This is the handbook for the starter cook ingredients and techniques are listed alphabetically for quick and easy reference everything from Apples to Zesting. Want to know how to make croutons? Want to know how to poach an egg? Never remember how to cook corn on the cob? You'll find it here. With over 150 entries, this book does what no recipe book does, it gives you the basic methods and techniques for preparing vegetables, fruits, meat, fish, poultry, grains, legumes, pulses, breads, pasta, - with advice on how to clean, store, prepare and cook each ingredient. There are many line drawings clearly showing techniques such as dicing, slicing, coring fruit, rubbing in fat. Where appropriate there are very simple recipes which will use the skills you will develop from reading the book. Not only is this unique book essential for the beginner, it is also perfect for the experienced cook as well, in providing all those basics that most of today's sophisticated, complicated chef-orientated cookbooks never have in them.