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* Best American Recipes 1999 review

How to Cook Everything more than lives up to its bold title. Don't be afraid to ask for this essential cookbook.

When How to Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food by Mark Bittman (Macmillan, $25) arrived in the mail, my family immediately took the title as a challenge and tried to find recipes that were not in the book. Mostly, they failed. From adobo chicken and adzuki beans to zucchini and zwieback, How to Cook Everything covers, well, how to cook almost everything.

But the title is misleading, because this isn’t merely an alternative to The Joy of Cooking or an upgrade from your good ol’ Betty Crocker cookbook. Within its 944 pages and cheery yellow covers you’ll find a wealth of technique, clear step-by-step drawings reminiscent of my favorite Cook’s Illustrated, and tips that will change the way you make everything from beans to ice cream. Yet How to Cook Everything is also packed with fresh, inventive, interesting recipes of the sort that make you run out and buy the latest cookbook from the hot chef of the moment.

Bittman writes "The Minimalist" column on Wednesdays in the New York Times  and is the author of the Julia Child Cookbook Award-winning Fish. Though he doesn’t bring quite the prominence that, say, an Emeril or a Fat Lady does to the cookbook aisle, he delivers as few better-known chefs do in print.

It would take years to work your way through this entire book, but almost everything I’ve tried to date has instantly become my new standard recipe of its kind. Bittman’s Risotto alla Milanese, for example, has supplanted every other risotto recipe I’ve ever tried: perfectly creamy yet not mushy, just the right kiss of cheesiness and buttery flavor, not as easy as microwave risotto (yes, it can be done) but not requiring so much stirring that your arm feels like it’s going to fall off. His Black Bean Soup recipe is not only the best I’ve ever made—packed with taste while avoiding the gummy, runny-refried-beans consistency of so many black bean soups—but better than I’ve ever had in a restaurant.

Not everything I’ve tried has been an unqualified success—West Indian Crispy Pork Bits, for instance, tasted like second-rate jerked pork—but Bittman’s batting average here is remarkable. How to Cook Everything is at once an invaluable kitchen reference (“The Basics of Toast”) and a font of “what should I cook tonight?” inspirations.

Besides an excellent index, the book includes suggested menus (from “Family Weekday Breakfast” to “Tropical Cocktail Party”), a listing of recipes that can be made in 30 minutes or less, an extensive food glossary, Bittman’s own “50 Cookbooks I’d Rather Not Live Without,” and a guide to mail-order sources. One wishes only for some color photos in addition to the line drawings—and a spiral binding to better preserve a book that will spend more time open on your counter than stuck up on a bookshelf.

* Black Bean Soup recipe from How to Cook Everything