Best Recipe Sources

I'd like to stick to Italian, French, and basic seafood recipe sources. So what are the best sources for those cuisines? Books? Online?

Thanks in advance!

I don't know what other people use but my girlfriend and I use Kraft Recipes. It does not have only Kraft recipes and there are alot of user submitted. Being poor college students we love the dinner for two section and then the budget wise and healthy sections. You can find some healthy, delicious, and budget wise recipes. You can also search for just the Italian, French, and basic seafood recipes. I think you are looking for something nicer and more detailed but I thought I would just throw this out there.

[captain53]

I like local/regional cookbooks. Also I ahve found that some better restaurants offer really great cookbooks.

I like books but some of the recipes are online also.

Julia Childs books cover French pretty well.

Here is just a small sample of some of my favorites: The New Orleans/Louisiana Books are primarily Creole style foods not Cajun.

http://www.jfolse.com/

http://www.neworleans.com/food/cookb...-cookbook.html

http://www.neworleans.com/food/cookb...-cookbook.html

http://www.neworleans.com/food/cookb...d-recipes.html

http://www.harpercollins.com/books/N...=9780060160104

http://www.hudsonsonthebend.com/stor...?category_id=2

[T.G]

I've found good recipes in all forms of publication, books, magazines, newspapers, online, TV and spoken word. I've also found a lot of garbage, and as can be expected, a lot of duplication on the internet sources.

Books and magazines tend to be more filtered, as unlike the internet, where anyone can publish anything that they might want to believe is edible, books and magazines are usually well revised, filtered and checked so that very little "junk" ends up in them, along with a much lower incidence of duplications and plagiarism. I've found that newspapers are even more filtered than books and magazines because they only have the room to run a few recipes. Some of the stuff from restaurant chefs that I've found in NY Times and LA Times food sections is just phenomenal.

One thing wonderful about some books and many TV shows is that they also show a technique, something that doesn't often make it into internet recipes.

When dealing with the internet, because it's so easy to bring up dozens of variants on a dish in mere seconds and have them all in front of me at once, I tend to look at quite a few of them for that particular dish and evaluate them in my head versus each other and often times, I end up combining parts or components of various recipes along with my own twists to come up with the final product.

Originally Posted by T.G

I feel that it depends on what you are looking for at that moment.

I've found good recipes in all forms of publication, books, magazines, newspapers, online, TV and spoken word. I've also found a lot of garbage, and as can be expected, a lot of duplication on the internet sources. Books and magazines tend to be more filtered. Unlike the internet, where anyone can publish anything that they might want to believe is a recipe, books and magazines are usually well revised, filtered and checked so that very little "junk" ends up in them. Newspapers are even more filtered than books and magazines because they only have the room to run a few recipes. Some of the stuff I've found in NY Times and LA Times food sections is just phenomenal.

One thing wonderful about books and some TV shows is that they also show a technique, something that doesn't often make it into internet recipes.

When dealing with the internet, because it's so easy to bring up dozens of variants on a dish in mere seconds and have them all in front of me at once, I tend to look at quite a few of them for that particular dish and evaluate them in my head versus each other and often times, I end up combining parts or components of various recipes along with my own twists to come up with the final product.

I kind of feel overwhelmed with all the recipes that come up in an internet search. It's crazy how many recipes are out there for just one dish. I would like to think that there is one great book for just Italian, or French cuisine that can cover the classic dishes.

[T.G]

Originally Posted by ChicagoWhiteSox

I kind of feel overwhelmed with all the recipes that come up in an internet search. It's crazy how many recipes are out there for just one dish. I would like to think that there is one great book for just Italian, or French cuisine that can cover the classic dishes.

Then I would think that books are probably your best bet.

For Italian, I would recommend "The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Italian" by the late Jeff Smith. Wonderful book - four hundred something authentic and old world recipes all adapted for the American kitchen, history & cooking techniques. I've been using my copy since it was first released about 20 years ago now. I'm pretty sure it's long since out of print, so, if you buy, I would recommend the hardcover version, over the paperback, as the paperbacks are probably falling apart at this point.

Seafood is pretty varied, do you have a particular country style you might be interested in or are you just looking for something that hits recipes from many geographic regions and cultures?

[T.G]

Originally Posted by T.G

(...)
For Italian, I would recommend "The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Italian" by the late Jeff Smith. Wonderful book - four hundred something authentic and old world recipes all adapted for the American kitchen, history & cooking techniques. I've been using my copy since it was first released about 20 years ago now. I'm pretty sure it's long since out of print, so, if you buy, I would recommend the hardcover version, over the paperback, as the paperbacks are probably falling apart at this point.
(...)

