  Observations in space plasmas reveal particle velocity distributions out of
thermal equilibrium, with anisotropies (e.g., parallel drifts or/and different
temperatures, $T_\parallel$ - parallel and $T_\perp$ - perpendicular, with
respect to the background magnetic field), and multiple quasithermal and
suprathermal populations with different properties. The recently introduced
(isotropic) $\kappa$-cookbook is generalized in the present paper to cover all
these cases of anisotropic and multi-component distributions reported by the
observations. We derive general analytical expressions for the velocity moments
and show that the common (bi-)Maxwellian and (bi-)$\kappa-$distributions are
obtained as limiting cases of the generalized anisotropic $\kappa$-cookbook (or
recipes). Based on this generalization, a new 2D fitting procedure is
introduced, with an improved level of confidence compared to the 1D fitting
methods widely used to quantify the main properties of the observed
distributions. The nonlinear least-squares fit is \led{applied to electron data
sets} measured by the Ulysses spacecraft confirming the existence of three
different populations, a quasithermal core and two suprathermal (halo and
strahl) components. In general, the best overall fit is given by the sum of a
Maxwellian and two generalized $\kappa$-distributions.
