In Rocco's 5 Minute Flavor, every dish is ready in 5 minutes or less, using 5 ingredients, and all for under $5 per serving. This is fast food with all of Rocco's celebrated expertise with flavor; food that no one will believe didn't take hours of work.

A James Beard Award, two restaurants, a network television show, and two cookbooks into his profession, Rocco left the day-to-day restaurant business after a long career and many, many hours behind the stove. He asked himself, "Can a chef find happiness in New York City without a restaurant?" The answer is yes.

Rocco began exploring the good life, having dinner parties at home and cooking for himself, instead of chomping down leftovers at 2 A.M. He discovered the keys to liberating the busy home cook: shop smart, keep a few key pantry items on hand, and get the most out of your stove -- cooking over high heat is the secret to meals in 5 minutes.

includes recipes for appetizers, fondues, salads, soups, sandwiches, panini, sides, vegetarian main dishes, and main dishes of noodles, pasta, fish, shellfish, poultry, pork, beef, duck, and lamb. And desserts, of course. Rocco recommends his favorite high-quality, fresh prepared foods that are available in virtually every supermarket anywhere. He stocks the pantry with a few basic ingredients -- salt and pepper, sugar, vinegar, fat, and flour -- and uses only 5 other ingredients in each of the 175 recipes, from Firecracker Shrimp and Eggplant Parmigiano to Salmon with Shiitake Mushrooms in Ginger-Soy Broth and Chicken with Lemon, Capers, and Red Onions.

In addition, Rocco suggests menus for a range of events, from a simple gathering with friends to a lush holiday celebration; provides a short list (five items to be exact) of key kitchen equipment; and offers other tips to create the fastest, most flavorful food imaginable.

With 16 pages of full-color photographs and 80 black-and-white photographs

All photographs by Henry Leutwyler

Amazon.com Review
In Rocco's 5 Minute Meals celebrity chef Rocco DiSpirito, ex-restaurant owner and one-time reality-show star, offers 190-plus recipes "made with 5 ingredients cooked in 5 minutes at no more than 5 dollars a serving." The recipe range covers all courses from appetizers to desserts, and includes fondues (which can be prepared speedily) paninni, pasta, and vegetarian dishes. Typical recipes include Warm Artichoke and Parmigiano Dip, Chicken and Cauliflower Stir-Fry, Salmon with Shiitake Mushrooms in Ginger-Soy Broth, and Apricot and Dried Cherry Pound Cake.

A good deal, right? But read the "fine print" and you'll discover that the five-minute rule doesn't include prep time, which can balloon when, for example, you're required to shell a pound of shrimp or slice zucchini into cups of half-moons. DiSpirito's five ingredient constraint is also fudged by his not counting basic items like salt, flour, and butter in ingredient tallies. Also, the dishes require dozens of sometimes hard-to-find convenience items like frozen pigs in a blanket, hot dog onions, precut and precooked potatoes, soup mixes, gelatin snacks, and even rotisserie chickens. These may speed the "cooking" process but can do nothing to make DiSpirito's "five-minute" dishes taste homemade. Though estimated costs are given per recipe, and all fall below the five-dollar-per-serving ceiling, a truer economy would involve buying and preparing fresh items, which, besides yielding superior results, cost relatively less, and won't leave the cook with, for example, leftover bottled buffalo-wing sauce or prepared hummus.

Even so, time-pressed cooks will undoubtedly jump at DiSpiritio's strategies, if even for occasional cooking, and many will find the "high-concept" recipes fun to make. Die-hard fans will also appreciate the many, many photos of the star chef in action--shopping, cooking, or just posing for the camera. --Arthur Boehm