Product Description

Prepared by The Culinary Institute of America, which has been hailed by Time magazine as "the nation's most influential training school for cooks," The Professional Chef's® Techniques of Healthy Cooking, Second Edition, offers nutritional cooking techniques and theories that have been tested and proven in the Institute's kitchens. It begins with the language of nutrition. The lessons of the USDA food guide pyramid, the Mediterranean pyramid, and a vegetarian pyramid from the American Dietetic Association (ADA) are used as a foundation for the Institute's seven principles of healthy cooking. They call upon the chef to introduce a wider array of foods such as fruits, grains, and vegetables into dishes. Successful strategies for cooking with less fat, moderating salt, and choosing and using healthy sweeteners are included as well. A separate section on creating healthy menus covers menu and recipe development, nutritional analysis, and nutrition labeling in menus and advertising.

Special features of this incomparable guide include:

• Seven principles of healthy cooking
• Nearly 400 of the Institute's best recipes - 200 of them new to this edition
• Over 250 photos that illustrate basic and advanced preparation techniques and inspire with elegant presentations for healthful dishes
• Practical tips for healthy sauteing, stir frying, grilling, baking, smoke-roasting, and more
• Dependable guidelines for selecting healthy, fresh ingredients
• A nutritional analysis for each recipe, with separate breakdowns for sauces, side dishes, and other components

Filled with time-tested and refined techniques for maximizing both nutrition and flavor, The Professional Chef's® Techniques of Healthy Cooking, Second Edition, is a completely trustworthy and irreplaceable reference for anyone interested in creating the finest, healthiest, and most flavorful of meals.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #279643 in Books
• Published on: 2000-02-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 656 pages

Amazon.com
Books on nutritious eating abound, but none seem as comprehensive as The Professional Chef's Techniques of Healthy Cooking. Prepared by the Culinary Institute of America, the book is addressed to chefs who may require grounding in nutritional principles as well as representative recipes to help them "cook healthy." It's hard to imagine anyone, however, who wouldn't benefit from--and enjoy perusing--this trove of sophisticated yet approachable material. With more than 400 of the Institute's recipes, 200 color photos, and a cornucopia of useful information, including charts ("Definitions of Nutrient Claims," for example, helps readers understand terms like lite or low fat), the book is a definitive, up-to-date food and nutrition guide.

The book's largest section contains the recipes--each with detailed nutritional analysis--for a wide selection of dishes. These range from chef's pantry items like pesto, duxelles, and yellow pepper oil and salads--Grilled Garlic Shrimp with Radish Salad is a tasty example--to breads, deserts, and beverages. Though uncomplicated, these large-scale, ingredients-specified-by-weight formulas will be most useful to professionals. Universally valuable, however, is the introductory material, which explores, among other topics, the language of nutrition, elements of flavor, cooking with less fat, and agricultural issues such as organic farming, free-range poultry, and plant biotechnology. "A Case Study in Flavor Deconstruction," which atomizes the appeal of a sample dish, is a fascinating reminder that the foundation of all good eating is sensual. Concluding with a cooking and nutritional glossary, the book is a welcome, obligatory addition to any home or professional kitchen library. --Arthur Boehm

Book Info
Offers nutritional cooking techniques and theories that have been tested and proven in kitchens. Over 250 photos that illustrate basic and advanced preparation techniques and inspire with elegant presentations for healthful dishes.

From the Inside Flap
Prepared by The Culinary Institute of America, which has been hailed by Time magazine as "the nation's most influential training school for cooks," The Professional Chef's(r) Techniques of Healthy Cooking, Second Edition, offers nutritional cooking techniques and theories that have been tested and proven in the Institute's kitchens. It begins with the language of nutrition. The lessons of the USDA food guide pyramid, the Mediterranean pyramid, and a vegetarian pyramid from the American Dietetic Association (ADA) are used as a foundation for the Institute's seven principles of healthy cooking. They call upon the chef to introduce a wider array of foods such as fruits, grains, and vegetables into dishes. Successful strategies for cooking with less fat, moderating salt, and choosing and using healthy sweeteners are included as well. A separate section on creating healthy menus covers menu and recipe development, nutritional analysis, and nutrition labeling in menus and advertising.

Special features of this incomparable guide include:
* Seven principles of healthy cooking
* Nearly 400 of the Institute's best recipes -200 of them new to this edition
* Over 250 photos that illustrate basic and advanced preparation techniques and inspire with elegant presentations for healthful dishes
* Practical tips for healthy sautéing, stir frying, grilling, baking, smoke-roasting, and more
* Dependable guidelines for selecting healthy, fresh ingredients
* A nutritional analysis for each recipe, with separate breakdowns for sauces, side dishes, and other components

Filled with time-tested and refined techniques for maximizing both nutrition and flavor, The Professional Chef's(r) Techniques of Healthy Cooking, Second Edition, is a completely trustworthy and irreplaceable reference for anyone interested in creating the finest, healthiest, and most flavorful of meals.

Founded in 1946, The Culinary institute of America is an independent, not-for-profit college offering bachelor's and associate degrees in culinary arts and baking and pastry arts. Courses for foodservice professionals are offered at the college's main campus in Hyde Park, New York, and at its additional campus for continuing education, The Culinary Institute of America at Greystone, in St. Helena, California.

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Customer Reviews

The Professional Chef's
Excellent pictures and recipes. I was disappointed that their were not more vegetarian and vegan recipes since this book is claimed to be healthy cooking. Do not buy this book unless you have lots of time to cook and you are a vegetarian and especially vegan. There are many more reasonally priced books on the market that are completely vegetarian or vegan.

Another classic from the people at CIA
To put this review into perspective for you, it is written by a serious student of cooking that has been actively studying food on their own for 25 years. I have been focusing on Italian food for the last 10 years. My favorite cookbook is "The Professional Chef" by the Culinary Institute of America.

This book is laid out as follows:
Section One: Healthy Cooking
1. The language of nutrition
2. The pyramids
Section Two: The Principles of Healthy Cooking
3. The elements of flavor
4. Fruits and vegetables, grains and legumes
5. Cooking with less fat
6. Moderating Salt
7. Sweeteners
8. Beverages
9. The techniques of healthy cooking
10. Agricultural issues in ingredient selection
Section Three: Creating and Marketing Healthy Menus
11. Menu and recipe development
12. Analyzing the nutrient content of recipes
13. Nutrition Labeling in menus and advertisements
14. Staff training and customer satisfaction
Section Four: The recipes

The book is geared to the professional kitchen. However, there is much information in this book for the home cook beyond the recipes. Many of the same considerations that the restaurant must address should be part of the menu development in the home.

If you are looking for ways to improve the "health quotient" of the meals you prepare your family, you will enjoy this book. All the recipes in this book have complete nutrition stats including: calories, total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium, total carbohydrate, dietary fiber, sugar, and protein.

The book does a nice job of explaining smoking and the flavors given to foods by various wood chips. Their recipe for oven-smoked tomatoes (without purchasing a separate smoker, I used a heavy lidded roaster) was extremely easy to follow and turned out wonderfully.

The recipe section is more than 2/3's of the book. The recipes are developed for larger quantities than most home cooks will prepare. I have not had any difficulty reducing the size of the recipes to accomodate my family. The recipe for Risotto Cakes and Green Beans with Chanterelles was fabulous, as was the one for Chianti Granita. The recipe for pasta that uses only egg whites is also very nice, and versatile. Of the recipes that I have prepared so far, all of them have been very good.

I consider this book to be a valuable addition to my cookbook library. If you want to cook more healthfully, you will enjoy this book.

the book i bought
item received in a reasonable amount of time and was the correct item.