Escoffiers methods and recipes changed french cuisine into the systems of organisation that are in use in most high standard restaurant kitchens today, setting a new standard for his time, when the customer no longer wanted leisurely meals and banquets that could last for hours - as was the custom in early victorian times.

The customer now had the advantage of fast transport and trains which allowed day trips to the capital, so wanted fine dining delivered in much the times that are now standard in high class restaurants.

Escoffier’s recipes also define french cuisine, spanning the game and meats, the sauces, and haute cuisine deserts which all associate with french cuisine.

In the latter part of his career he finally committed the recipes to paper in his now famous guide culinaire - the guide to modern cookery. This guide in its final editions is expensive now, and costs welll in excess of $100 for an early edition, can be $200 or more in good condition. We have scanned the entire work to create a PDF which has the advantage over the paper version that it can be searched for your favourite recipes.

Michelin star chef Gordon Ramsay speaks for the community of french cuisine chefs when he says he will always refer back to an authority like escoffier.

So Download the ESCOFFIER RECIPES for just $7 HERE

Georges Auguste Escoffier was born in Villeneuve and  lived from  October 1846–February 1935

He began his career in a family restaurant in Nice before moving to the famous Moulin Rouge in Paris in 1865 and ultimately owning his own restaurant in Nice - moving to Monte Carlo where Escoffier ran the kitchen at the Grande Hotel.

It was a chance meeting with Cesar Ritz which was to bring August Escoffier  to London - and the Savoy for which he is best known.

Auguste Escoffier’s true legacy is not just in the cuisine but in the systematizing of production of fine dining to allow rapid service of Haute Cuisine - the elements of systematic cooking which were possibly influenced by a short spell in the military.

Escoffiers Guide Culinaire - in english the Escoffier Modern Guide to the art of cookery has become a classic work on french cuisine and is the subject of this website

Despite the time that has passed since it was written event the modern greats such as Ramsay still use the Escoffier Cookbook to refer back to as a source of ideas.

The original editions are now hard to come by and can cost in the region of $100 to purchase from rare book dealers - Modern editions just are not the same.

It is interesting that Escoffier’s entire approach to cooking is based upon the idea of what was for his generation fast food - how to produce authentic cuisine in the short period that people were willing to wait at tables. This urgency created by the new transport systems of the age, giving people mobility they had never had prior to the victorian era.

So the book is a reflection not just of what constitutes great French Cuisine - but also how to produce it in a mechanised fashion.

The Escoffier cookbook is also an authority on Sauces which is the signature of french cookery. And that is where modern chef’s can benefit from a look at history.

So ESCOFFIER CUISINE not only comprises the foundation of recipes described in the guide to modern cookery - for example the many and varied escoffier sauces, and the game recipes that made escoffier famous - but also the organisation needed to deliver these to customers at pace.

August Escoffier lived in a time when the world was changing. Fast transport had led to a speed of life, that prevented the massive long service times that were the preserve of stately homes.

The new generation wanted quality - but also wanted speed..

He talks in the Guide Culinaire about how that pace had forced him to discover the practise of brigade disciplines to achieve not just quality but throughput. So Escoffier Cuisine is far more than just recipes. It is a philosophy of cooking which has had far reaching consequences

So you can download the first half of the guide culinaire describing Escoffier Cuisine Here!

He lived at the turn of the last century and was one of the most famous restauranteurs and chefs of all time.

He was not only responsible for the foundation of restaurant french cookery in recipes - he was also the pioneer of many of the practises now accepted as standard practise in restaurants worldwide.

And he was one of the Chefs that inspired Gordon Ramsay - As Ramsay has said “Chefs do use cookbooks - it is a mistake to think that they do not……. I will always refer back to an authority like Escoffier”

One of the early editions of Escoffier, is available for download here Download Escoffier

Sadly running costs of the site are such we can no longer offer it for free,
but at $7 it is still far cheaper than any printed edition of this real classic.

A piece of history and an insight into the mind of a master chef

Ingredients:
1/4 cup Anise liquor
1/2 cup butter
12 oz. semi-sweet chocolate
2 cups pulverized anisette cookies

Instructions:
In a double boiler melt the chocolate, constantly stirring with a wooden
spoon. When the chocolate has melted, add the butter and slowly stir it into the chocolate as it melts. Continue to stir for another minute
until it is well mixed and smooth. Add in the Rum and stir until well
mixed, then sprinkle in the pulverized anisette cookies (a little at a
time, as sometimes it takes less) until the mixture is slightly thickened but still smooth. You want the mixture to remain as a thick sauce at this point.

When you have thoroughly mixed in the anisettes, rest the top of your
double boiler in a bucket of ice and WHISK the truffle mixture slowly
until it has cooled (about 15 minutes). Do not stop whicking or the
butter and rum will separate out of the chocolate-anisette. When the
sauce is completely cooled it should have a soft but solid consistency
which you can then spoon out and form into truffles and coat with
chocolate powder or confectioners sugar.

Escoffier - Bechamel Sauce

Escoffier - Allemande Sauce or Thickened Veloute

Allemande Sauce is not, strictly speaking,, a basic sauce. However, it is so often resorted to in the preparation of other sauces that I think it necessary to give it after the Veloutes, from which it is derived.

Quantities Required for One Quart.

The yolks of 5 eggs.                       \ the juice of a lemon.

1 pint of cold white stock.               J pint of mushroom liquor.

1 quart of Veloute, well    despu-
mated.                       .

Mode of Procedure.—Put the various ingredients in a thick-bottomed saute”-pan and mix them carefully. Then put the pan on an open fire, and stir the sauce with a metal spatula, lest it burn at the bottom. When the sauce has been reduced to about one quart, add one-third pint of fresh cream to it, and reduce further for a few minutes. It should then be passed through a fine strainer into a tureen and kept moving until quite cold.

Prepared thus, the Allemande Sauce is ready for the prepara­tion of the smaller sauces. Butter must only be added at the very last moment, for if it were buttered any earlier it would most surely turn. The same injunction holds good with this sauce when it is to be served in its original state; it should then receive a small addition of cream, and be buttered so that it may attain its required delicacy; but this addition of butter and cream ought only to be made at the last moment, and away from the fire. When a sauce thickened with egg yolks has any fat substance added to it, it cannot be exposed to a higher tempera­ture than 140 degrees Fahrenheit without risking decomposition.

Escoffier - Fish Veloutte

Veloutd is the base of various fish sauces whose recipes will be given in Part II.

Prepare it in precisely the same way as poultry velout£, but instead of using poultry stock, use very clear fish fumet, and let it despumate for twenty minutes only. (See fish fumet No. 11.)

This is identical with ordinary Veloute, except that instead of having white veal stock for its liquor, it is diluted with white poultry stock. The mode of procedure and the time allowed for cooking are the same.