The Chef Next Door: A Pro Chef's Recipes for Fun, Fearless Home Cooking

(Hardback)

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Description

Improve your confidence and add joy to your home cooking with this beautiful, practical, full-color cookbook filled with information, techniques, and more than 100 recipes from the Food Network favorite and critically acclaimed chef of New Yorks Empire Diner restaurant.

Amanda Freitag is a master at knocking out fabulous meals in her restaurant kitchen and on the set of Food Networks Chopped and Iron Chef America. But until recently, she was totally intimidated to cook at home in her tiny apartment kitchen, relating to the fears of many home cooks. She realized she wasnt alone!

She set out to help other home cooks and created a list of restaurant-quality recipes that shine in the home kitchen. The Chef Next Door teaches home cooks a wide range of confidence-instilling skills, tricks, and tips that Amanda has picked up working in professional kitchens and cooking competitively on television. In her bright, lively voice, she helps you master the basic techniques that are the foundation of good, flavorful cooking. She also teaches you how to think like a chefto consider seasonality, balancing flavors, understanding the steps, and learning how to improviseto create a menu and execute dishes with pro techniques, as if she were right there in the kitchen with you.

Youll find everything from the basicssauces, marinades, stocks, and rubsto first impressions, salads, and easy dinner recipes, and will even become skilled in making The Scary Stuffrecipes that may seem out of reach but are not. With The Chef Next Door, youll be able to dazzle friends and family with a diverse range of dishes, such as Spinach Feta Pies, Kale and Farro Salad with Aged Goat Cheese, Lusty Lemon Chicken, Pops Beer-Braised Bold Beef Stew, Mediterranean Potato Salad, Marinated Artichokes, Cocoa Carrot Cake, and more.

Filled with beautiful color photographs that show how achievable good food really is, The Chef Next Door makes confident home cooking a breeze.

Reviews

"Amanda's food is always thoughtful with twists on tradition that really make you take notice. I love that she's pulling no punches and showing that cooking at home can be easy when you're used to all that fancy chef stuff. Kudos to fearless home cooking!!" -- Michael Symon "I know all too well how intimidating it can be to cook at home without the comforts of a professional kitchen. Amanda navigates the confusing space with humor and a guiding yet familiar voice that makes the reader feel like she's right beside them coaching from start to finish." -- Marcus Samuelsson "The Chef Next Door isn't about fine-dining and fussy ingredients. It's about good, simple, delicious home-cooking." -- Glamour.com "In her lovely new cookbook, The Chef Next Door, Ms. Freitag encourages home cooks to think like those chefs with easy-to-follow recipes that pair seasonal ingredients with culinary shortcuts." -- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "Clear and concise...The Chef Next Door is a great book for anyone who has experience cooking at home but maybe hasn't tried their hand at dishes they've deemed to be somewhat intimidating...making it all possible for you-the average home cook." -- Bookbitch.com "A lot of variety for chefs who want to try something a bit different or some great recipes for your next dinner party." -- Parkersburg News & Sentinel "Improve your confidence and add joy to your home cooking with this beautiful, practical, full-color cookbook filled with information, techniques, and more than 100 recipes." -- Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Author Bio

Amanda Freitag is one of New York City's most celebrated chefs. A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, she has worked under Jean-Georges Vongerichten at Vong, Diane Forley at Verbena, Alain Passard at Paris's famed restaurant Arpege, and Tom Valenti at 'Cesca. She worked as executive chef at Gusto and The Harrison before opening her first restaurant, Empire Diner, in 2013. Amanda has battled Bobby Flay on Iron Chef America, has a recurring role as a judge on the Food Network series Chopped, and stars with Ty Pennington on Food Network's American Diner Revival. She lives in New York City.