Why carrots? Because as chef and culinary instructor Peter Hertzmann explains, they're versatile, readily available, and cheap, the perfect stand-in for other foods in this concise introduction to kitchen technique.

Beginning with knife skills and then striding confidently forward through 50 different methods of preparing carrots, Hertzmann uses chapters with titles such as "Raw Methods," "Savoury Cooked Methods Served Hot," and "Sweet Cooked Methods Served Cold," to tackle everything from juicing and pickling to blanching, pan-frying, roasting, and puréeing.

He provides recipes for some of the more unusual uses of carrots (carrot spätzle, carrot terrine, carrot gumdrops, even a 3-ingredient carrot cake), but in many cases the approach is so adaptable to whatever quantity and ingredient you might have on hand that recipes are superfluous.

Paperback. Color photographs throughout.