Creole [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

This is a great, straight-forward cookbook, like most that Phaidon puts out. This book highlights the kinds of dishes that make Creole food so unique and interesting. There are sectional introductions that identify various foods in their natural state (eg, photos of the various fish and fruit) that are so unfamiliar to most continental cooks. Many of the ingredients might be hard or impossible to find outside of the Caribbean or Gulf coast, but that's no reason not to buy this book. Substitutions can always be made. While there are some recipes that many will find "weird," there are many more than are very approachable and delicious!

Living up in the wintery state of Minnesota, this book is a tease to read in the winter because everything in this book screams "summer." Grilling fish and meat, plenty of fruit, and lots of sweet drinks; all of this makes you want to get out and start cooking in the sun. Few of these meals should ever be eaten indoors, I feel. Beautiful book and very well done!

This is a superb book, with excellent genuine and well-researched recipes. I have a large cookbook library with over 600 volumes, and own quite a few books about creole cuisine already, including several 'classic' in French and Spanish, that I bought locally. This is one of the best. The recipes are clear, and well laid-out. They each have high-quality pictures, and there are numerous photographs of local ingredients to help you identify them at your store. The book can be purchased as paperback or hardbound in some kind of oil-cloth. For a couple of extra dollars, I HIGHLY recommend the latter. If you buy that book, you will use it! Trust me. The hardbound copy will last you much longer. Shipping was very quick, and packaging was perfect. Thanks.

Technically, I shouldn't be rating this book yet, because I've only tried one recipe, BUT it was possibly the worst meal I have EVER made/eaten! Oh god, the horror! It was the Pan-fried chicken breast with cinnamon and coconut milk on page 166. I followed the recipe pretty accurately, and what a mistake that was. Incase anyone decides to make this recipe, this is what you should know:

First of all... the ingredient amounts seem to be off. There's two pounds of chicken... and one sprig of parsley. And two whole cloves. Then, an entire "pinch" of cilantro! Obviously, common sense says to throw in as much herbs as one thinks will be sufficient. There's also two onions and two garlic cloves. I added an extra clove of garlic, as well. :)

Second, the entire prep work is suppose to be only 20 minutes. I would like to see Zeus, himself, break open and grate two coconuts, in less than 20 mins. Don't even bother with them, because it's only for flavoring the sauce, and eventually strained out. The recipe also calls for canned coconut milk, which has a stronger flavor, so you might as well just forgo all fresh coconut, and save about 45 minutes.

Third - After you brown the chicken in a skillet, you're suppose to add the grated coconut, the herbs, onion, garlic, and some water (I used the coconut water) with the chicken, then simmer for three minutes. There's a couple of things wrong with this. The chicken looses it's color and flavor, and there ends up being too many ingredients in the skillet for the 1 cup of water. Even if you stir everything up, it's mainly only the chicken that ends up in the liquid. So the chicken needs to be taken out of the pan entirely, before adding all the other ingredients. But an even bigger issue is the time, which brings me to number four.

Four - The cooking and prep times in this book are so far off, I'm positive they were stoned when they made this dish. Three minutes is not enough time for the onions to even start sweating. This is suppose to be made into a sauce, and poured over the entire dish to give it all of it's flavor. Yet, three minutes is absolutely not enough time for the flavors to even begin to mesh together. I went for 15 minutes, but I suggest more like 20-25, or as long as your lil' heart desires.

Number five might just be a matter of opinion, but trust me when I say I'm not a picky eater. It calls for you to sprinkle a pinch of cinnamon on the chicken after you take it out of the sauce. I was skeptical of this to begin with, so my pinch was more like three piece of chicken received a couple of freckles. Not a fan. At all. *shudders*

Six- When it tells you to thicken the sauce with flour, it says to just stir the flour into the hot liquid from the other ingredients. And I think we all know how the turns out... lil lumps of flour floating everywhere. Just stir some flour and cold water together before dumping it into the pan.

And finally, number seven is actually a number four issue, and really minor. You pour the sauce all over the chicken and pop it into the oven for five minutes. It's not really warm enough, so make it 10.

I was really, REALLY excited about this cookbook, and I haven't tried any other recipes, so I'm finding it difficult to give it a deserving 1 star. So it gets two. As bad as this recipe was, I'm positive I'll try something else from this book. And when that time comes, I'll leave another review, hopefully with more stars.