Binging With Babish: 100 Recipes Recreated from Your Fa… (2024)

I never watch Babish YouTube channel so this is a review from a tv/movie fan. I did watch his channel afterwards and liked it.

The cookbook cover just happens to have Confit Byaldi from my all time favorite animation movie Ratatouille, indeed I have to borrow this book from my library. I haven't make it yet, I don't own a mandeline and even though I can do it all manually, I am saving this for later. Recipe is simple enough.

Chef is another favorite movie with Jon Favreau. I made Pasta Aglio E Olio for 2020 New Year. A tradition to eat long noodles for longevity (superstitious...I know 😅). It's damn delicious and so easy. If you've seen the movie or want to checkout a famous clip online - scene with seductive Scarlett Johansson. There are so many recipes I want to try from Chef like Lava Cake and Cuban Sandwich.

Wild Mushroom soup from Seinfeld looks yummy so is Palestinian Chicken from Curb Your Enthusiasm. Strudel from Inglorious Bastards looks tempting as well as Forrest Gump's Gumbo and Chicken Paprikash from Captain America: Civil War.

I consider myself a relatively adventurous eater and as much as I love Game of Thrones, Dothraki Blood Pie won't be on the menu.

I can remember the good old days, you know, the days we used to write down recipes and clip articles to paste or fold into notebooks or cookbooks that grew out of control. I still have all my cookbooks, some with torn pages lovingly splattered with sauces ranging from soy to hollandaise. But there were still a lot of recipes I’ve wanted to try for years and years—and some I just recently learned about—and just didn’t ever get around to finding or doing. But then came the digital age which, as it has with everything else, has even changed how we learn about food and cook. Add the isolation of the pandemic, and you’ve got the ingredients of the cooking obsession that hit me in 2020. But I should back up a little.

A couple of years, while perusing videos on YouTube, I came across a clip called Binging with Babish. It was a guy in his kitchen in Brooklyn cooking dishes featured in movies or television shows—some serious, most not—and then he modified the recipe to try to make something that could actually be served. I’m pretty sure the first one I saw had him trying to make a Krabby patty from the cartoon series Spongebob Squarepants followed by some ideas about how to make a better burger (to be completely transparent, I purchased the spice grinder featured in this video and it works quite well). A follow-up video when he makes a Krabby patty supreme.

The idea for the program was featured in the second episode of the program, a tribute to the Timpano featured in what is arguably the best foodie film of all time, Big Night. Starring Stan Tucci and Tony Shaloub as two brothers struggling to create a successful on Jersey Shore in the 1950s, a major part of the plot includes this dish, one rarely made and only for very special occasions. The range of food he concocts is seemingly never-ending and to be honest, most of it is entertainment, engaging as Andrew Rea, aka “Babish,” is. And that’s what this “cookbook” is: a collection of the Binging with Babish programs. If you like him, it’s a fun read, a kind of cooking fantasyland. And it opened up a new world of learning how to cook.

First Rea branched to create another series, Basics with Babish. If you’re learning how to cook or want to recommend a good place to start learning for a young cook, it’s hard to go wrong with any episode. If I were in college today, I’m sure this series would replace what I used then, the PBS show and cookbook I still use, The Frugal Gourmet. And that’s the point, in today’s age, cookbooks—although I love them and occasionally still get them—aren’t really needed. There’s a whole world that keeps growing on YouTube, unlimited in the type or style of cuisine. Plus you can see how they do it, something you can’t get from a cookbook.

When the pandemic hit, I figured, I have time, why not make some things I like? First up was the Bolognese sauce of my dreams that I had in Bologna years ago. I remember the waitress telling me that the secret was hardly any tomato and some milk. So after checking out a bunch of candidates, I settled on a fantastic Bon Appetit magazine video that creates a sauce that is as good as it gets. Especially with home made pappardelle. Now I make triple batches and use a trick that I can’t remember from where I first learned about it. Pour the sauce (or anything that is liquid) into a quart/liter freezer bag, lay two down on a baking pan, put in freezer, then stack like files when hardened.

