The Inn at Little Washington Cookbook: A Consuming Passion by Patrick O'Connell

  • Chilled grilled black mission figs with Virginia country ham and lime cream

    from The Inn at Little Washington Cookbook: A Consuming Passion The Inn at Little Washington Cookbook by Patrick O'Connell

    • Categories: Appetizers / starters
    • Ingredients: black mission figs; ground cinnamon; heavy cream; limes; nutmeg; chives; Virginia ham
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Notes about Recipes in this book

  • Puree of fresh asparagus soup with lemon cream

  • Coeur à la crème with raspberry sauce

    • babyfork on October 01, 2015

      I made this for Valentine's Day once a long time ago. Haven't used the molds I bought for it since. I'm sure it was tasty, but I don't remember being blown away. Will have to try again sometime and refresh my memory.

  • Grapefruit tart with chocolate-pecan crust

    • MissKoo on February 04, 2023

      This was a perfect dinner party dessert -- not heavy, with that palate cleansing citrus flavor that is much appreciated at the end of a meal but also that hint of chocolate that some guests crave. The pecan crust, cooled and brushed with melted chocolate, is quick and easy to make. The grapefruit custard filling is fairly light and also goes together quickly but needs time to cool. A good dessert to make a day ahead. The grapefruit flavor is not terribly strong, but enhanced by the fresh grapefruit sections served with the tart. Guests gave this tart rave reviews. Will definitely make this again, and keep in rotation for dinner parties and brunches.

  • Lemon-rosemary sorbet with Campari

    • MissKoo on May 17, 2020

      My go-to sorbet to use as a palate cleanser for dinner parties or multi-course brunches. Beautiful served in antique china demitasse cups. When served this way, cutting the recipe in half provides more than enough. Scoop leftover sorbet into smaller wine glasses, top with fresh summer berries and some Prosecco, and you have a perfect summer dessert.

  • Salt-crusted currant rye bread

    • MissKoo on December 21, 2020

      I've made this bread many times and it never fails to get kudos. Served with soup and salad courses of multi-course dinner. Over the years I have cut back on the amount of salt used to encrust the bread and the brand of salt makes a difference too. I use Diamond Crystal kosher salt -- found David's kosher salt to be too intensely salty. The recipe does not specify what kind to rye flour to use. I've made it with both light and medium rye flours -- it has never obtained the dark color shown in the cookbook but still tastes wonderful just warm with butter, or with cheese or smoked salmon as recipe headnote suggests.

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  • ISBN 10 0679447369
  • ISBN 13 9780679447368
  • Linked ISBNs
  • Published Dec 01 1996
  • Format Hardcover
  • Page Count 208
  • Language English
  • Countries United States
  • Publisher Random House

Publishers Text

This cookbook is the distillation of a life's work by a self-taught American chef who learned to cook by reading cookbooks and went on to become one of the world's most renowned chefs. O'Connell began his career with a catering business in an old farmhouse, cooking on a wood stove with an electric frying pan purchased for $1.49 at a garage sale. (The pan was used for boiling, sautéeing and deep frying for parties of up to 300 guests.) This experience sharpened his awareness of how much could be done with very little. The catering business evolved into a country restaurant and Inn which opened in 1978 in a defunct garage and which is now America's only 5 star Inn.  Craig Claiborne raves, "the most magnificent inn I've ever seen, in this country or Europe, where I had the most fantastic meal of my life."

This is not a typical "Chef's Cookbook" filled with esoteric, egomanical, and impossibly complicated recipes which only a wizard with a staff of eighty would ever attempt to produce. Rather, the recipes assembled here make up a practiced, finely honed repertoire of elegant, simple and straight-forward dishes. Everyday ingredients are elevated to new heights through surprising combinations and seductive presentations. []A Consuming Passion[] propels the home cook into a new world of American Haute Cuisine and provides the formulas for reproducing it at home. Careful and detailed instructions, all written by the author, assure success.

Tim Turner's luscious photographs capture the playful but elegant spirit of the food and introduce the reader to some of the charming local characters who provide products for the Inn's kitchen as well as taking the reader on a delightful and romantic culinary journey throughout the Virginia countryside surrounding the small town affectionately known as "Little" Washington and reveals an America we thought was lost forever.

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