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The Wolfgang Puck Cookbook
Recipes from Spago, Chinois and Points East and West
by Wolfgang Puck
Random House, 1986
ISBN- 0-394-53366-6
Reviewed by Debra Fritz
I bought this cookbook for one recipe, Tortilla Soup, which I'd had at the Puck Café in my area several times. The day the book arrived, I checked the ingredients list for the soup, rushed out to the store, bought everything and came home looking forward to Tortilla Soup for dinner.
I began preparing things per the instructions in the book. I sautéed the tortillas… got my food processor out to grind the next batch of ingredients…garlic, corn, jalapeno peppers…Wait a minute...what corn? I re-read the ingredient list. No corn listed! But here it was, in black and white, "grind corn" with the other things. Needless to say, there was no Tortilla Soup for dinner that night. It took over a week, 3 phone calls to various Puck restaurants and a trip to the local Puck Café to finally find out it was a typo in the book, and that corn had never been an ingredient in that recipe.
I did eventually make the Tortilla Soup, and it was good, but it was not nearly as good as what is served in his local café. I was given assurances that it is the same recipe, and I believe them, but somehow, it just doesn't taste the same.
Since I now owned the book, I decided to read through it and see what else was offered. The first thing I noticed is, in this 294-page book, there are no pictures, except a few small "pen & ink drawings. Nothing to give a hint of what finished products should look like or how they are plated. In fairness, every recipe includes a few lines of type on presentation, but it would have been really nice to see how the Crab Soup with Fried Spicy Crab Rolls looked, with all the suggested garnishes, finished and plated for service.
There are recipes for good basic chicken, veal and fish stocks, as well as Court Bouillon, all used in various recipes throughout the book. Crayfish Bisque, the above-mentioned Crab Soup, Wild Mushroom Soup, and Cream of Leek and Chervil Soup with White Truffles are a few of the offerings in the appetizer, soup & salad section. Also included are a number of other interesting offerings, such as Cured Fresh Salmon, Bay Scallops and Shrimp Seviche in Tortilla cups and Marinated Tuna with Maui Onions and Avocado.
The recipes are divided into eight chapters, including Pizza, Pasta, Fish & Shellfish, Meats & Poultry, Bread, Vegetables and Desserts. There are also approximately twelve pages of various menus, ranging from special dinner creations at Spago to celebrity weddings and State Dinners that Chef Puck has catered. He also includes a brief glossary of cooking terms, but I stress the word brief. Don't depend on it to answer all your questions as you read the recipes.
One of the basic recipes given in the Dessert section is for Sugar Dough, which is used in a number of pies and tarts in this section. It consists of unsalted butter, pastry flour, all purpose flour, salt, sugar, egg yolks and heavy cream. I've made this several times, and it is a good recipe, but you'd better follow directions and chill for at least 2 hours before attempting to work with it. Even with 4 hours of chilling, I had some problems.
There are hundreds of recipes in this book, some complicated and some not. One is a Roasted New York Strip Steak with Two Sauces (a Foyot sauce and a Meaux Mustard Sauce, neither of which was familiar to me). I tried both sauces, and while they were very good, they required a fair amount of work, the need for a well-stocked pantry, and a three-day search for Meaux mustard.
On the more simple side, Bay Scallops with Sautéed Apples, Marinated and Glazed Swordfish, and Chicken with Garlic & Parsley were all quick, easy and good. Those will be added to the list of items I will likely make regularly.
For those curious about the kind of food served at the many Puck restaurants, this book gives a good glimpse into their menus. Recipes for many of his "signature" pizzas are given, along with his recipe for pizza dough. There are numerous pasta recipes, including one for Black Pasta using the ink pocket from a Cuttlefish, and a good basic recipe for Herbed Pasta Dough.
Since I have dined at several of his restaurants, I recognized some of the items and knew how they looked and tasted. If you are not familiar with the Puck cooking style, or not in the "advanced" cook category, you go on faith alone here…and depend on your own level of experience with different ingredients and your own level of daring in approaching these recipes.
This is a good cookbook for those with more cooking experience and
who may be planning an elegant dinner, but not one I'd recommend for beginners.
I also suggest looking through this book before buying it.
Click here to order this cookbook.
