Tom Colicchio originally became famous for cooking food. He is on a TV show judging how other people cook, but it isn’t as interesting to me as who he is as a Chef. I found his first two books to be groundbreaking: Think Like A Chef and Craft of Cooking. They were less of a cookbook, more of a lesson on technique. At the time, complicated French cooking was the ‘in’ thing. Tom wasn’t on that train. His style was focused on single ingredients and how they work together. These books have recipes in them, but the main thing I gleaned was how, why and when to use a particular technique with a particular ingredient. Why braise a rib and not a tenderloin. When to sweat a vegetable. Why fresh stock matters. Building blocks to make me a better cook.
My favorite section of Think Like A Chef is called Trilogies. He takes three ingredients that are suited to each other (ie: lobster, pasta and peas) and using different techniques, makes many unique dishes. It was a real eye opener and pressed me to think differently about how I cook.
Comments are closed.