Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Good book
Comment: This is a good book by Thomas Keller. As a professional chef, you can see he tries to make every effort to make his career to the top.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Its a "Must Buy" Cookbook
Comment: Truly a well crafted cookbook helpful for anyone wanting to expand their knowledge of "Sous Vide" cooking. I have been preparing food in our home kitchen for over 2 years with this method and am excited about the recipes in this book as well as explanations on cooking times and methods. If you are either an advanced home kitchen gourmet or a food service professional this is a "Must Have" publication.
K.Miller - Stonington, CT
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Recommended with Some Reservations
Comment: Thomas Keller is one of the great American chefs. His restaurants French Laundry and per se are two of the finest restaurants in the United States. So when Thomas Keller comes out with a new cook book, chefs and foodies take note. Addressing the new hot topic of Sous Vide preparation makes it an even more compelling.
"Under Pressure" is two books in one. First and foremost it is a compilaton of Keller's Sous Vide recipes. Second, it is a "How To Manual" for all those interested in learning more about the Sous Vide technique for preparing food. This book's real strength is as a recipe book. Keller is an extraordinarily creative chef and his recipes are fascinating to dissect. However, to execute these recipes one needs to have access to a vacuum sealer and a hot water recirculating machine. The expense of this equipment places these recipes beyond the means of most people. Only a privleged few will ever be able to recreate the recipes laid out in this book.
My reservations are with the "How To" aspect of this book. Thomas Keller is a great chef but his knowledge of the basic food science of Sous Vide cooking is seriously lacking. Botulism is a real issue when preparing food in an anaerobic environment. Understanding the time and temperature continuum is essential to producing safe food. The single greatest weakness of this book is that he does not adequately address this issue. For anyone who really wants to understand the basic food science of Sous Vide cooking, check out Sue Ghazala's text book on Sous Vide production.
Finally, the following are quibbles but nevertheless are illustrative of the books' weakenesses. Sous Vide means cooking under vacuum and not under pressure. Canning is an example of cooking under pressure. Bruno Goussault may have invented the term Sous Vide but the American meat industry has been producing vacuum packed meat cooked in hot water baths for many decades. Most of the cooked deli meat you can purchase at a supermarket is prepared in what is essentially a Sous Vide production. What is new is that bench top hot water reciruclation machines have recently become available to chefs. It is important to remember the term Sous Vide is a term coined by Bruno Goussault and popularized by Cuisine Solutions the company he works for. It is a new name for a very old process. Finally, this is not the first book written in English about Sous Vide. Sue Ghazala and Joan Roca's book proceed this book by a number of years. Putting these quibbles aside, "Under Pressure" is the best book available in English on this topic.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Under Pressure - Outperforms Expectations!
Comment: I am a businessman recently entered into the restaurant business with no formal training in cooking and I was completely "wowed" by this book.
First of all it is a beautiful object, the imagery, pages, pictures, design are fantastic. But more importantly, Thomas Keller sets out to share the principals and formulas that have been the basis of his award winning food. He sites procedures, suppliers, recipes with a candor and generosity of spirit which i have never seen in the restaurant business or by any world renowned chef.
Anyone looking to understand the ways in which food preparation has evolved over the past 20 years needs to read this book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Nature abhors a vacuum
Comment: "Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide" is Thomas Keller's latest coffee table book/cookbook. While "French Laundry" showed innovative takes on classic dishes and "Bouchon" offers everyday French bistro fare,"Under Pressure" takes cooking in another direction. It's a technique known as "bain marie" among the French. It's a more sophisticated version of the "boil in the bag" technique.
"Under Pressure" is fascinating when Keller discusses the science behind it. One can have superb vegetables and meat... in a matter of hours. The method itself isn't glamorous,but the science is interesting. The final recipes-the chosen few that are actually depicted--look beautiful.
"Under Pressure" is more useful to the restaurateur than the home cook. After all,does one really have thousands of dollars to blow on vacuum equipment? At least "Bouchon" had doable recipes for someone wanting to recreate the flavors of a Parisian bistro.
As food science,"Under Pressure" works. Not so much so as a cookbook--nor it is as visually beautiful as Keller's previous works.
On "Under Pressure",the barometer drops.
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