Reviews Cooking, Food And Wine Book

Product Details

Amazon Sales Rank: #10308 in Books

Brand: Ilana Simon

Published on: 2001-10-06

Original language: English

Number of items: 1

Binding: Paperback

192 pages

Features

Fondue creates an opportunity to sit down with friends or family to enjoy a leisurely, congenial...

Dimensions: 10 InchesH 7 InchesW

See Product Description below for a complete description of this item.

About the Author

Ilana Simon is a respected and experienced food writer and editor. This is her first cookbook.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Szechuan Sesame Chicken Fondue

Serves 4

Marinade

1 1/2 tbsp (20 mL) hoisin sauce

1 tbsp (15 mL) soy sauce

1 tps (15 mL) water

2 tsp (10 mL) honey

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tsp (5 mL) minced ginger root

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1 tsp (5 mL) sesame oil

1 tsp (5 mL) sesame seeds, toasted

1 lb (500 g) boneless skinless chicken breasts, thinly sliced into 1-inch (2.5 cm) pieces

5 cups (1.25 L) chicken broth, homemade (recipe in book)
or canned (2 cans plus 2 cans water)

1. Marinade: In a saucepan over medium heat, combine hoisin sauce, soy sauce water, honey, garlic, ginger, salt and pepper; stir until well mixed and honey is melted. Remove from heat; stir in sesame oil and sesame seeds.

2. In a shallow casserole, cover chicken with marinade, making sure that all pieces are well coated. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

3. Broth: In a large saucepan, bring chicken broth to a boil. Immediately transfer to fondue pot, setting flame to keep at a simmer.

4. Remove chicken from marinade and spear with fondue fork. Fondue for 2 to 4 minutes or until cooked through.

TIP:

Hoisin sauce, made from fermented soybeans, adds a unique flavor to the marinade in this recipe; there is really no substitute.

Toasting the sesame seeds adds extra flavor to the marinade. Just toast in a non-stick skillet over low heat for 3 to 5 minutes, turning once.

To give the broth a little extra punch, add 2 tbsp (25 mL) salsa verde.

MAKE AHEAD:

Prepare marinade in advance and marinate chicken breast pieces for several hours before the fondue meal.

SERVE WITH:

Sweet-and-sour sauce, sweet chili sauce, peanut sauce, soy sauce, salsa verde.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

There's something unique about sharing a fondue with family and friends around your table. Everyone is relaxed -- including the host -- and the pace of the intimate meal is as leisurely as you want.

For anyone old enough to remember the 1970s, the fondue also carries with it a certain nostalgia. Remember those college and après ski fondue parties? The obligatory fondue pot given as a bridal shower or wedding gift? Well, fondues are back!

In recent years, sales of fondue pots -- ranging from traditional flame-burning fondues to the sleek, new, easy-to-use electric versions -- have skyrocketed. You'll find them everywhere, on cookware websites and on the shelves of kitchen stores. Restaurants devoted to fondue have cropped up around North America, and new generations are discovering the allure of the fondue tradition.

Fonduing is a fun and easy way to entertain and is more sociable than your typical dinner party. But you needn't wait for a special occasion to get retro and partake in no-fuss fondue. In today's fast-paced world, a romantic, lingering fondue for two offers an opportunity to enjoy one another's company while enjoying melted comfort food.

Fondue is also an ideal way to spend quality time together as a family, and kids of all ages love to participate in cooking their own food -- especially when it involves chocolate! But don't discount other unhurried fondues with the junior set. Big hits in my house with my 11- and nine-year-old sons were Italian Cheese Fondue, Chicken Nuggets oil fondue, Mongolian Hot Pot, and Cilantro Clam Broth with Shrimp, to name a few.

Today's fondue goes well beyond the standard duo of cheese and chocolate. International cooking styles present a plethora of fondue possibilities, such as Japanese sukiyaki and tempura, spicy Indian curry and Mexican bubbling cheese fondues, as well as simmering Vietnamese, Thai and Jamaican broths. And unlike the fondues of yesterday -- never exactly low in fat -- many of the new varieties have a healthier twist, with fresh foods swished in flavorful broths instead of oil.

Still, cheese and oil fondues continue to play an important role in creating a contemporary fondue feast. So in addition to dipping French bread into creamy cheese fondue or spearing beef tenderloin into sizzling hot oil, with the recipes in this book you can indulge in Three Cheese and Porcini or Mexican Cheese Fondue, or take a stab at Coconut Shrimp or Sausage Meatball oil fondues.

And don't forget that despite our culture's calorie-counting obsession, decadent desserts still reign supreme -- and in moderation, why not? Chocolate lovers will love the extensive compilation of dessert fondues in this book, including various types of chocolate paired with complementary flavors like coconut, coffee and mint. Also included are a dizzying array of other sweet sensations, ranging from caramel to rum and butter.

Ultimately, fonduing is all about fun and relaxation. For the host, a fondue party requires only a little shopping, chopping, marinating and grating. After that, it's the guests who do the work: cooking, dipping, dunking and devouring.

Fire, food and friendship appeal to our primitive urges -- think cavemen, huddling around a campfire, spearing meat and cooking over fire.

A fondue party offers a chance to recreate (well, kind of) this fabled scenario. It's a cosy meal focused on a pot over fire in which guests cook their skewered meat while enjoying good conversation, good food and good times.

Enjoy!
Ilana Simon

 

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Customer Reviews

A poor fondue book - limited vision, limited recipes
This book would get 2 stars, but, at this price, one really can't complain.
However, if you're looking for interesting recipes, but are perhaps somewhat harder to find ingredients for, see "Fondues from around the world" instead, also sold from Amazon.

More on "125 best recipes" book:

Here's what's good about this book:
1) easy, accessible (in terms of finding the recipe in the book, and obtaining ingredients), recipes.
2) cover's various styles of fondues ... but I expect that out of any devoted fondue book.

Here's what's flawed:
1) This is a 125 *best* fondue recipe book. There are many recipes in this book explicitly designed for kids, as if parents don't know what their kids like, or that kids have a discriminating (perhaps picky though) palate? These are simply wasted pages. It's like finding a watered down mac and cheese recipe -several times- in your shiny new cookbook, which, in this case, happens to be titled, *best* fondue recipes...
2) limited vision: most of the cheese fondue recipes (for example) are exactly the same: same cheeses, etc., with 1 or 2 different final ingredients. These could have easily been collapsed into one recipe, saving space for something more novel, for example, in the cheese section.
3) Each recipe comes with a little "serve with" section, but these parts are clearly hurried, and unresearched. Most of the cheese recipes are "serve with bread" etc. Nothing most readers won't already know. This section should state something more interesting: like trying the brie fondue with *pear* wedges (my suggestion)

Fondue Just got more tantilizing!!!
I was not big on Fondue till I got this book. The recepies are easy to follow and are great tasting. I have looked through several fondue books prior to purchasing this one. If you had to get just one book that has it all....this book does that and much more. Fondue has taken on a whole new meaning thanks to this book!!!!

Fondue gone Wrong
I was looking for good classical fondue receipes but found this book full of off the wall asian receipies and other things one wouldn't normally associate with fondue. I'm sure they are all very nice but for a basic fondue book it would not be my choice and it is expensive for what it is.