| | |  | Celebrity Chefs > | Home » » » Ad Hoc at Home | | | | | | | Description: | | Thomas Keller shares family-style recipes that you can make any or every day.
In the book every home cook has been waiting for, the revered Thomas Keller turns his imagination to the American comfort foods closest to his heart—flaky biscuits, chicken pot pies, New England clam bakes, and cherry pies so delicious and redolent of childhood that they give Proust's madeleines a run for their money. Keller, whose restaurants The French Laundry in Yountville, California, and Per Se in New York have revolutionized American haute cuisine, is equally adept at turning out simpler fare.
In Ad Hoc at Home—a cookbook inspired by the menu of his casual restaurant Ad Hoc in Yountville—he showcases more than 200 recipes for family-style meals. This is Keller at his most playful, serving up such truck-stop classics as Potato Hash with Bacon and Melted Onions and grilled-cheese sandwiches, and heartier fare including beef Stroganoff and roasted spring leg of lamb. In fun, full-color photographs, the great chef gives step-by-step lessons in kitchen basics— here is Keller teaching how to perfectly shape a basic hamburger, truss a chicken, or dress a salad. Best of all, where Keller’s previous best-selling cookbooks were for the ambitious advanced cook, Ad Hoc at Home is filled with quicker and easier recipes that will be embraced by both kitchen novices and more experienced cooks who want the ultimate recipes for American comfort-food classics.
| | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Thomas Keller | | Hardcover:
| 368 pages | | Publisher:
| Artisan | | Publication Date:
| November 06, 2009 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 1579653774 | | Package Length:
| 11.3 inches | | Package Width:
| 11.2 inches | | Package Height:
| 1.4 inches | | Package Weight:
| 5.85 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 45 reviews |
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| $29.97 | New | | | $29.97 | New | | | $30.48 | New | | | $30.48 | New | | | $31.25 | New | | | $31.50 This item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. | New | | | $33.39 | New | | | $33.67 | New | | | $35.00 | New | | | $35.00 | New | | | $35.88 | New | | | $37.15 | New | | | $37.36 | New | | | $37.78 | New | | | $38.43 | New | | | $39.95 | New | | | $40.05 | New | | | $41.54 | New | | | $44.98 | New | | | $45.00 | New | | | $48.36 | New | | | $49.65 | New | | | $49.77 | New | | | $50.00 | New | | | $50.00 | New | | | $50.00 | New | | | $50.00 | New | | | $50.00 | New | | | $50.30 | New | | | $51.00 | New | | | $54.76 | New | | | $54.78 | New | | | $55.00 | New | | | $58.45 | New | | | $67.12 | New | | | $69.65 | New | | | $75.58 | New | | | $81.00 | New | | | $95.26 | New | | | $100.00 | New | | | $104.39 | New | | | $225.00 | New | | | $678.99 | New | |
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| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
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 great cookbookMar 06, 2010
I have absolutely enjoyed cooking from this book. Its detailed instructions are what work for me. Its creates successful dishes that are making cooking a fun experience.
5 of 5 found the following review helpful:
 "Staff meals" do not make a great cookbookMar 01, 2010
I've worked in restaurants and understand the concept of preparing a "staff meal" in which great ingredients plus last night's leftovers are used imaginatively to make a meal for the employees. Keller explains at one point that is the inspiration for Ad Hoc and for this cookbook, and therein lies the problem.
If you have never baked or fried a chicken or brined a cut of pork, you'll find directions here. But you can find equally good and less fussy recipes in the Joy of Cooking or another more encyclopedic/basic source. Some of what's here is solid home-cooking advice, but other dishes are astonishingly high in fats. If I'm going to clog my arteries I'd rather find a more creative way to do it.
Also, hidden in the recipes are a number of specialty ingredients that make it difficult to reproduce Keller's methods without a lot of advance mail-order shopping. And while some dishes can be made "ad hoc" or on the spur of the moment, others depend on advance preparation of enhancements such as pickled vegetables or spice mixes. Actually I love Keller's pickling section and that, plus the pictures, comes close to justifying the purchase of the book. But understand what you are getting, and not.
4 of 7 found the following review helpful:
 No Comfort Food HereFeb 26, 2010
Even in Georgia, where folks know a thing or two about fried chicken, my mother's version of this Southern classic was considered exceptional. So when I taste someone else's recipe, I ask myself, "What would my mother have said about this?" I can almost hear her comment about the fried chicken in Thomas Keller's latest cookbook, ad hoc at home.
"This is very good," she would have agreed. "But it doesn't taste like fried chicken."
