"Top Texas Chefs Cook at Home" showcases the favorite home-cooking recipes of some of the most talented chefs in the state. Each chapter features a story about the chef, his or her life outside the restaurant, hobbies and interests, as well as favorite recipes they use for entertaining in their own homes. The recipes are carefully chosen for simplicity and ease of preparation.

The James Beard Award–winning chef of Underbelly Hospitality, a champion of Houston’s diverse immigrant cooks—Vietnamese, Korean, Mexican, Indian, and more—shows you how to work with their flavors and cultures with respect and creativity. JAMES BEARD AWARD FINALIST Houston’s culinary reputation as a steakhouse town was put to rest by Chris Shepherd, the Robb Report’s Best Chef of the Year. A cook with insatiable curiosity, he’s trained not just in fine-dining restaurants but in Houston’s Korean grocery stores, Vietnamese noodle shops, Indian kitchens, and Chinese mom-and-pops. His food, incorporating elements of all these cuisines, tells the story of the city, and country, in which he lives. An advocate, not an appropriator, he asks his diners to go and visit the restaurants that have inspired him, and in this book he brings us along to meet, learn from, and cook with the people who have taught him. The recipes include signatures from his restaurant—favorites such as braised goat with Korean rice dumplings, or fried vegetables with caramelized fish sauce. The lessons go deeper than recipes: the book is about how to understand the pantries of different cuisines, how to taste and use these flavors in your own cooking. Organized around key ingredients like soy, dry spices, or chiles, the chapters function as master classes in using these seasonings to bring new flavors into your cooking and new life to flavors you already knew. But even beyond flavors and techniques, the book is about a bigger story: how Chris, a son of Oklahoma who looks like a football coach, came to be “adopted” by these immigrant cooks and families, how he learned to connect and share and truly cross cultures with a sense of generosity and respect, and how we can all learn to make not just better cooking, but a better community, one meal at a time.

Homesick American, Parisian kitchen-- moving to Paris was the best bad decision that Texan Ellise Pierce ever made. Using French ingredients and techniques from both sides of the Atlantic, she created a unique style of cooking that's part Texas, part French, and all Cowgirl.

Among the more than 150 recipes are upscale interpretations of traditional favorites like chili and barbecued brisket as well as adventurous dishes such as Grilled Portabello Pizzas, Shark Steaks Grilled in Hoja Santa with Sun-Dried Tomato and Walnut Pesto, Texas Chicken-Fried Rib-Eye with Tabasco Cream Gravy, Quinoa with Lentils and Curry, and Texas Trifle with Raspberries and Custard Cream. The lavish color photographs of scenic photographer Bob Parvin and food photographer Ralph Smith capture the glory of the Lone Star landscapes and foods.

James Beard nominee and Bravo’s “Top Chef” contestant Chef John Tesar reveals the secrets to cooking the purest, beefiest, most delicious steak you’ve ever tasted. “I've had some phenomenal meals at Knife. Tesar really knows how to cook a steak, and this great book shows you how he does it!” – Aaron Franklin, author of TheNew York Times bestseller, Franklin Barbecue No one cooks a steak like legendary chef John Tesar. In his first ever cookbook, Knife reveals Chef Tesar’s secrets to cooking the purest, beefiest, most delicious steak you’ve ever tasted. Infused with the flavor of Texas and Tesar’s culinary genius, Knife goes “Back to the Pan,” and shows you the method for cooking the perfect steak. Tesar doesn’t stop at steak, though; this book is full of recipes for cooking lamb, pork, veal, and the best burgers ever. Tesar also offers up the recipes to his signature sides: Roasted Okra, Avocado Fries, and Bacon Jam, and foolproof versions of classic sauces. With recipes for your favorite juicy cuts of meat, as well as techniques for making mouthwatering dishes from underrated cheaper cuts, Knife is devoted to the celebration of steak in every form.

With a bounty of locally grown meats and produce, artisanal cheeses, and a flourishing wine culture, it's a luscious time to be cooking in Texas. From restaurant chefs to home cooks, Texans are going to local dairies, orchards, farmers' markets, ranches, vineyards, and seafood sellers to buy the very freshest ingredients, whether we're cooking traditional favorites or the latest haute cuisine. We've discovered that Texas terroir—our rich variety of climates and soils, as well as our diverse ethnic cultures—creates a unique "taste of place" that gives Texas food a flavor all its own. Written by one of Texas's leading cookbook authors, Terry Thompson-Anderson, Texas on the Table presents 150 new and classic recipes, along with stories of the people—farmers, ranchers, shrimpers, cheesemakers, winemakers, and chefs—who inspired so many of them and who are changing the taste of Texas food. The recipes span the full range from finger foods and first courses to soups and breads, salads, seafood, chicken, meat (including wild game), sides and vegetarian dishes, and sweets. Some of the recipes come from the state's most renowned chefs, and all are user-friendly for home cooks. Finally, the authors and winemakers tell which recipes they turn to when opening their favorite wines. This delicious compilation of recipes and stories of the people behind them, illustrated with Sandy Wilson's beautiful photographs, makes Texas on the Table the must-have cookbook for everyone who relishes the flavors of the Lone Star State.

Just as Hugh Acheson brought a chef's mind to the slow cooker in The Chef and the Slow Cooker, so he brings a home cook's perspective to sous vide, with 90 recipes that demystify the technology for readers and unlock all of its potential. NAMED ONE OF FALL'S BEST COOKBOOKS BY FOOD & WINE Whether he’s working with fire and a pan, your grandpa’s slow cooker, or a cutting-edge sous vide setup, Hugh Acheson wants to make your cooking life easier, more fun, and more delicious. And while cooking sous vide—a method where food is sealed in plastic bags or glass jars, then cooked in a precise, temperature-controlled water bath—used to be for chefs in high-end restaurants, Hugh is here to help home cooks bring this rather friendly piece of technology into their kitchens. The beauty of sous vide is its ease and consistency—it can cook a steak medium-rare, or a piece of fish to tender, just-doneness every single time . . . and hold it there until you're ready to eat, whether dinner is in ten minutes or eight hours away. But to unlock the method’s creative secrets, Hugh shows you how to get the best sear on that steak after it comes out of the bath, demonstrates which dishes play best with extra-long, extra-slow cooking, and opens up the whole world of vegetables to a technology most known for cooking meat and fish. Praise for Sous Vide “High-end cooking comes to the home kitchen in this fun, clear approach to a gourmet technique. . . . [Hugh] Acheson writes with such charm that he can make warm water interesting.”—Publishers Weekly