Monday, September 17, 2012

Cookbook Review: "The Book Of Burger" by Rachel Ray


If you are looking for some variety with your burgers, Rachel Ray has the book for you. After a brief introduction to burgers as well as her preferred meat blend, it is on to the recipes in this book published last June. While there are recipes for outside grilling, Rachel Ray thinks of burgers as a year around deal. The Book Of Burger isn’t just about burgers, despite the title.

The book opens with a section titled “Burgers” made of beef¸ veal, pork, chicken, veggies and other things. The section starts with “Big Beef Burgers with Crunchy Sour Cream Onion Rings (pages 4-6).  This one serves four and features onion rings on top of a hamburger topped off with lettuce and red ranch dressing. “Chili Mac ’N’ Cheese Burgers” (pages 12-13), “Bloody Mary Cheeseburgers” (page 31), as well as “The Ultimate Salami Burgers” (page 52-53) among others are in this section.

Unfortunately, there is no nutritional information on the recipes as well as very few pictures.  Tips, suggestions, and information in small text notes with or without small icons is present and plentiful. The Book Of Burger  is billed as an “Atria Smart Book” and features active links to information online as well as images that can be scanned by smart phones to release still more information. The active links were not explored and this reviewer does not have a smart phone so those images were not explored either.

The next section begins on page 128 and is “Sliders” primarily featuring, beef and pork. There is one recipe using lamb as well as several recipes for chicken and turkey sliders and two featuring seafood. Also included here is further evidence this book is not just about burgers as there are recipes for “Bourbon /Barbeque Sliced Steak Sliders” (page 139), “Green and Red Chili Nacho Sliders” (pages 144-145) and “Sliced Steak Soft Taco Sliders with Guaca-Salsa” (pages 154-155) among others.

This leads into the next section that further goes away from the title of the book.  “Sandwiches and Dogs” begins on page 174 and features subs and hoagies as well as sorts of dogs and sausages. Here are recipes for “Albondigas Subs: Spicy Spanish Meatball Subs” (page 186-187), “Bourbon BBQ Pulled Chicken Sandwiches and Green Apple Slaw” (pages 192-193) and “Cubano Dogs” (page 199) among others.


While nearly every dish in this book is going to be some potential sloppy eating, “Sloppies” is the title of the next section.  Whether it be “Philly Cheesesteak Sloppy Joes” (page 216-217) “Sloppy Dawgs” (page 227), or “Sloppy Veg-Head Joes with Beans” (page 236-237) among others, the mess they make is the theme here.

 Of course you need “Sides and Sauces” because anything regular will not do. Starting on page 240 along with various recipes for French fries and tater tots there are several recipes for potato salads of different types and ones for onion rings, devil eggs, and pickles. Not to mention several for ketchups, dips, and gravies.

A final chapter “Burger Bash” features recipes from famous and therefore well-known chefs such as Bobby Flay, Marc Murphy and others.

The Book Of Burger closes with a sixteen page index.

An interesting cookbook that features variety and not just with burgers. You can use this book to make things as simple or as complicated as possible. Some toppings are for more complicated and will take far longer to create than others. The Book Of Burger, despite its name, goes far beyond burgers and thus will have appeal outside the demographic related to its title.  A lack of nutritional information and pictures are a definite negative and rather surprising considering her frequent comments promoting healthy eating on her TV show.



The Book Of Burger
Rachel Ray
Photographs by Romulo Yanes
Atria Paperback (Simon & Schuster)
June 2012
ISBN# 978-1-4516-5969-6
Paperback (also available as e-book)
324 Pages
$24.99


Material supplied by the good folks of the Plano, Texas Public Library System.

 
Kevin R. Tipple ©2012

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