"Modernist Cooking Made Easy" book review

Last month I purchased 2 cooking books from amazon.com. The first one is “Modernist Cuisine at Home” by Nathan Myhrvoid and team and the second one is “Modernist Cooking Made Easy” by Jason Logsdon. They both cost me $153.61 in total, which is pretty expensive for me. The first book I’m going to talk about is the book by Jason Logsdon. This book cost me $22.84. When I was about to purchase this book, I read a lot of good reviews on Amazon website, so, I decided to give it a go.

Before I purchased this book. I’ve already used their website (modernistcookingmadeeasy.com) as a resources for molecular recipes, tips and tricks. So, it’s not surprising that I recognized some of the contents of the book. As I mentioned before, I read a lot of good review about this book, so, I didn’t think that much when I purchased it and it’s only 20 bucks anyway. However, when I received the book, I ran through the pages and I realized that the book is black and white. I was a little bit disappointed because the pictures looked sad in black and white colour only.

At the back cover, it says that the book contains:

• An in-depth look at many of the most popular modernist ingredients such as Xanthan gum, sodium alginate, carrageenan, and agar agar. 

My opinion: Go check out their website and you’ll find as much information as the book has, and even more.

• A detailed exploration of modernist techniques like spherification, gelling, foaming, thickening, and sous vide.

My opinion: I’d say that the website has more information than the book. They both even have the same wording style

• More than 80 recipes for gel, foams, sauces, caviars, airs, syrups, gel noodles and marshmallows.

My opinion: The website has 23 recipes only. So, if you are looking for more recipes, this book has plenty! However, not every recipe has a picture of how it looks like.

•  Directions for how to use modernist techniques and ingredients to make your everyday cooking more convenient.

My opinion: Both website and book complement each other. Some information you might find on their website instead of book and the other way around. As an example, when I wrote about spherification on my previous post about yogurt sphere, I found that the website gives a better explanation about the differences between direct vs reverse spherification and it has a colorful image too, which is interesting.

•  More than 400 sous vide time and temperature combinations across 175 cuts of meat, types of fish and vegetables.

My opinion: The book contains more information than the website. More importantly, it contains sous vide time and temperature for different type of cuts of meats, duck, pork, fish and vegetables, which is not available on their website.

Overall rating: 3 star out of 5.

I would say that this book is just alright because you can find the most of the information on their website. Even though it contains plenty of recipes, not every recipe equipped with image/photo.

That is the end of the review and let me know in the comment below what you think about the book and if you suggest other book. I’d love to hear that and happy reading!