Another one I’ve come to like is Jeremy from the School of Wok, whose descriptions of Asian dishes is easy to understand and accessible. His pork lo mein has become an occasional staple as is his char siu pork (and the leftovers in baos are fun to make and eat). But as you’ll see if you click any of the videos above, they’ll lead you to others that might be right for you.

That’s how I found recipes as varied as noodles in hot oil (I skip the noodle making and use refrigerated, pre-made Korean pumpkin noodles) and caramelized cabbage, which is wonderful in pan-fried pirogues with sautéed onions.

Binging with Babish is a great starting point to figure out your own cooking interests on the internet. And if you’re an old dinosaur like me, it’s still nice to have a hard copy of the book handy. It’s entertaining and gives you occasional ideas for your own kitchen.

As a devoted fan of the Babish Cinematic Universe YouTube channel, I obviously had to pick this up. If you're a fan of the YouTube channel or of food from movies, then check this out! If you're not very interested in either of them, then probably pass on this one. It's equal parts a history of the BWB series and a cookbook, with a lot of the recipes being channel landmarks. A good read, but not a great cookbook since a lot of the recipes were either too complex to really replicate (the "milk steak" from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) or just plain gross (the spaghetti from Elf).

The fact that quite a few recipes don't have photos is really odd considering they're all on YouTube and his website. This book seems kind of pointless when you can just go to those places to see it being made and what it looks like along with the full recipe.

As someone who dropped out of culinary school due to cost. All I could think was that my journey in food was over. I had little to no hope in continuing because "at home cooks aren't real cooks." Andrew flipped that script and changed my entire mindset and negative tones that had be implanted in my head. Binging with Babish explores the wonderful culinary world with easy to follow along recipes and makes an excellent guide for people wanting to get a foot planted in cooking. Andrews books were both no brainer buys and I snatched up both as soon as I had the opportunity. I've made tons of the recipes he's laid out, time and time again. Truly an inspirational individual who deserves all the recognition available.

4.5 stars. Really liked this book! Though I pretty much can't eat any of the recipes, given my dietary issues, I really enjoyed reading Rea's introductions to each recipe and the show or movie it came from, what was happening in his personal life when he created the recipe, the "Verdict," often a "Fun Fact," and so forth. They were fun, funny, sometimes poignant, and very interesting! And the photography was gorgeous! I especially liked the recipes where the verdict was along the lines of "Ew," (Buddy's Pasta from Elf), or "Please don't make this" (several). And I made Jacob laugh out loud reading him "Homer Simpson's Patented Space-Age Out-of-this-World Moon Waffles." It also has Monica Geller's "Moistmaker Sandwich" from Friends! I haven't seen his YouTube channel, but will definitely check it out!

the book is sorta charming with it's bizarre recipes

I think the turkey burger is definately an unusual experiment worth the price of the book

eggplant - olive oil - anchovy paste
soy sauce - marmite - ground turkey breast
kosher salt - black pepper - brioche buns
papaya chutney - tiny greens - black truffle mayonnaise
cheese crisp [between the mayo and the turkey burger]

papaya chutney
[papaya - apple cider vinegar - raisins - saffron - kosher salt - pepper]

black truffle aioli
[egg yolks - lemon juice - canola oil - black truffle oil]

cheese crisps
[fontina + parmesan]

---

I had no interest in imaginary foods to match famous television shows or movies
but as a book with wild and wacky recipes, it's interesting and creative enough
that it fully stands on its own

Great recipes with a clear and narrative flow. Cleverly laid out with a very useful index to direct you to specific components of a recipe. Particularly helpful when you want to riff on a recipe using a blend of parts from several... like every index ever really. Beautiful photography and some touching stories that are much easier to skip in a hurry than your average cooking websites rambling, ad-ridden train-wreck of a format.

I love the Babish Culinary Universe (YouTube) so of course I had to get the cookbook. While you don’t want to cook every recipe in here (or maybe you do) there are so many good ones that I have to recommend it. This man taught me to grill, to fry Buffalo wings, and the right way to make a garbage plate. Speaking of which, I’m hungry and I need to go eat dinner.

