way we live now, from the man the Gault Millau guide has proclaimed “Chef of the Century.”
Joël Robuchon’s restaurant empire stretches from Paris to New York, Las Vegas to Tokyo, London to Hong Kong. He holds more Michelin stars than any other chef. Now this great master gives us his supremely authoritative renditions of virtually the entire French culinary repertoire, adapted for the home cook and the contemporary palate.
Here are more than 800 precise, easy-to-follow, step-by-step recipes, including Robuchon’s updated versions of great classics—Pot-au-Feu, Sole Meunière, Cherry Custard Tart—as well as dozens of less well-known but equally scrumptious salads, roasts, gratins, and stews. Here, too, are a surprising variety of regional specialties (star turns like Aristide Couteaux’s variation on Hare Royale) and such essential favorites as scrambled eggs. Emphasizing quality ingredients and the brilliant but simple marriage of candid flavors—the genius for which he is rightly celebrated—Robuchon encourages the beginner with jargon-free, impeccable instructions in technique, while offering the practiced cook exciting paths for experimentation.
The Complete Robuchon is a book to be consulted again and again, a magnificent resource no kitchen should be without.
Joël Robuchon’s restaurant empire stretches from Paris to New York, Las Vegas to Tokyo, London to Hong Kong. He holds more Michelin stars than any other chef. Now this great master gives us his supremely authoritative renditions of virtually the entire French culinary repertoire, adapted for the home cook and the contemporary palate.
Here are more than 800 precise, easy-to-follow, step-by-step recipes, including Robuchon’s updated versions of great classics—Pot-au-Feu, Sole Meunière, Cherry Custard Tart—as well as dozens of less well-known but equally scrumptious salads, roasts, gratins, and stews. Here, too, are a surprising variety of regional specialties (star turns like Aristide Couteaux’s variation on Hare Royale) and such essential favorites as scrambled eggs. Emphasizing quality ingredients and the brilliant but simple marriage of candid flavors—the genius for which he is rightly celebrated—Robuchon encourages the beginner with jargon-free, impeccable instructions in technique, while offering the practiced cook exciting paths for experimentation.
The Complete Robuchon is a book to be consulted again and again, a magnificent resource no kitchen should be without.
832 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
About the author
Joël Robuchon
86 books10 followersJoël Robuchon was an influential French chef and restaurateur.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 14, 2011
This is how it goes for me with cookbooks: I get them, I make a few things from them, I love them...and I forget to review them on Goodreads. I need to change that.
I've made several recipes from this book, and it has never steered me wrong. On Friday, I made Pan-fried Duck Breasts, and that meal was so good, so simple, and so easy to make, that I had to come here and write a review of it. You think of high-end French cuisine, and you think of sauces and complexity, etc. But I've found that the strength of this book is its utter simplicity. The duck breast recipe had five ingredients -- duck, oil, raspberry vinegar, pepper, and sea salt. It took me maybe 20 minutes, from start to finish, to make. And it was mind-expanding.
I can't recommend this cookbook enough.
I've made several recipes from this book, and it has never steered me wrong. On Friday, I made Pan-fried Duck Breasts, and that meal was so good, so simple, and so easy to make, that I had to come here and write a review of it. You think of high-end French cuisine, and you think of sauces and complexity, etc. But I've found that the strength of this book is its utter simplicity. The duck breast recipe had five ingredients -- duck, oil, raspberry vinegar, pepper, and sea salt. It took me maybe 20 minutes, from start to finish, to make. And it was mind-expanding.
I can't recommend this cookbook enough.
July 22, 2017
This is a wonderful, contemporary revision of French cuisine. I would recommend this book (probably even over Julia Child) to anyone looking to learn some classic techniques and recipes.
June 8, 2012
This is a veritable tome, a culinary completeness. Sometimes, perhaps, you can have a little too much of a good thing?
Here acclaimed three Michelin starred-chef Joël Robuchon shows his obsessive, perfectionist self in the shape of this m-a-s-s-i-v-e book that does still look like it has been pared down to the bone. What was the draft like? Scary... Over 800 recipes are crammed into its pages, a marvel of conservative book design which still allows the book to breath and not resemble a telephone directory with its attendant closely-written text.
