Product Description

Superstar chef Laurent Tourondel is redefining bistro food in America with his growing empire of BLT ("Bistro Laurent Tourondel") restaurants. Now, with this exciting cookbook, Tourondel shows you how to prepare his simple yet spectacular food at home. From new takes on French and American classics to dazzling dishes featuring Asian, Mediterranean, and Latin American flavors, his nearly 150 recipes are sophisticated enough to impress any guest, yet accessible enough to prepare in your own kitchen. Illustrated with more than 150 striking photographs, Bistro Laurent Tourondel gives you everything you need to take casual cooking and entertaining to a new level.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #76089 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 304 pages

Amazon.com Review
At his BLT restaurants, chef Laurent Tourondel offers a tempting reinvention of bistro fare. His Bistro Laurent Tourondel presents over 150 recipes from his repertoire--"easier" fare like Adobo Marinated Hanger Steak and Braised Swordfish with Tomatoes, Olives, and Capers; and more "chefy" productions, including Camembert Beignets with Smoked Duck Salad, and Sea Salt-Crusted Pink Snapper with Ice Wine Nage. Sweets, such as Peanut Butter-Chocolate Parfait, Passion Fruit Crêpes Soufflé, and Strawberry-Rhubarb Cobbler are also on hand, as are sections on ingredients and techniques.

Tourondel's recipes cover the usual menu stops but also include interesting formulas for breads and sandwiches, like one made with spicy soft-shell crabs. Though planned for home cooks, and not difficult to execute in themselves, the recipes often require multiple preparations and, therefore, an ingredient array. Readers may also find the recipe headnotes generic or insufficiently forthcoming on technical and other matters (though there are occasional asides called Chef's Tips). These things said, the book, which includes color photos and wine suggestions, offers an interesting and savory collection that many cooks will want to try. --Arthur Boehm

From Publishers Weekly
With seven outposts and counting in his BLT line, it was only a matter of time before Tourondel (Go Fish: Fresh Ideas for American Seafood) wrote a cookbook to codify his credo of American-style French bistro cooking. Many of the dishes come from Tourondel's restaurant menus, but he makes them accessible to the home cook with unintimidating preparations that showcase the quality and flavors of choice ingredients. The opening chapter discusses choosing and preparing different fish and cuts of meat, while brief introductions to each recipe contribute to the pleasantly informal feeling. The cuisine is well-traveled, including Asian salads, a quintessentially American creamy corn soup, Roman-style gnocchi and a hearty, spicy Chicken-Chorizo Basquaise. BLT patrons will be eager to try menu favorites like Giant Cheese Popovers, Marinated Kobe Skirt Steak and Peanut Butter–Chocolate Parfait. Tourondel includes comments on easily substituted ingredients and wine or beer pairings. Both novices and experienced cooks will welcome this comprehensive education in Tourondel's signature style. 52 color plates (not seen by PW) and 30 b&w photos. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
French chef Tourondel, who has made a name exploring—and exploiting—American comfort foods in New York City (and beyond), is intent on expanding his unique brand of U.S. bistros, in print and in bricks and mortar. This second addition to his culinary oeuvre (after Go Fish) advances his ambition further with nearly 150 recipes.Yet home cooks beware. Few are of the quick-fix variety. A grilled tuna sandwich in Tourondel's lexicon pairs ahi-quality fish with homemade tapenade and mayonnaise, among other ingredients. Humble pumpkin pie achieves grandeur with a hazelnut crunch topping. In addition to up-close, well-styled photographs, each recipe features headnotes, wine suggestions, and chef tips (for instance, use well-padded oven mitts when frying corn fritters). Beginnings and endings round out the reader's culinary education: a short glossary is paired with how to buy/store protein in chapter 1, while a dozen techniques, from how to clean soft-shell crabs to making roasted garlic butter, precede a list of mail-order sources. Peruse recipes with care, well in advance, to make sure they're amateur-friendly. Jacobs, Barbara

Customer Reviews

For cooks who enjoy the process
Combining the flavors of his French childhood kitchen and his classic French training with his personal bias toward casual French bistros and American steakhouses, Tourondel has established six varied bistros, mostly in New York.

This glossy, lavishly illustrated book offers restaurant recipes adapted for the home cook. From Cream of Corn Soup with Corn Fritters to Braised Short Ribs with Garlic-Thyme Brown Butter, Curry-Kaffir Lime Chicken Pot Pie, Wild Mushroom Risotto with Mushroom Cappuccino, and 5-Spice Caramelized Long Island Duck, these are labors of love.

There are simpler, quicker dishes that are just as mouth watering, like Marinated Kobe Skirt Steak (garnished with chopped peanuts), Braised Swordfish with Tomatoes, Olives, and Capers, or Macaroni and Tomatoes with Spicy Sausage, but all require some joy in the process.

From appetizers to desserts, the recipes are well organized. Tourondel offers menu accompaniments (other recipes from the book) and gives an idea what to expect in his brief intros. Wine accompaniments are also offered with each dish and in his introduction Tourondel offers menu suggestions for the novice and the experienced cook.

With informal and delicious dishes in a format that is as easy to follow as it is sumptuous, this is a book primarily for experienced cooks.

French Bistro Cooking with an American Twist
If you pick up this book, be prepared to deal with uncontrollable drooling as your browse through the pages. Beautiful pictures of Seared Kobe steaks, giant cheese popovers, peanut butter-chocolate parfait and many more are a feast for the eye. Laurent Tourondel is a master at what he does and the recipes reflect it well. He takes classic French Bistro cooking but adapts it for the American public, the guy is not afraid to cross the line of tradition to create his own version of classical dishes using all american ingredients. Needless to say, he is quite succesful at it if you judge by the speed he's opening restaurants around New York. This book will appeal to the home cook looking to fine tune his skills and to the "night table" gourmet who simply enjoys nice cookbooks, it'll make you drool and it'll make you want to cook. After all, that what cookbooks are for right?

Great book you must to buy it !
Great book, i'm chef in an italian restaurant and always we share techniques and ingredients with french cuisine. BLT is a great example of how make the things perfect, great recipes, great presentation, an easy way to know differents and innovative tecniques. Everything looks perfect, but watch out! i really belive that this is not a book for begginers, I've tried a couple of recipes and being a professional really help me to obtain a result -almost- the same that the one you see on the pictures or in the basal ideas behind the recipe.
Sorry for my english. Greetings from Chile, Southamerica