Skimmed the last hundred pages of so . Nothing here for me . If anyone is interested I have a great
recipe for homemade ricotta ; makes 5-star Lasagna or Jumbo Stuffed Shells

Den YouTube-Kanal »Binging with Babish« habe ich vor gar nicht so langer Zeit erst entdeckt, um dann gleich im Anschluss festzustellen, dass der gute Andrew Rea nicht nur ein großer Filmfreak ist, sondern zudem noch ein Kochbuch geschrieben hat, das seit Mitte Mai auch auf Deutsch erhältlich ist.
Damit passt »Binging with Babish – 100 filmreife Rezepte für Serien-Junkies und Kinofans« natürlich perfekt in mein Regal mit den »Nerd-Kochbüchern« und muss selbstverständlich hier vorgestellt werden.
Gleich auf den ersten Seiten erfährt der geneigte Leser, wie Andrew auf den Namen des YouTube-Kanals kam, der inzwischen sein Markenzeichen ist, und dass er vor allem vom Film »Kiss the Cook« dazu inspiriert wurde, den ich damals auch mit Begeisterung geschaut habe – und dem ich ebenfalls einige kulinarische Inspirationen verdanke. Zur Erinnerung hier kurz der Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdS_G...
Dann geht es auch schon los mit den »filmreifen« Rezepten, für die er sich von zahlreichen Filmen, Fernsehserien und sogar Videospielen inspirieren ließ.
Dabei reicht die Bandbreite von Süßem bis Herzhaften, von Kleinigkeiten wie Hähnchen-Nuggets bis hin zu bombastischen Sandwiches, für die vorher ein ganzer Truthahnbraten zubereitet wird.
Somit wird auch schnell klar, dass viele Rezepte definitiv nicht für Kochanfänger geeignet sind, die vermutlich schon beim Leser der zahlreichen erforderlichen Schritte das Geschirrhandtuch werfen werden; ebenso ist auch nicht jede Zutat oder jedes Küchenutensil bei allen Lesern vorhanden.
Was ich allerdings nicht schlimm finde. Die Rezepte sind überwiegend wunderschön bebildert und machen allein beim Durchblättern schon Appetit, außerdem lasse ich mich von solchen Kochbüchern gern anregen, anstatt die Rezepte genau nachzukochen. Darüber hinaus habe ich bei vielen Gerichten gegrübelt, wo genau sie in der Serie oder dem Film vorgekommen sein mögen, was ja auch sehr witzig ist.
Das ist aber auch einer der Punkte, bei denen mir etwas zu wenig Informationen enthalten sind. Ich hätte bei so manchem Gericht schon gern genauer gewusst, warum ausgerechnet das nachgekocht wurde (sah es so lecker aus, hat ihn die Zubereitung fasziniert, waren es ungewöhnliche Zutaten oder die Begeisterung eines Charakters beim Verspeisen?). Auch die Gliederung ist mir ziemlich schleierhaft – die Rezepte scheinen auf den ersten Blick rein willkürlich aufgeführt zu sein (möglicherweise sind sie in der Reihenfolge auch auf seinem YouTube-Kanal zu sehen, das müsste man mal recherchieren). Dank des Registers am Ende behält man aber dennoch den Überblick.
Trotz dieser Kritikpunkte fällt mein Fazit sehr positiv aus, denn dieses Buch ist dank der tollen Fotos, der abgefahrenen Rezepte und der Film-, Serien- und Spielreferenzen auf jeden Fall ein tolles Geschenk für jeden Menschen, der ebenso beim Essen wie beim Serien- und Filmgucken zum Bingen neigt.

Very interesting cookbook. Many of the recipes look yummy! My only problem with the book is that many of the recipes are incredibly time-consuming and require specialized and (expensive) tools/equipment and ingredients. They do not seem very practical. And I am a vegetarian, so I can't really eat many of the recipes (since this is not a vegetarian cookbook, I assumed that would be the case ahead of time anyway...)
I did enjoy the trivia and interesting facts for each of the recipes. I loved all the pictures! Unfortunately, there were a couple that didn't have pictures.

