Essential Pépin: More Than 700 All-Time Favorites from My Life in Food [With DVD] - Hardcover

by Jacques Pépin (Author)

For the first time ever, the legendary chef collects and updates the best recipes from his six-decade career. With a searchable DVD demonstrating every technique a cook will ever need.

In his more than sixty years as a chef, Jacques Pépin has earned a reputation as a champion of simplicity. His recipes are classics. They find the shortest, surest route to flavor, avoiding complicated techniques.

Now, in a book that celebrates his life in food, the world's most famous cooking teacher winnows his favorite recipes from the thousands he has created, streamlining them even further. They include Onion Soup Lyonnaise-Style, which Jacques enjoyed as a young chef while bar-crawling in Paris; Linguine with Clam Sauce and Vegetables, a frequent dinner chez Jacques; Grilled Chicken with Tarragon Butter, which he makes indoors in winter and outdoors in summer; Five-Peppercorn Steak, his spin on a bistro classic; Mémé's Apple Tart, which his mother made every day in her Lyon restaurant; and Warm Chocolate Fondue Soufflé, part cake, part pudding, part soufflé, and pure bliss.

Essential Pépin spans the many styles of Jacques's cooking: homey country French, haute cuisine, fast food Jacques-style, and fresh contemporary American dishes. Many of the recipes are globally inspired, from Mexico, across Europe, or the Far East.

In the accompanying searchable DVD, Jacques shines as a teacher, as he demonstrates all the techniques a cook needs to know. This truly is the essential Pépin.

Back Jacket

Jacques Pepin has been a constant inspiration to me. This book is a distillation of the very best of his creations, showing both the remarkable breadth of his cooking and the beautiful continuity of his dishes over the past sixty years. He makes food the way it should be made: simple, seasonally ripe, pure, and impossible to resist. Alice Waters

Jacques Pepin is the Master. The undisputed authority on . . . well, just about everything relating to food. If Jacques Pepin tells you this is the way to make an omelet or to roast a chicken, then for me, the matter is settled. As with all his works, this is a vital, essential volume that should live in your kitchen forever. Nobody knows more or does it better. Anthony Bourdain If there s a best of the best in cookbooks, this is it a lifetime of greatest hits from our favorite ambassador of French cuisine. These recipes are more than just mouthwatering; they are as lively, unpretentious, and appealing as the man behind them, reminding us (as if we needed reminding) why we fell in love with French food, and with Jacques Pepin, in the first place. An essential collection from an essential chef. Dan Barber Jacques Pepin is a true artist and a masterful one at that. Essential Pepin reflects an incredible body of work in an important achievement, and we, his pupils, are ever so fortunate to benefit from the breadth of knowledge within its pages. With Jacques Pepin, whether in print or on television, I walk away from my time with him having learned a little something more, and I feel a bit richer for that. Lidia Bastianich"

Author Biography

Jacques Pépin has written twenty-five cookbooks, including the best-selling Jacques Pépin Fast Food My Way, More Fast Food My Way, and his memoir, The Apprentice. He has also starred in numerous acclaimed cooking series on public television and is a contributing editor to Food & Wine. He has won multiple James Beard Awards, several IACP Cookbook Awards, and the Legion of Honor, France's highest distinction.