The Complete French Cooking Course

This authoritative and comprehensive tome from France’s leading professional culinary school, FERRANDI Paris, is the ultimate reference for mastering the art of French cooking.

Perfect your kitchen prowess with this essential guide, developed by the expert chefs at the prestigious FERRANDI Paris school of culinary arts. This extensive resource covers everything from foundational sauces to preparing fruit, vegetables, seafood, and meat dishes. Refine your technical skills with precise, step-by-step instructions, from filleting fish with precision to creating airy potato soufflés. As you build your culinary expertise, this guide will help you graduate to more sophisticated and technically advanced dishes with star-rated recipes such as butternut ravioli infused with spinach and crab meat or Rossini-style pheasant pie with hazelnut crumble, truffle tapenade, and pear chutney. This fully illustrated cookbook includes 143 recipes and 138 step-by-step techniques. Featuring over 1,300 photographs, it provides a clear, visual roadmap to mastering French cuisine, with recipes organized by skill level to accompany you from novice to advanced chef. This comprehensive reference not only covers indispensable cooking techniques and recipes but also includes practical illustrations on various meat cuts, identifying mushroom species, understanding ingredient seasonality, and more. Whether you’re just starting your culinary journey or aiming to refine your skills, this book equips you with everything needed to achieve culinary excellence through indispensable professional advice and guidance.

About the Author

FERRANDI Paris opened in 1920 to train culinary professionals. Internationally renowned for excellence, the school offers courses of all levels to students from France and abroad. Their best-selling cookbook series includes French Pâtisserie (2017), Chocolate (2019), Vegetables (2020), Fruits and Nuts (2021), Charcuterie, Pâtés, Terrines, Savory Pies (2023), French Boulangerie (2024), Meat, Poultry, and Game (2025), and Fish and Shellfish (2026).

Michel Tanguy is a culinary journalist and cookbook author. He is editor in chief of Thuriès, a gastronomy magazine.

Eric Fénot is a culinary photographer and founder of the culinary magazine 180°C.