Filed under: Books, Cookbook of the Day

How much do you want to know about sauces? If you are looking for one solid tomato-based meat sauce, then Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making is probably not the book for you. If, however, you want to know just about everything there is to know about the history, evolution and techniques of sauce making across cultures, then this James Beard Award winning cookbook is the perfect choice. The encyclopedic book is over 600 pages and starts with the basics, including the equipment that is needed for proper sauce making and the fairly standard stocks and things that are the absolute foundation of most cooking. The subjects, in terms of the types of sauces covered, range from meat and fish sauces to salad dressings, vegetable-based and dessert sauces. There is even a who chapter dedicated to the somewhat out of fashion jellied sauces, although their construction is interesting even if you don't plan on serving them.

The wonderful thing about sauces is that they can transform something ordinary into something much more impressive, not to mention into something that is far tastier that it might be plain. This book is an essential reference for a home chef who wants to really take their cooking up to a new level and for a pro who wants to, similarly, learn some more techniques and just improve their basics.