From America’s favorite cooking teacher, multiple award-winner James Peterson, an invaluable reference handbook.

Culinary students everywhere rely on the comprehensive and authoritative cookbooks published by chef, instructor, and award-winning author Jim Peterson. And now, for the first time, this guru-to-the-professionals turns his prodigious knowledge into a practical, chockablock, quick-reference, A-to-Z answer book for the rest of us.

Look elsewhere for how to bone skate or trim out a saddle of lamb, how to sauté sweetbreads or flambé dessert. Look here instead for how to zest a lemon, make the perfect hamburger, bread a chicken breast, make (truly hot) coffee in a French press, make magic with a Microplane. It’s all here: how to season a castiron pan, bake a perfect pie, keep shells from sticking to hardcooked eggs. How to carve a turkey, roast a chicken, and chop, slice, beat, broil, braise, or boil any ingredient you’re likely to encounter. Information on seasoning, saucing, and determining doneness (by internal temperatures, timings, touch, and sight) guarantee that you’ve eaten your last bland and overcooked meal.

Here are 500 invaluable techniques with nearly as many color photographs, bundled into a handy, accessible format.

ALL IS REVEALED

How To season a cast-iron skillet, bake a perfect fruit tart, form crystal-clear ice cubes, make the perfect burger, decide which breading is best for veal scaloppine and chicken breasts, know where to position the wineglass.

Whether it's about peeling, or chopping or carving, or blending or whipping, or even restaurant etiquette, it's all here, compiled into 484 entries by master teacher and award-winning author James Peterson. Packed with 533 step-by-step color photographs, hundreds of inspired ideas, and dozens of delicious recipes.