Tom Valentis Soups Stews & One [Hardcover]

There is little need to summarize the content of the book, as the title pretty much tells the story. You also should believe the statement on the cover that these are `home recipes' and not the kind of recipe Tom Valenti typically makes at his restaurants, or, at the very least, he does not make them in the same way at his restaurants.

The cover says there are 125 recipes which, on the face of it is a tad thin for the $30 tariff. These are broken down by:

Hearty soups and chowders: 18 including classics such as `pasta fazool', clam chowder, and lobster bisque
Casseroles, stews, and chilis: 28 including risottos, fish stews, sausage and cabbage stew, and venison chili
Large Cuts and catches: 29 including leg of lamb, beef brisket, pork shank, and hunter style chicken
Accompaniments and additions: 10 including pastas, rice, potatoes and polenta
Condiments and Garnishes: 9 including pesto, aioli, roasted tomatoes, and croutons

Oops, that is only 94. The remaining recipes are variations on main recipes plus recipes for chicken and beef stocks. Since almost recipe in the first three chapters has one or more variations, the effective total may be closer to 200. The bottom line is that these 94 basic recipes are worth the higher toll than you may find in some other books.

One way I recognize a superior book is when they illuminate properties in ingredients (as in Paul Bertoli's Cooking by Hand book) or make fine distinctions in technique to achieve superior results. Valenti does a double service in this book by endorsing the use of supermarket stocks for most recipes and the use of an immersion blender for most recipes, yet he makes a point of indicating which recipes would come out a lot better by using homemade stocks or a bar blender or food processor. An additional feature of several recipes is where the authors present alternatives for dishing out the meal on the day after on `Tomorrow's Table'.

It is important to not assume this is a book on quick cooking or that you will not have more than one pot to clean at the end of the day. As the authors freely admit, there is a lot of moving stuff back and forth from the central pot used in the preparation and there may be some supplementary heating up, but most of the action takes place in the center ring. The main thrust of this statement is that there are no auxillary preparations such as making a fish stock for bouillabaisse or making a lobster shell broth to make lobster bisque. The authors do not guarantee that the techniques in this book will produce results which rival the recipes with separate steps. What they do promise is that the results will be very good with somewhat less active time and one or more fewer pots to scrub. Be warned that some of the recipes will take very long indeed. Witness the name of the recipe `Seven Hour Lamb'.

It is no surprise that Tom Valenti is very fond of bacon, as this is a very common ingredient in the classical preparations of soups, stews, and braises. He uses it in many of the recipes and freely admits he is very fond of all things pork. One curious statement he makes in this regard are when he lumps Canadian bacon together with American / English style bacon and pancetta. The latter two are from pork belly while the former is sliced pork loin, and is very lean. Another curiosity is when he states that prociutto rather than pancetta can be substituted for bacon in a recipe. I am not sure if these are misstatements or represent a deeper understanding of these products than I have.

The foreword by Mario Batali originally attracted me to the book, as Molto Mario is my culinary hero, although the dust jacket blurbs from Mario, Bobby Flay, and Lidia Bastianich probably relate a lot more to Tom Valenti's founding the `Windows of Hope' program than they do with the innate quality of the book. And, I rarely trust blurbs anyway, since these people are paid to offer these statements. My reward for following Mario's lead is that I find that one of his nicknames is `beefy cheeks', due to his love of beef jowls. And here I thought he only cared about pig jowls.

If you like one pot meals with no rare or expensive ingredients (aside from a little saffron here and there) and relatively easy techniques, then this is the book for you. It may not be the very best book on the subject, but it is very good.