Chicken

Rating:
Summary: Above-average chicken cookbook . . .
Review: The author is both an experienced editor and past operator for many years of a cooking school -- a good combination for someone wanting to produce cookbooks, and she's done a couple of dozen of them. Four or five have been collections of chicken recipes, all very handsome, and this one is no exception. I admit to a preference for cookbooks that include glossy, high-quality photos of the dishes; it whets your appetite and gives you some idea what the outcome will (or should) be. Almost every one of these 500 recipes includes a photo and many of them had me drooling on the page before I ever got the book home! After a useful introductory section on choosing and cutting up a chicken -- not one of my favorite chores -- she groups the recipes into "Soups, Appetizers & Salads," "Midweek Dishes" (i.e., not too complicated), "Roasts, Casseroles & Pies," "Hot & Spicy," "Low-Fat," and "Special Occasion." (Nope -- no chicken desserts.) I eat a lot of chicken, both for health reasons and because I like chicken, and I've already tried several of these. The Teriyaki Chicken Wings, with sherry, was quite good, and the simmered Chicken & Olives was very interesting (my wife is an olive junky). The Chicken Jambalaya wasn't too far from the way we do it here in south Louisiana, but pretty good on its own account. There's a creamy Sweet-&-Sour Chicken that was unusual (to me) and very good. There also are quite a few Middle Eastern dishes, not usually a cuisine I care for, but some of these look pretty good. I'm definitely getting my money's worth out of this book.