The only cookbook I read start to finish. This gives great insight into Binging with Babish as a YouTube channel from it's humble beginnings all the way to episode 100. And hey...you may learn a few new tricks/recipes to try in the kitchen in the process.

I made some Brioche... and it turned out wonderful! :)

The first time I’ve ever considered reading a cookbook but this is a great way to see how to cook some of the dishes from our favourite movies! I love the fun facts and extra tidbits about Andrew Rea’s life. If you haven’t watched Binging with Babish before now you should definitely make it a priority.

**5 Stars**

If you a fan of the show, there's no reason you won't like this cookbook! Something I really enjoyed was some of the alterations to the recipes to make them a bit less bizarre, and hence more cookable. Of course that is part of the novelty of the book, and the photos are beautiful, but it is still a cookbook, so its great to be able to try some of it. Wonderful little read!

I love this man’s YouTube show! The book was excellent and I loved the verdicts under each recipe explaining his thoughts on the food. I am still waiting for him to make Adrian Veidt’s Birthday cake from HBO’s Watchmen but time will tell.

I love Babish.

Reading this for Rea’s commentary and “fun facts” alone makes buying this book worth every penny.

Interesting read for the story of "Babish". Recipes are more work than I have time or energy for.

A thing of beauty

A great BOOK, BUT, maybe a fair to middling COOK BOOK.

Ok, just got this as a gift, as I am a big fan of the YouTube series, and I have to say, I have mixed emotions over this book.

For starters, it's BEAUTIFUL. The photos are super crisp and professional. The layout is nice and everything is gorgeous looking. The writing is great as well; the anecdotes and "fun facts" are entertaining and interesting. It's just a great READ....but this is a COOK BOOK, and as a book of actual recipes, it falls quite flat.

It's actually easy to see why, if you ARE a fan of the series. A lot of times, Andrew does recipes that are ridiculous, or convoluted, or expensive, or just weird.....Do you want to search 27 different stores to find some insanely obscure ingredient? Probably not. Do you REALLY want to make Buddys pasta from Elf?! No, you don't. Do you want to spend $350 to make Eggs Woodhouse, from Archer? Again, no. Do you want to take a taco, wrap it in a tortilla with refried beans, wrap that with a corn tortilla with melted cheese, wrap THAT in a chalupa shell filled with guacamolito sauce, wrap THAT in a corn husk topped with pico de gallo, wrap THAT, in a crepe with scrambled eggs, Gruyere and mushrooms, WRAP THAT in a meat lovers pizza, WRAP. THAT. in a blueberry pancake, THEN DIP THE WHOLE THING IN BATTER, AND FRY IT?!?! Oh, and then put it in a tote bag filled with vegetarian chili......Ask yourself; do you? DO. YOU?! (and yes, that's an actual recipe.)

No, you do not. And therein lies the problem. I'd say a good 8th of the recipes are absolute throw away, non-starters. Another 1/4 are going to just not be your speed or taste. Another 1/2 are either too ambitious, too expensive, or require some kind of specialty device or piece of equipment. So you're STARTING this "cook book," with over 3/4 of the recipes already unavailable to you.

Don't misunderstand, there ARE some good recipes. And even some of the more "out there" ones might be nice to try for some special occasion or something, but you aren't, realistically, going to be using this as much of a cook book that you will follow and make food from.

Another knock is that, say you DO want to make......Courtesan Au Chocolat; it is WAY better to fire up the laptop, and WATCH Babish make the dish. For dishes with nuanced techniques or specialty equipment, it's better to SEE how it's done, instead of just read about it.

I enjoyed the book. I enjoyed reading about the recipes, and his journey to get to where he is now. I'm going to try some of the less insane recipes, and quite possibly a few of the more insane ones. But, I might have been upset if I bought this with the express intention on making all, or most, or even SOME of these recipes.

Buy the book to support Andrew Rea, or as a coffee table conversation piece, but look elsewhere for your recipes.

