Book review of Revolutionary French Cooking by Daniel Galmiche

It’s the sixth day of Christmas and my review today is for Revolutionary French Cooking by Daniel Galmiche. This is his second French cookbook, you can see my review for French Brasserie Cookbook: The Heart of French Home Cooking and a recipe here.

The motto of the French Revolution: Liberté, Egalité and Fraternité form the three main sections of this book. In the first section, Liberté, the recipes are released from the shackles of traditional French cooking methods. In part two, Egalité, Daniel brings democracy to the recipes by elevating humble ingredients to take on the starring roles. In the last section, Fraternité, he celebrates the traditional brotherhoods, bringing innovation to classic combinations of ingredients. Daniel shares the twists and innovative touches that he uses to rejuvenate and energise the traditional French cuisine. He shows how wonderful French food can be when used as sound foundation on which to build on, taking quality
ingredients and treating them with care and respect to create a range of delicious dishes.

I really enjoyed reading my way through his ideas and he grabbed my attention from the off by including homemade stock at the start of the book, perfect. I also liked the useful sections on home drying foods (without professional dehydrators) and smoking foods. As usual with a new cookbook, I have made a list of the recipes I want to try and they include:

Pot-roasted cider and paprika chicken – I might substitute Piment d’Espelette (my new kitchen friend after our trip to the Basque region).

Butternut Squash and saffron risotto – I’ve never thought of mashing the squash in a risotto before.

Jerusalem artichoke velouté - we have loads that are ready to harvest.

Pumpkin and goats cheese lasagne - using thin slices of pumpkin for the lasagne sheets.

Red onion tarte tatin – I love cooked onions.

Chocolate cookies – what can I say by yum, yum!

This is probably not a book for traditional French food lovers, but one to try if you like the idea of a more modern look at French cuisine.

Both of Daniel’s books are available in hardback and ebook format and links to Amazon are below. At the time of writing this the kindle version of Revolutionary French Cooking is only £1.02.