Product Description

From scratch dishes ready to serve in under an hour and many in less than 30 minutes Winner of the 2004 James Beard Cookbook Award The Quick Recipe offers 300 exhaustively tested real recipes for real food, all with contemporary flavours from around the world. There are chapters on appetizers, salads, vegetables, grains and beans, pasta and noodles, soups, poultry, meat, fish and shellfish, grilling, stir-frying, eggs, biscuits, cakes and cookies, fruit desserts, ice cream and puddings.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #199662 in Books
• Published on: 2003-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 454 pages

About the Author
Founded in 1980, Cook's Illustrated has emerged as 'America's Test Kitchen', renowned for its near obsessive dedication to finding the best methods of home cooking. The editors of Cook's Illustrated are also the authors of the range of best-selling cookbooks and they present America's Test Kitchen cooking show on public broadcast TV. The show features editors, test cooks, equipment testers and food tasters and has its own web site www americastestkitchen.com

Customer Reviews

Great for time-challenged novice chefs
We've had this cookbook for about one month and have made 21 recipes (several twice) already and look forward to making more. We have 17 cookbooks -- which hardly qualify us as devotee chefs -- but this is the one we reach for most often. Most of the dishes we've made come close to an hour to prepare and cook, which undoubtedly will make the term "Quick Recipes" debatable to some. But if you start with good ingredients that are well laid out and are fairly adept at chopping and slicing (which we are not) you should at least come close to the times listed for making each dish (it takes us about 15% - 20% longer than expected). Nevertheless, for the time-challenged, these recipes are certainly quicker than many we've used from our other cookbooks. And if your guest's reactions are as favorable as ours, it's well worth the time. Most of the recipes are fairly simple in structure but surprisingly tasty. Certainly for those new to the kitchen, serious consideration should be given to this cookbook. Explanations of why each recipe was formulated the way it was are interesting and may help some to avoid possible less-tasty or more time-consuming substitutions.

My weeknight dinner bible
This has been my bible for weeknight dinners since I bought it about 3 months ago. While the book's criteria of under an hour may not be quick enough for some, the recipes are tasty and do not rely on pre-packaged convenience foods as some other "quick and easy" books out there. Personally, I'd rather make an effort to find that extra half hour for these recipes.

Many of the recipes can stand on their own as a meal, perhaps with only the addition of some bread and/or a salad (recipes for quick salad dressings are included). Examples include:

-Spicy Thai-Style Shrimp Soup;
-Warm Spinach Salad with Seared Scallops and Roasted Pepper Vinaigrette;
-Polenta with Roasted Tomatoes and Fresh Mozzarella;
-Bok Choy and Chinese Egg Noodles with Spicy Beef Sauce;
-Stir-Fried Shrimp and Snow Peas in Coconut Curry Sauce;
-Skillet Fajitas;
-Chicken and Rice with Lemon, Peas, and Scallions;
-Oven-Fried Chicken and Roasted Sweet Potato Salad;
-Pan-Seared Salmon with Braised Lentils and Chard; and
-Tuscan-Style Steak with Arugula and Parmesan.

The grilling chapter includes vegetables to be grilled alongside the main course in most recipes, such as Grilled Scallops with Chili-Lime Glaze and Corn Salad. Other recipes include suggestions for side dishes, frequently citing specific recipes found elsewhere in the book. This allows the cook to plan meals almost effortlessly.

The book also includes "short-cut" versions of longer recipes such as Simple Shrimp and Andouille Jambalaya, 30-Minute Chocolate Mousse, and Quick Chicken Soup. Other chapters include Vegetables; Muffins, Biscuits, and Scones; Cakes and Cookies; Fruit Desserts; and Ice Cream Desserts and Puddings. There is enough variety in here to round out any meal.

Also included are a number of "building block" recipes - basic guidelines for simple recipes that you can easily expand on yourself, such as Scrambled Eggs, Sauteed Chicken Breasts, Grilled Pork Chops, or How to Cook Pasta. These recipes use the techniques that Cook's Illustrated developed through the extensive testing of recipe variations that has made the magazine famous. While experienced cooks may find these superfluous, beginners will appreciate finally learning how to make the "perfect" scrambled eggs or sauteed chicken breast through Cook's detailed, leave-no-stone-unturned directions and recipe notes.

I personally enjoy reading the articles accompanying the recipes, although of course these are strictly optional - you can easily jump straight to the recipes if you're in a hurry. The articles describe the process used to arrive at the final recipe, the how and whys, which shortcuts were used, as well as the results of relevant equipment or ingredient tests by the magazine.

To date, I have probably made 60 or so recipes from this book, and the vast majority of them have turned out well. I now save my other cookbooks for the weekends, but this is my go-to book for quick and easy, tasty weeknight dinners with a minimum of effort to plan and prepare.

Very good book from Cook's Illustrated team.
I understand where another reviewer got confused: you might assume that this book would consist of quick little recipes--fast reading and fast prep. For the Cook's staff these are quick recipes, but compared to the recent success of Rachael Ray's books these recipes aren't that quick!

I should say that I really like this collection. I turn to it often for ideas. I may have spent half a day preparing an entree only to remember that I forgot to prepare a vegetable--out comes the book! The same goes for starches, salads, dessert, etc. If I need an idea fast I pull out this book along with Joy of Cooking and possibly Bittman (though don't get me started on his shortcomings).

Let me remind potential consumers here that this is indeed a collection. You will see overlap if you have read the magazine for years. Though, strangely, they will update certain things in the book without making that crystal clear to magazine subscribers. In other words, you may think that Cook's favors a certain brand of unsalted butter based on magazine reviews. In the book you may find that they have switched brands on you!

Here are a few recipes I have tried that work:
Chinese chicken salad
Broiled asparagus
Glazed carrots
Warm spinach salad
Roasted potatoes (memorize this one)
Pan-seared salmon (high heat saute of fish will smell up your pan and your kitchen)
Quick chicken noodle soup
Stuffed chicken breasts
All forms of stir-fry
Cinnamon rolls
There are others I have tried, but suffice it to say that I really use this book. If you have an expanded definition of "quick," and you respect the Cook's Illustrated methods then you will find this to be one of their better tomes.