Author(s): Bill King
Publisher: Arnica Publishing
Publication Date: 2008-04
Pages: 200
Review: The McCormick & Schmick Seafood Restaurant Cookbook is THE BEST SEAFOOD COOKBOOK available today !!! Congratulations to my favorite seafood restaurant for this Cookbook. The recipes are complete, straight-forward and relatively easy to execute. The photography represents the food as if it came right out of the restaurant’s kitchen rather than some plastic/fake looking “perfect” food. I appreciate that. Maybe I haven’t been able to quite duplicate the great taste at home that their Chefs create in the restaurants, but I have been able to come close on the look of the food at home . . . and again, I’m getting close on the taste. With these tough economic times, we just aren’t able to go out for dinner as often as we used to. What a compliment to this company to not be all about the GREED and to be willing to share their recipes so we can enjoy good and healthy seafood at home (which I never had the confidence to try and prepare until now), trim our budget, and still make McCormick & Schmick’s our first restaurant of choice when we do dine out. Thank to them. Kudos to the book!!!There are too many errors in this cookbook. For example the Jamaican Rum sauce starts with remove from the heat but at no time does it list when to start the sauce on heat. It seems like there is a step missing from every recipe which is shame because this could have been a really good seafood cook book. Does anyone know who to contact about the missing steps?I love this cookbook!!! Most of the recipes are one-page in length and are gourmet quality. It’s restaurant quality recipes done at home - for those very special dinners. I tested over twenty of the dishes and all are award winning in taste and in presentation. I would recommend this book for the advanced cook who knows the basics and likes to experiment with seafood and sauces. I bought this book after having visited several McCormick & Scmick’s restaurants, and really loved their food. The recipes are easy to follow, simple to make and are very tasty.
The reason for my rating, is that their are HUGE errors throughout the entire book. A few examples: Crab Rangoon recipe calls for yellow cornmeal in the ingredients list but makes no mention of it in the instructions. The recipe for Stuffed Salmon with Crab & Shrimp has no salmon in it! The photo on the facing page shows a stuffed salmon fillet, but the recipe calls for halibut.
This book suffers from poor editing. It smacks of being rushed for publication before the editing was completed.
This book would be a great addition to any home cooking library, but be prepared to find confusing recipes. I like the recipes in this book for being realistic for the average kitchen and fairly unpretentious. There’s nothing too exotic here, just good solid combinations of flavors. There’s little in the way of soups or sides or salads, mostly just different ways of handling protein, with a few pastas and sandwiches thrown in. Also, if you are hoping to reproduce the meal you had at the restaurant, abandon that hope, because in several cases these appear to have been been dumbed-down or changed slightly from what the house actually serves.
However they DO include their recipe for the seafood and corn chowder, one of my favorites, which I have not yet tried to make but appears to be complete. The Spenger’s Fish Tacos are included here, too, although the Kansas City restaurant no longer serves them. This recipe is not exactly the way I remember it–for instance the avocado ranch sauce is not included, but it’s a pretty good start if you are new to making fish tacos at home.
In fact, it’s a good basic primer for handling fish at home. They do cover a wide range of fish types and treatments, from New England Lobster Rolls to a couple of Cajun dishes to Caribbean-flavored tilapia. There’s also a chapter of non-fish entrees.
Price: $19.95 Buy This Book