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So many cookbooks, so little time. I have a thing for great cookbooks, and this one is just about the cream of the crop. Beautifully photographed, short and to the point. It’s not a book about recipes, or tools, or ingredients. It’s about techniques. The title says it all - “think like a chef”. So simple. This is the book that got me really started with serious fine cooking. It’s easy to follow and it has great advice, illustrated with examples (they’re not really “recipes”, and that’s the point).

Tom Colicchio’s passion for “simple fine cooking” is evident throughout (and also in his restaurants). He goes through all of the basic techniques of fine cooking, and it’s obvious that he also doesn’t want to do any more work than he has to, so he’s cut out a number of extraneous steps for a more efficient process. You’re left feeling that there’s still a lot of work in there, but the things that remain are well worth it, and he explains why you still have to do those things to get the results you want.

The perfect example is roast chicken. There are a hundred ways to roast chicken, but I still find his the easiest (even though it sounds difficult) and also the most rewarding. While others struggle to deal with overcooked breasts or undercooked thighs, he turns the whole process on its side (literally), and sears the sides of the bird in a pan on the stovetop before throwing the whole thing into the oven to finish. There’s one more step - browning on the stove - but the tradeoff is a perfectly cooked bird, and it’s a lot easier to clean a 10″ frypan than a huge roasting pan with a rack.

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The illustrations below show this technique in action (also illustrating the basting spoon/spout ladle reviewed for Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools):

Wash bird, trim wing tips.

Collect prep ingredients, preheat oven to 375F.

Stuff and truss bird, coat with salt and pepper, then sear one side on the stovetop.

Sear other side.

Turn chicken on its back, and put the whole pan into the oven.

After 30 minutes, add butter, and baste.

Baste again every 15 minutes until done.

Remove when chicken is 155F internally.

Cover with foil to rest (internal temp will rise 5-10 degrees).

Carve and eat, or let cool and refrigerate whole and pick.

I must admit - I got a little distracted by the photography in making the demo bird for this, and overcooked it a little. That’s another great thing about this technique - you can overcook it, and it will still be delicious, moist, and tender.

Buy Think Like a Chef from Amazon.