As a follower of the YouTube channel for a few years now, I was excited to return to some of the most delicious treats pop culture has to offer, and especially all the clearly written advice on how to make it yourself. With Binging with Babish the book, the reader gets a variety of delicious looking recipes drawn from the popular YouTube channel in which comedian and chef Andrea Rea adapts dishes drawn or inspired by various pop culture sources. A fun cookbook, Rea brings the culinary creations he posts on Youtube to print, as well as explaining the reason behind the name Binging with Babish (a refer, tattoo facts, and a bit of his personal life.

The real draw of the book, though, are the recipes, celebrating the comfort foods and fancy feasts of your favorite movies, TV shows, and books. For those who are fans of his Youtube channel, you know he never backs down from a theme and often makes everything from scratch. As in the show, he generally attempts as accurate a recreation as possible, before improving on the concept, such as the case with Charlie Kelly’s milk steak or Buddy’s dessert pasta from the movie Elf.

The recipes themselves are quite diverse, ranging from the simple (pizza hut style dipping sticks ala Breaking Bad) to the complex (Big Night’s timpano), only to be tackled by those looking for a true culinary challenge, which Rea himself does not hesitate to do. His exploits include such things as dropping $350 to recreate the insanely decadent “Eggs Woodhouse” recipe from Archer, for instance. Fun to watch, definitely, but not something most viewers will want to try themselves. Still, the recipes themselves seem clear and easy to follow, if you think you’re up for the challenge. I’m thinking of giving the New York Style pizza inspired by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

I write about some other fun pop culture tie in cookbooks in in the Pop Culture Cooking entry of Harris' Tome Corner!

If you're a fan, you will love this book. If you binge on TV series and movies, you'll love this book. For the rest of us, it's interesting for two reasons:

It's semi-autobiographical, so if you're interested in the phenomenon of how someone, starting as an amateur becomes an internet sensation, able to leave his other employment and devote full-time to his passion, you will be absorbed. The writing is fun, breezy, and enjoyable.

Secondly as a cookbook, it's full of somewhat bizarre recipes, but most of which also contain useful and delicious parts, or subrecipes that you'll be intrigued to try yourself. It's written clearly, so you don't have to be a chef to pull off the recipes. It has beautiful photographs, but not for every recipe. Some recipes that I really wanted to see, no photo (Paila Marina, Cheesy Blasters, Pumpkin Pasties).

For those from Rochester, New York and the City, you'll enjoy the local references.

I'd probably have enjoyed it more, if I had seen more of the shows the recipes are inspired by. While I do know some ancient classics like Seinfeld, The Simpsons, and Friends, I don't subscribe to any services such as Netflix or HBO and haven't seen a lot of movies in this Millennium. So Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II, Creed, Archer, Elf, I Love You, Man, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Adventure Time, Master of None, The Boondocks, Game of Thrones, The Legend of Zelda, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Regular Show, SpongeBob SquarePants, Rick and Morty, Whiplash, Stranger Things, The Place Beyond the Pines, Psych, The Wire, Peep Show, Regular Show, Breaking Bad, Coco, Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, The Avengers (not Emma Peel), Captain America: Civil War, Waitress, and Lemony Snicker's A Series of Unfortunate Events, Deadpool, Mulan, make this old fart go "Huh?" I'm not the target audience.

Now, I'm something of a chad enjoyer of Binging with Babish, the aspirational cooking show on YouTube starring Andrew 'Babish' Rea. It's a celebration of bizarre but interesting fictional foodstuffs and a source of solid cooking advice (it's thanks to Babish that I learned I'd been doing a double-boiler wrong for ten years), wrapped in Babish's often self-deprecating, witty deadpan delivery.

And so, when I found out he had an official cookbook coming out just in time for Christmas 2019, I knew I had to have it.

And it's pretty entertaining, with some interesting (and often useful) recipes, beautiful pictures of said recipes, text written in the same style of the show, and some insight into the history of the show.

But I did have one problem with it: it WAS about the show. That's not a critical problem (indeed, it's what you'd expect), but it did affect the book on multiple levels. First of all, the recipes have introductory stuff about the episodes they came from, but not the source material that inspired them: I felt like it could have benefitted from the addition of such info, sort of like the print equivalent of the clips that introduce episodes. Secondly, the recipes are arranged in episode order rather than by category of food, which means an excessive amount of index-surfing if you want to make something from it (and, from personal experience, it makes it really hard to remember where you were if you go a while without reading it). Lastly, the recipes are often 'reconstructions' of the original dishes, rather than the dishes themselves: I realize that an accurate recreation would in many cases be impractical, impossible, literally inedible, or just plain nasty... but come on! That's all part of the fun!

