Egg: A Culinary Exploration of the World’s Most Versatile Ingredient

This beautifully produced cookbook, Egg is like watching a Food Channel show—lot’s going on, entertaining, but totally impractical for the average home cook (or even for a sophisticated one). Michael Ruhlman’s writing style is like a TV show: plenty of elaborate descriptions and many explanations, yet the recipes are difficult to follow. His style is like sophisticated story-telling; good for reading for the foodies, but the instructions are buried in long and elaborate sentences. A full page and a half to make hard-cooked eggs or scrambled eggs? Most cooks will soon switch cookbooks. The recipe instructions are sometimes ambiguous, even confusing with terms like “multiple-finger pinch of salt.” Most ingredients are easy to find but many are not (farmhouse cheddar, country ham). Many of the recipes are not going to be easy for a home cook: they are more fit for a professional kitchen, including equipment (sous vide, for example). The use of different-sized fonts is also confusing.

The recipes include anything using eggs: pancakes, brioche, challah, cakes and cookies, and so on. The photo illustrations are wonderful, and many are in series of smaller instructional style: these are very useful. Index is good but hard to read (too small font).