The Artisan Kitchen by James Strawbridge

The Artisan Kitchen by James Strawbridge ISBN-13: 978-1465499363 Hardcover: 256 pages Publisher: DK Publishing Released: September 8th 2020

Source: review copy from the publisher through Amazon Vine.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
Rediscover traditional culinary skills made accessible for the creative, contemporary cook. This cookbook is for people who like to escape to their kitchen and plan a new culinary project; who would be proud to feed their sourdough starter, culture their next batch of kefir, salt and hang their curing sausages; who are happy to leave their chutney to mature and their home-brewed wine to mellow; who are up for the challenge of building their own smoker and rigging up a turning spit to roast over an open fire.

The Artisan Kitchen is a compendium of culinary projects, each explored in three stages to spark your creativity: "The Science" explains the science and technical know-how; "The Practice" gets you started on an enticing recipe, with action shots of tricky techniques; and "The Possibilities" provides further recipe ideas plus the tools and inspiration to devise your own recipes.


My Review:
The Artisan Kitchen explained how to do various traditional cooking skills like fermenting, breadmaking, curing, and smoking. For each skill, there was a page explaining the science (chemical reactions and such), one or more recipes teaching how to do the skill along with expert tips, then two pages exploring possible variations on the ingredients. The skills taught were how to do or make: sour-fermented pickles, vinegar pickles, chutney, jams, jellies, and syrups, fruit curds, dehydrating, vinegar, fermented soft drinks, alcoholic cider, flavored spirits, yogurt, butter, cheese, sourdough, flat breads, confit, potting, dry curing, wet curing, sausages, cold smoking, hot smoking, campfire cooking, spit roasting, and wood-fired oven. The information was not difficult to understand, and there were many pictures that helped to show the process (though these weren't full step-by-step illustrations). Overall, I'd recommend this book to those interested in learning these skills.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.


Excerpt: Read an excerpt using Google Preview.