Product Description

With his million-copy bestseller How to Cook Everything, Mark Bittman made the difficult doable. Now he makes the exotic accessible.

In this highly ambitious, accomplished, globe-spanning work, Bittman gathers the best recipes that people from dozens of countries around the world cook every day. And when he brings his distinctive no-frills approach to dishes that were once considered esoteric, America's home cooks will eagerly follow where they once feared to tread.

In more than a thousand recipes, Bittman compellingly demonstrates that there are many places besides Italy and France to which cooks can turn for inspiration. In addition to these favorites, he covers Spain, Portugal, Greece, Russia, Scandinavia, the Balkans, Germany, and other European destinations, giving us easy ways to make dishes like Spanish Mushroom and Chicken Paella, Greek Roast Leg of Lamb with Thyme and Orange, Russian Borscht, and Swedish Äppletorte.

Asian food now rivals European cuisine’s popularity, and this book reflects that: It’s the first to emphasize European and Asian cuisines equally, with easy-to-follow recipes for favorites like Vietnamese Stir-Fried Vegetables with Nam Pla, Pad Thai, Japanese Salmon Teriyaki, Chinese Black Bean and Garlic Spareribs, and Indian Tandoori Chicken. Nor is the rest of the world ignored: there are hundreds of recipes from North Africa, the Middle East, and Central and South America, too. All will be hits with home cooks looking to add exciting new tastes and cosmopolitan flair to their everyday repertoire.

Shop locally, cook globally–Mark Bittman makes it so easy:

• Hundreds of recipes that can be made ahead or prepared in under 30 minutes

• Informative sidebars and instructional drawings explain unfamiliar techniques and ingredients

• Fifty-two international menus, an extensive International Pantry section, and much more make this an essential addition to any cook’s shelf

The Best Recipes in the World is destined to be a classic that will change the way Americans think about everyday food. It’s simply like no other cookbook in the world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9434 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-11
• Released on: 2005-10-11
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 768 pages

Amazon.com
When Mark Bittman is cooking--in every sense of the word--he gets results without fuss. Author of the almost subversively approachable How to Cook Everything, Bittman takes on big assignments and then delivers the goods. In The Best Recipes in the World, a collection of more than 1,000 international recipes, with winners like Chinese Black Bean and Garlic Spareribs; Pan-Seared Swordfish with Tomatoes, Olives, and Capers; and Stewed Lamb Shanks with Mushrooms and Pasilla Chile Sauce, he's done it again. The selection, which covers cooking from Europe and Asia equally, is all can-do and instantly appealing--readers will want to "cook through" the whole chicken section, for example. But Bittman, a master distiller, also knows when more is more, with one caveat: "I don't mind spending a long time cooking a single dish as long as I don't have to pay too much attention to what's going on," he writes. Thus, even fuller-dress recipes like the Indian Red Fish Stew, Fast and Spicy, and Tea-Smoked Duck or Chicken can work for time-deprived cooks. A dessert section that includes the tempting likes of Orange Custard, Walnut Tart, and Caramelized Pars Poached in Red Wine, caps this incisive collection.

Included also are brief but enlightening notes on ingredients and techniques such as "On Pureeing Soups," which compares all approaches thoughtfully. Symbols indicate a recipe's potential to be made ahead or in less than 30 minutes (true of most), among other variables. With a beverage chapter and menu suggestions that are actually useful, the book will appeal to a wide audience, not only for its recipes but as a source of relaxed instruction. It's an exploration of culinary essentials from a true essentialist. --Arthur Boehm