Looks like hard cover versions are on ebay starting at 99 cents + S/H.

And I was off on the age, it's only a 17 year old book now. I must have been thinking of one of his other books that I also own.

Originally Posted by T.G

Then I would think that books are probably your best bet.

For Italian, I would recommend "The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Italian" by the late Jeff Smith. Wonderful book - four hundred something authentic and old world recipes all adapted for the American kitchen, history & cooking techniques. I've been using my copy since it was first released about 20 years ago now. I'm pretty sure it's long since out of print, so, if you buy, I would recommend the hardcover version, over the paperback, as the paperbacks are probably falling apart at this point.

Seafood is pretty varied, do you have a particular country style you might be interested in or are you just looking for something that hits recipes from many geographic regions and cultures?

Mediterranean I would say. A Southern Spain influenced book would be cool, or even Italy or France. I'm sure a book that covers all Mediterranean cuisine would be incredibly thick, and expensive for that matter.

[Gophernut]

Originally Posted by T.G

For Italian, I would recommend "The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Italian" by the late Jeff Smith. Wonderful book - four hundred something authentic and old world recipes all adapted for the American kitchen, history & cooking techniques. I've been using my copy since it was first released about 20 years ago now. I'm pretty sure it's long since out of print, so, if you buy, I would recommend the hardcover version, over the paperback, as the paperbacks are probably falling apart at this point.

One of my absolute favorite cook books of all time.
I also use allrecipes.com for a lot of othere family friendly recipes.

Originally Posted by T.G

Then I would think that books are probably your best bet.

For Italian, I would recommend "The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Italian" by the late Jeff Smith. Wonderful book - four hundred something authentic and old world recipes all adapted for the American kitchen, history & cooking techniques. I've been using my copy since it was first released about 20 years ago now. I'm pretty sure it's long since out of print, so, if you buy, I would recommend the hardcover version, over the paperback, as the paperbacks are probably falling apart at this point.

This is one of my favorites. I use the encyclopedia of Italian cooking a lot too(will look up the info when I get home).

I also like magazines. They have tested recipes with details on technique, plus shiny pictures.

[LasciviousXXX]

We use this book for all our French recipes

[bobarian]

All recipes involve some personal interpretation, that's the reason for so many variations on even the classics. I usually look at 3 or 4 different recipes when I am looking to try something new, then pick the one that I think will best suit my skills and cooking style.

For classic French cooking you cant go wrong if you start here.

[Kreth]

The book Tio Gato just bombed me with (jacques Pepin's Complete Techniques) has over 800 pages on French cooking. It starts with basic knife techniques, and covers sauces (Hollandaise, beurre blanc), vegetable/fruit carving (tomato rose, apple swan), and goes on to cover some French classics like stuffed squab, pate, veal scallopine, meringue, lady fingers, souffle, crepes Suzettes.
For online stuff, I like epicurious.com and recipezaar.com; and I just discovered chow.com. I just read through the comments before trying a new recipe. Quite often there will be useful suggestions for tweaking the recipe.
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[forgop]

I like allrecipes.com. Lots of recipes to choose from for virtually any dish and many people have rated the dishes. I stick with those that have good ratings and make some changes where I think they're needed.

[Mr B]

Originally Posted by forgop

I like allrecipes.com. Lots of recipes to choose from for virtually any dish and many people have rated the dishes. I stick with those that have good ratings and make some changes where I think they're needed.

BFallehy turned me onto allrecipes.com a while back. Very nice site. I have used it a few times already.

I've got some books on the way from Amazon. The French Laundry, Babbo, and The Complete Robuchon. I expect to cook more from Babbo and Robuchon just based on my own skill, but I had to get the French Laundry too. Should be fun cooking from them. I might pick up more books later on, but these should be good for now.

[swh127]

I first check to see if Alton Brown has done something similar and if not then i go for allrecipes.com. I read all of them and mix and match to suite my tastes and available supplies. Remember you don't need to follow a recipe exactly (except maybe in baking, but I don't bake). If it calls for green peppers and you like red peppers, use the red, or use 1/2 and 1/2.

Experiment. Cooking should be fun. The more fun you have, the better the meal will be.

[madwilliamflint]

My favorite stuff for bachelor food (i.e. trying to survive, not impress) is those bargain section recipe books containing collections of recipes from the backs of packaging. They're rarely very involved and usually tested pretty well.

There's always a couple kicking around the bargain shelves of a Barnes & Noble or Borders and they're rarely over $10.

[slickster81]

This one is good, but I have found you need to look carefully at some of the recipes.....

http://www.recipesource.com/

[Barcode]

I like http://www.sparkrecipes.com/

It helps with the Wife's Weight Watchers so she can count easier.