That said, it's still a fun cookbook with good recipes that all fans of the show (including this one) should find enjoyable.

I know a lot of people complain about the backstory that you have to scroll past on recipe blogs, but I'm one of those weirdos who actually likes to hear about how Grandma always made this soup when the blogger was sick, or how it took a week of develompent to hit a balance of good flavor and appearance, or whatever. So it's totally unsurprising that I enjoyed this.

Behind-the-scenes fun facts, extra tips for recreating and/or customizing these recipes (or cautions against making the attempt), and of course lots of pop-culture references: Rea's sense of humor and passion for food and film come through just as authentically in print as they do on camera. Fans of his videos are unlikely to be disappointed, and hopefully the book will get new fans to watch them too.

-----------
CONVERSION: 12 / 15 = 4 stars

Prose: 5 / 10
Intellectual Engagement: 6 / 10
Credibility: 8 / 10
Organization / Structure: 9 / 10

Emotional Impact / Interest: 5 / 5
Rereadability: 5 / 5
Memorability: N/A

During most of February 2021 I subjected girls to recipes from this book. I has the 12yo go through and make a list of what she might eat, then I left off things I really would not go for (Buddy's Pasta) or were going to be some sort of effort I didn't want to do. In the end we tried:
Homer Simpson Waffles
Breakfast Congee
Flanders Hot Chocolate
Beef Burgundy
Spaghetti Carbonara
Freddy's Ribs
Babka
Michael Scott Pretzel
Popcorn & Raisinets (which were eaten separately so did we really do the recipe?)
Frozen Bananas
Dipping Sticks
Apple Pie
Lemon Cakes
Napoleons
Chocolate Lava Cake

There was enough we liked, and there was more I'd be interested in trying at some point, that it probably would have been worth buying (instead of keeping for months from the library). I also tended to watch the YouTube videos for each recipe after starting to mix ingredients. Backwards, I know. But sometimes that helped to see what was going to happen or a particular method.

This book was around 3.5 stars for me.

I wasn't familiar with Babish when I picked up this book.

Like many doing quarantine cooking, this book was recommended to me and I figured I'd check it out. The organization of the book was a bit confusing to me. There will be a recipe, the show it is inspired by, and then the pieces (i.e. pasta, sauce, etc.) broken down by listing a recipe for each. Not every recipe has a picture, which I think is a bummer. But I thought it was an interesting touch to feature pictures of the author's tattoos as part of the book.

Most of these recipes are very time intensive. There are one or two I'm interested in trying, but I wasn't super wowed by the variety of recipes. There's a lot of sandwiches and most seem to be made for the 'wow' factor.

I will check out Babish's channel to follow his recipes.

Reading as many Goodreads Choice Nominees as I can.

Absolutely loved this.

I actually don't watch Binging with Babish on Youtube, even though I'm familiar via other food-related channels. So I didn't know what to expect going into this.

I love how he sticks to the authentic version of how things were done in the movie/tv show. I love the interlude about his food/film tattoos. I love the misc fun facts. The pictures were great. There were a mere smattering of recipes that didn't have pictures, but often some of the ones I wanted to see the most. When I realized I could just go watch the Youtube videos about the recipes, I realized why that works out perfectly for him. Respect the hustle.

This book is awesome. There are so many recipes I want to try. Some of the recipes seem time intensive (either sourcing ingredients or putting the recipe together), but for the person who wants to cook and try things they've never attempted before, this book is a gold mine. You could just watch the videos on Youtube, however, the book has 'behind the scenes' info from Andrew and fun facts about himself/the show/his guests. There is usually at least one high-quality photo of the dish, although some of the well-known foods don't have one. The recipes themselves are laid-out in an easy to read fashion with notes about how many servings it produces and which movie/show inspired the dish.

Note- some swearing