THe book feels, in a positive way, as if Robuchon has had a gun held to his head and told to "tell all, every single last recipe". Split into sections after a great introduction and overview of cooking techniques and kitchen equipment. In order you get steaks and sauces; soups, broths and portages; crudités and hors d'oeuvres; salads and starters; eggs; fish and seafood; offal and stuffing; meats (split into further chapters for lamb, beef, kid (goat), veal, pork and charcuterie); poultry and rabbit; game; vegetables; pasta, rice, grains and gratins; one-dish meals and regional specialities and the several chapters for desserts of different types and ending up with james and preserves. A honking great glossary and index round the book off.
It might be easier to look and try and think what recipes could you expect to find here that you don't. It is that complete. One great thing with different cookery books irrespective of their size is that you can often compare how different chefs and cooks make their "own" version of a dish. Some make it overly complex, some make a fair attempt and some just make it stand out for itself despite it appearing deceptively simple. The reader should make their own determination but this reviewer has formed a clear opinion towards Robuchon's style.
By God the publishers have got this right. One of the usual complaints by YUM is that an approximation for preparation and cooking time is missing. Not here. This really does have the lot. Each recipe is titled in English and French. You get a typical serving estimation, ingredients list and a concise yet comprehensive set of instructions. As you might imagine with a book of this size, no full colour photographs of each dish... now that WOULD have been a nice thing as a companion volume if not for inspiration and "drooling" purposes on its own.
It might be fair to suggest that this book will not appeal as much to the casual browsing cook, if not due to its size and lack of photographs. Different things for different people even though it may be the (non) buyer's loss. Clearly this is a workable reference work. Whilst the relatively inexperienced home cook can get good results from this book, perhaps the more experienced home cook who wants to broaden their horizon and create perhaps their own styles might find this to be a good overall inspiration. Take a couple of books of this kind with perhaps a more educationally-focussed book from McGee and a slightly more off-base-but-wow book from Blumenthal and you really could have the nucleus of your own little kitchen powerhouse. No matter what some may say, all top chefs have mixed both inspiration, thought and a little own determination together. Why reinvent the wheel from scratch when you can just make a better wheel based on the original model?
For the uninitiated, Robuchon's own cooking style might be complex to describe, he led the movement away from nouvelle cuisine and a move back towards an authentic, bourgeois French cuisine, where each ingredient must play its own part and taste. Many great modern-day top chefs have also studied at the feet of Robuchon.
Quality speaks. Here you get quality and quantity. Rarely can they go together without one end of the equation getting compromised. Not so here...
The Complete Robuchon, written by Joël Robuchon and published by Grub Street. ISBN 9781906502225, 610 pages. Typical price: GBP18. YYYYY.
// This review appeared in YUM.fi and is reproduced here in full with permission of YUM.fi. YUM.fi celebrates the worldwide diversity of food and drink, as presented through the humble book. Whether you call it a cookery book, cook book, recipe book or something else (in the language of your choice) YUM will provide you with news and reviews of the latest books on the marketplace. //
Here acclaimed three Michelin starred-chef Joël Robuchon shows his obsessive, perfectionist self in the shape of this m-a-s-s-i-v-e book that does still look like it has been pared down to the bone. What was the draft like? Scary... Over 800 recipes are crammed into its pages, a marvel of conservative book design which still allows the book to breath and not resemble a telephone directory with its attendant closely-written text.
THe book feels, in a positive way, as if Robuchon has had a gun held to his head and told to "tell all, every single last recipe". Split into sections after a great introduction and overview of cooking techniques and kitchen equipment. In order you get steaks and sauces; soups, broths and portages; crudités and hors d'oeuvres; salads and starters; eggs; fish and seafood; offal and stuffing; meats (split into further chapters for lamb, beef, kid (goat), veal, pork and charcuterie); poultry and rabbit; game; vegetables; pasta, rice, grains and gratins; one-dish meals and regional specialities and the several chapters for desserts of different types and ending up with james and preserves. A honking great glossary and index round the book off.