From Publishers Weekly
Mark Bittman thinks big, as we saw in his Great Wall of Recipes, How to Cook Everything. That doorstop of a title sold big, too; there are now more than 1.7 million copies in print. This volume, in the same I-can't-believe-I-wrote-the-whole-thing vein, collects recipes from 44 countries. Bittman successfully avoids the usual suspects, drawing as heavily from places like North Africa (home of Harira, a satisfying soup traditionally used to end Ramadan fasting) and India (Marinated Lamb "Popsicles" with Fenugreek Cream) as he does from easy targets like Italy and France. The recipes are terrific in both their variety and execution. Bittman, who writes the New York Times's "Minimalist" column, has a steady authorial voice and a knack for offering clear instructions, and he smoothly makes the exotic seem easy, or at least familiar (e.g., he compares Moroccan Chicken B'stilla to chicken pot pie). The everything-in-one-place format works differently here than it did in his earlier book, which was, ultimately, about technique, not individual recipes, so while there are more than 1,000 recipes here, the reader doesn't acquire quite the same "take-away." Still, for one-stop-shopping on the world's cuisine, it'd be tough to find a better book.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
This comprehensive collection brings together in a single volume recipes from astoundingly different traditions, wildly varying cultures, and totally separate inspirations. Nevertheless, the book coheres and avoids becoming a jumble by being focused through a unique intelligence that finds foods' commonalities and that renders all the diverse, competing languages of recipes' prescriptive commands into a clear and cogent voice guiding the thoughtful cook from ingredient lists to successful reproduction of tasty, attractive dishes. On facing pages one finds Korean braised short ribs with ginger, garlic, rice wine, and chiles fronting Spanish oxtails with white wine, bacon, carrots, celery, and thyme. Both recipes contain beef, both follow a basic braising technique, yet one can hardly mistake their very opposite effects at the table. Bittman lets the reader come upon dozens of such juxtapositions and reflect on just what makes recipes attractive and practical. From appetizers through desserts, directions are clear, and graphic devices steer the cook to those recipes that fit the presenting occasion. Useful for all library cookbook collections. Mark Knoblauch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Warning: NOT a companion book to the Bittman PBS series of the same name
I ordered this book because I thought it would be the companion cookbook to Bittman's PBS cooking show of the same name "The Best Recipes in the World With Mark Bittman of the New York Times." I was dissapointed to find that was not the case. Specifically, I was looking for the paella and the ravioli recipes I'd seen cooked on the show. The paella contained rabbit, chicken, tomato, rice, rosemary and beans. The rabbit and chicken version is considered to be the true original Valenciana paella by purists. The ravioli recipe was made by Paola Di Mauro containing a simple ricotta filling and a sauce made only from tomatoes and basil. Neither recipe is in the book. Instead "the original" paella in Bittman's book contains is a shrimp version, and there's second paella recipe with chicken and mushrooms. The two ravioli recipes are a spinach/ricotta and a vegetarian version. I'm stymied why that's the case, and why create a cooking show with the same title as the book only to have completely different recipes. I find this inexcusable since the book is advertised on the show. I feel cheated. I had to find the Di Mauro ravioli recipe and the paella recipe by googling. One star for false advertising.

Let your International Flavor sing
I bought this cookbook for my wife and my sister in law and they both really love it. The recipies range from simple to complex but they are all interesting to the palate. Thanks

terrific cookbook with an interesting challenge
I think the cookbook is great and very useful. We've been able to go to an Indian restaurant, or a Malaysian restaurant, or a Mexican restaurant and try something we love, and then find a similar recipe in this book...at least enough for an inspiration. The recipes we have tried have been top-notch.
My only small complaint with this book is the organization. It is laid out like a normal cookbook: appetizers, soups, meats, poultry, desserts, etc., which is fine, but I think makes this book hard to get through if you're reading it as a source for new things to try. For example, it's not normal for my girlfriend and I to decide that we want to make "poultry" for dinner, we usually decide we want "italian" or "Thai" food, or whatever. In this book, since it is organized like a regular cookbook, you need to look through "poultry" recipes, the first might be Korean, the next from France, etc. It just makes things a little tricky for planning. Other than that, we love the book. If you want a book that you can use to find classic recipes from around the world, this is a good start.