There in a nutshell is the problem with this cookbook and with many others from high-end restaurant masters who tackle everyday food. Their concoctions look great and taste fine, but the chefs try so hard to take each dish to a new level of sophistication that they lose essential hominess.
Take Keller's fried chicken recipe. It sparkles in a beautiful crust with good crunch and plenty of flavor. But the meat itself doesn't taste quite right. The problem is that, before cooking, Keller recommends brining chicken pieces for 12 hours in a mixture of salt, herbs, honey and a whole lot of lemon juice. Sure, the chicken turns out good and juicy, but it also acquires an odd lemony flavor that would be more at home at a Chinese take-out than in a Georgia kitchen.
Keller talks about meals from his own childhood as he introduces some of the almost-classics included here. In touting his version of chicken potpie, for example, Keller claims that he grew up eating Swanson's frozen potpies. Maybe, but he missed an important point. A potpie, whether it arrives in a Swanson's box or reaches the table fresh from a home cook's oven, needs big, meaty chunks of chicken. Shredding the chicken, as Keller suggests, simply does not work.
Another case in point: beef stroganoff. Keller claims nostalgia for an all-American version of stroganoff made with Campbell's cream of mushroom soup. I've never tried that dish and eating it ranks with seeing a purple cow among things I hope never to do. If that's what you think of as beef stroganoff, though, you'll be disappointed in Keller's dish. With lots of crimini mushrooms, scads of heavy cream and crème fraiche and homemade pappardelle as the supporting cast for blocks of braised beef short rib meat in the starring role, the chef's version of this iconic dish is exceptional. But it isn't comfort food.
I hasten to add that there is a lot to like in ad hoc at home. Instructions are clear and easy to follow. Nearly all ingredients can be found at local markets in season. Everything I tried from the book was, in its own way, delicious. The book brims with gorgeous graphics and lip-licking photos that plainly show what a finished dish should look like.
Keller also suggests techniques and tools essential to a competent cook. Learn to braise, he urges. Learn to use salt properly. Learn to make one really good soup and learn all the different ways to cook eggs. To dress a salad uniformly, oil the bowl, not the greens. Tear croutons very slowly. Don't cut them.
Over the last 20 years, a few celebrity chefs have written cookbooks that serve as excellent guides for home cooks seeking to produce the very best of old favorites. Larry Forgione did a fine job in the 1996 cookbook named for his New York City restaurant, An American Place. Food Network star Bobby Flay successfully freshened up American favorites in his work, Bobby Flay Cooks American.
Thomas Keller is, arguably, one of the finest chefs in the United States. At his original West Coast restaurant, The French Laundry, the reservation list is so jammed that it is amazing anyone ever goes there. Per Se in New York City is equally challenging. And his three previous cookbooks, especially The French Laundry Cookbook, are well worth owning. Still, I think Keller ought to leave home cooking to others.
I give ad hoc at home two stars of a possible five.
1 of 4 found the following review helpful:
The only cook book you need.Feb 24, 2010
From Soup to Nuts, this book has it all...literally. If you own one cook book this should be it. Forget about The Joy of Cooking and Julia Child's Art of French Cooking, this is it!
2 of 8 found the following review helpful:
A coffee table cookbook?Feb 20, 2010
This book was the only thing I asked for for my birthday. I love cookbooks, have many, and use quite a lot of those. My batterie de cuisine is extensive, and I am not ashamed of my repertoire. The book finally arrived today, and I sat down and read it. The first thing that struck me was the size of the book. This book is much too big to put in the kitchen and follow the recipe. And it is very heavy. It is sized as a coffee table book.
Then I began to read the book. It starts by suggesting that only the most expensive equipment will be good enough. I know the prices of Mr. Keller's recommendations. Then I moved on to the recipes. They do broaden the mind. But this may be Mr. Keller's idea of home cooking, or cooking for the home, but I doubt it is anyone else's. Many of these recipes would take all day, and perhaps more, to make. Much less to serve a whole meal made from 3 or more recipes. Sandwiches begin with homemade bread. Fried chicken needs to be brined for 12 hours. Chicken pot pie has cooked chicken in it, presumably made before the recipe starts. Many ingredients need to be sent for, or looked for in very rare specialty shops. Now, that is fine, and has a place, but this is not a cookbook for every day. And in today's society, it's not really for cooking even on the weekend. It's made for sitting on the coffee table, and being read. This to me is sad. I probably will try a number of the recipes, just to see if they are worth all the extra work, if the recipe is used in its entirety. But I do expect to adopt some of the ideas included in some of the recipes in my general cooking routine.
I was expecting to be totally inspired by this book, and I am not. These are not home cooking recipes. This is very fancy, high end restaurant cooking trying to disguise itself as home cooking and failing miserably.
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