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| Essence: Recipes from Le Champignon Sauvage | 
 enlarge | Author: David Everitt-matthias
Publisher: Absolute Press
Category: Book
List Price: £25.00
Buy New: £16.25
You Save: £8.75 (35%)
New (13) from £15.16
Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 4898
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 192
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.3
Dimensions (in): 9.7 x 9.5 x 0.9
ISBN: 1904573525
Dewey Decimal Number: 641
EAN: 9781904573524
ASIN: 1904573525
Publication Date: September 21, 2006
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
Simply Superb July 29, 2007
18 out of 20 found this review helpful
If you want to recreate Michelin star food for dinner parties this is the book for you. The recipes are actually the ones used at 'Le Champignon Sauvage' Michelin 2 star restaurant in Cheltenham. Though they all comprise several components and take a while to prepare the instructions are clear and precise including how to assemble the finished dishes. The forward interestingly is written by Gordon Ramsay but this book is far superior in recipe quality to any of his watered down offerings.
David Everitt-Matthias deserves every success with this bible.
Simply Superb!
Excellent April 19, 2007
9 out of 15 found this review helpful
Even As a professional chef i have rarely been interested in chef written books as i have been in Essence. Superbly written, great Photos and excellent Recipes. yes they are quite complicated but they are written in such detail and simplicity i have to congratulate David Everitt-Mathias. I have long wanted to go Champignon sauvage and this book has intensified this. Well done to all concerned with Essence as its one of the very best Thankyou
A step above the average January 26, 2007
8 out of 14 found this review helpful
Bought the book on reviews alone and wasn't disappointed.
The recipes definitely aren't your average, but then neither is the depth of writing or the methodologies.
I've not cooked many of the dishes in their entirety but many of the elements are so polished that they are infinitely useful in other dishes.
Not for the lazy chef or the fainthearted but brilliant non the less
User friendly book to inspire the serious diner and cook December 1, 2006
15 out of 21 found this review helpful
Unlike the dumbed-down recipes that appear in many of the books attributed to top chefs, these are dishes that David Everitt-Matthias has actually put in front of the paying customers in his Michelin 2 star restaurant. Dishes are broken down into their individual components with a clear explanation of how each is prepared and the presentation on the plate is beautifully photographed.
David E-M clearly wants readers to be able to take lessons from this book into their own kitchens without necessarily reproducing any of his dishes in their entirety. Thus he emphasises that his recipes are not set in stone but are there to be borrowed from or adapted.
Nonetheless, seeing the imagination and technical skill involved in these dishes will make many readers reach for the phone to book a table rather than head for the kitchen. A very wise move! Quite how David E-M managed to produce food like this for many years with only one other chef in the kitchen is baffling - even after a recent expansion there are only four of them serving 40 covers. And, as every article written about Champignon Sauvage seems to mention, David E-M has never missed a service in its 19-year history.
Great book - wonderful recipes November 4, 2006
50 out of 55 found this review helpful
In his Foreword Gordon Ramsay says, "It is a genuine pleasure to have been asked to write the foreword to David Everitt-Matthias' insightful book, Essence." I have to say it was a genuine pleasure for me just to read through this book from cover to cover . . . mind you I did get so hungry that I had to stop for an early lunch.
Is this just another Michelin star chef cashing in on his prestigious awards or is it something more? You could be forgiven for thinking so, having randomly opened the book and seen a recipe for 'Cannelloni of veal breast and burdock with celeriac cream, horseradish froth and wood sorrel'. Frightening, and you could be forgiven for thinking this book is for professional chefs. However, you would be wrong!
This has to be one of the most exciting and interesting books about food and cooking I have read in a long time. David Everitt-Matthias is no celebrity chef writing a book to fulfil his media commitments or to cash in on TV fame. This is a delightful introduction to the cooking of a great chef and in such a way that you or me can understand the recipes . . . and cook them! None of the recipes are include for show, they are all working recipes included with the intention that anyone should feel capable of cooking them with success.
All right, if you have trouble cooking an egg then perhaps this book is not for you. But if you enjoy your food and you enjoy cooking then this books is very much one to add to your collection. There are some truly wonderful recipes throughout but the book is a great read in itself for how it explains so much about the food and what is involved in the preparation and cooking of each dish.
Essence opens with a brief Introduction followed by advice entitled 'storecupboard', described as ". . . some of the standbys we use in the restaurant kitchen. It certainly makes life easier to have them on hand and you'll find they appear in a lot of the recipes in this book." This is followed by 'foundations' - "Good cooking depends on good foundation recipes - for stocks, pasta dough, pastry an so on." Armed with your basics the main section of the book is recipes from le champignon sauvage - starters, mains and desserts.
This is one chef who knows how to write a recipe so that his readers can understand it and, because each one is broken down into its individual components is not at all daunting. Each recipe has its own introduction which explains the dish and how its flavours work together and at the same time provides alternatives to those often difficult to find ingredients. The recipes are then broken down, both for ingredients and method, into the component parts of the dish making the whole thing easy to follow. To really understand how simplified the author has made the recipes you need to have a look at one or two.
Something David Everitt-Matthias is very keen to use in his cooking when the opportunity presents itself is wild ingredients - wild garlic, nettles, ground elder and many more - and the book closes with a wild food glossary, plus photographs, which describes many of the plants and mushrooms used.
Would I recommend the book? Definitely. There are some amazing recipes but also there are so many elements to each dish and so many different techniques explained that you cannot fail to learn something new and benefit from this book whether you are a relative beginner or an experienced hand in the kitchen.
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