America's Test Kitchen Cookbook FROM OUR EDITORS
The Barnes & Noble Review
The editors of Cook's Illustrated want to make your Tuesday night supper taste better. They want you to serve the best fried chicken and the fudgiest brownies, and they test recipes, equipment, and methods toward that goal on their PBS television show. This companion book to the show illustrates what can happen when cooking experts look under the hood and start to tinker productively with the most basic, everyday recipes.
Each recipe starts out with a small introduction on what the cooks want to achieve, then details the various steps -- and missteps -- taken en route to developing the perfect recipe. Of course, the missteps are fun to read about, and the whole process has a food-science/science-fair aspect that is quite engrossing.
With Home Fries, for example, the cooks wanted "cubes of potatoes that would be deep golden brown and crisp on the outside and tender on the inside." Fair enough. First they dabbled with different kinds of potatoes, then experimented with cooking methods, kinds of cuts, and cooking oils. Their final recipe uses Yukon Golds, diced and briefly parboiled, then drained and fried in a mixture of butter and oil (peanut or corn).
This same exhaustive approach is applied to pizza, hamburgers, fajitas, spaghetti and meatballs, tuna fish sandwiches, margaritas, roast turkey, mashed potatoes, apple pie, and Key lime pie. When you think about it, there are plenty of ordinary dishes that often come out tasting, well, ordinary, so you really welcome experts taking a long look at them. Sometimes, though, you just want to tell them: Hey, guys, lighten up, it's just a grilled cheese sandwich. But, I have to say, their approach -- grated cheese; butter on the bread, not in the skillet; medium-low heat -- makes a really good grilled cheese sandwich!
Interspersed through the thematic chapters (Thanksgiving dinner, Christmas dinner, pizza night) are very useful tests of kitchen equipment -- blenders, vegetable peelers, etc. -- and canned goods. I loved finding out that the $40 basic blender beat the $120 classic I've been eyeing, and all the fancy new zillion-speed blenders too.
(Ginger Curwen)
SYNOPSIS
The Americaﾽs Test Kitchen Cookbook is the companion volume to the new hit public television series based on the recipes, techniques, and taste tests created by Cookﾽs Illustrated magazine. Filmed in the actual Cookﾽs test kitchen, both the television series and the cookbook set out to find the best methods of preparing your favorite home-cooked foods from the simplest tomato sauce to the fanciest French tart.
More than just a collection of recipes, this beautifully photographed book takes you inside the entire 2002 season of the Americaﾽs Test Kitchen series, with 26 chapters each dedicated to a different episode of the show. You will meet the cast ﾽ through photographs, bios, and quotes from each member ﾽ and will follow the Americaﾽs Test Kitchen process, as Christopher Kimball and the rest of the cast identify common cooking problems and then test dozens of variations to come up with the best methods for preparing recipes. Many of the most popular segments of the show, including the Science Desk, Equipment Corner, and tasting Lab, have been brought to life with photos.
With more than 200 recipes and dozens of beautiful, behind-the-scenes photographs, The Americaﾽs Test Kitchen Cookbook is sure to become an indispensable part of any cookﾽs library.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
This impressive compendium of basic recipes follows the format of Cook's Illustrated magazine and the television series America's Test Kitchen. Accordingly, it presents painstakingly tested standard recipes for American classics like Grilled Hamburgers and Brownies. Chapters are thematic: a Thanksgiving chapter includes Crisp-Skin High-Roast Turkey and Turkey Gravy; another on Steak Frites provides recipes for Pan-Seared Steaks, various sauces and, certainly, French Fries. Recipes have been tested with all possible variables e.g., the editors cooked both commercial and specialty bacons in a microwave, a skillet and an oven before settling on oven-roasting. Also included are the results of numerous blind taste tests of everything from canned tomatoes to lemon oils and extracts, and equipment evaluations. After being subject to this kind of scrutiny, these recipes are guaranteed to work perfectly, and all the "Science Desk" reports are a boon to kitchen nerds who may wonder about such things as "Why Potatoes Turn Brown." Sometimes, however, this attention to the minutest detail and the constant quest for "the best" can seem misplaced. For example, it's nice to know that challah makes top-quality French Toast, but this dish is often a last-minute whim made with whatever's in the house, making the four pages of instructions, analysis of griddles, two recipes (one for challah and the other for day-old European-style bread, with a few caveats) feel overblown. Nonetheless, culinary geeks everywhere will love this book. Photos and illus. (Jan.) Forecast: The magazine's popularity promises steady sales. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
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