It might be easier to look and try and think what recipes could you expect to find here that you don't. It is that complete. One great thing with different cookery books irrespective of their size is that you can often compare how different chefs and cooks make their "own" version of a dish. Some make it overly complex, some make a fair attempt and some just make it stand out for itself despite it appearing deceptively simple. The reader should make their own determination but this reviewer has formed a clear opinion towards Robuchon's style.
By God the publishers have got this right. One of the usual complaints by YUM is that an approximation for preparation and cooking time is missing. Not here. This really does have the lot. Each recipe is titled in English and French. You get a typical serving estimation, ingredients list and a concise yet comprehensive set of instructions. As you might imagine with a book of this size, no full colour photographs of each dish... now that WOULD have been a nice thing as a companion volume if not for inspiration and "drooling" purposes on its own.
It might be fair to suggest that this book will not appeal as much to the casual browsing cook, if not due to its size and lack of photographs. Different things for different people even though it may be the (non) buyer's loss. Clearly this is a workable reference work. Whilst the relatively inexperienced home cook can get good results from this book, perhaps the more experienced home cook who wants to broaden their horizon and create perhaps their own styles might find this to be a good overall inspiration. Take a couple of books of this kind with perhaps a more educationally-focussed book from McGee and a slightly more off-base-but-wow book from Blumenthal and you really could have the nucleus of your own little kitchen powerhouse. No matter what some may say, all top chefs have mixed both inspiration, thought and a little own determination together. Why reinvent the wheel from scratch when you can just make a better wheel based on the original model?
For the uninitiated, Robuchon's own cooking style might be complex to describe, he led the movement away from nouvelle cuisine and a move back towards an authentic, bourgeois French cuisine, where each ingredient must play its own part and taste. Many great modern-day top chefs have also studied at the feet of Robuchon.
Quality speaks. Here you get quality and quantity. Rarely can they go together without one end of the equation getting compromised. Not so here...
The Complete Robuchon, written by Joël Robuchon and published by Grub Street. ISBN 9781906502225, 610 pages. Typical price: GBP18. YYYYY.
// This review appeared in YUM.fi and is reproduced here in full with permission of YUM.fi. YUM.fi celebrates the worldwide diversity of food and drink, as presented through the humble book. Whether you call it a cookery book, cook book, recipe book or something else (in the language of your choice) YUM will provide you with news and reviews of the latest books on the marketplace. //
August 28, 2011
It is not for nothing that Robuchon is considered by many to be the greatest chef of the 20th Century. The Complete Robuchon lacks many of the helpful illustrations that make Jacques Pepin's Complete Techniques so useful; however, it does more than make up for this shortcoming in its encyclopedic, yet idiosyncratic breadth.
This is a cookbook for the home cook willing to embrace Robuchon's meticulous attention to detail, and as such, should not be consulted by the inexperienced cook. That it still rates 5-stars is indicative of its usefulness to the intermediate-to-advanced home cook; the informative chapter/food/technique blurbs are a nice touch as well.
This is a cookbook for the home cook willing to embrace Robuchon's meticulous attention to detail, and as such, should not be consulted by the inexperienced cook. That it still rates 5-stars is indicative of its usefulness to the intermediate-to-advanced home cook; the informative chapter/food/technique blurbs are a nice touch as well.
August 8, 2013
I picked this book out because my chef boyfriend loves French food and I wanted to learn to make some for us. Every recipe we've tried has turned out beautifully and he loves to use it for ideas when he has an oddball ingredient. The only thing that might turn some people away from the book is the lack of illustrations or photos of ingredients and completed dishes. I didn't find it a problem as the instructions are clearly written and easy to follow.
December 11, 2010
Oof. Dense, chewy, very French (of course). Lots of great recipes, but not the style that appeals to me. If you're looking for a book with pictures of pretty food porn, this is not the book you're looking for. *waves hand dramatically*
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews