Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #592276 in Books
• Published on: 2003-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 368 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Covering the recipes, tastings, equipment tests and experiments of one of PBS's cooking programs, this latest volume from Cook's Illustrated magazine features its editors' customary expertise, pithy comments and well-researched results. Each chapter covers an episode from the show, which, while allowing viewers to follow week by week, gives the volume an overall lack of cohesiveness as it jumps from Salad 101 to Summer Tomatoes and One-Pot Wonders and an eclectic range of ingredients and methods. However, as with all the show's work, the editors' first discuss the dishes' objectives, the flavors desired, the textures and mouth feel wanted, before enumerating the experiments and variations explored to reach the final recipe, all of which allow the more experienced cook to understand the whys and wherefores that enable the final creation. Whether it's the fluffy Blueberry Pancakes, the flavorful Sesame Noodles with Shredded Chicken or the tangy Greek Salad, the results are reliable and flavorful. Liberally sprinkled throughout are the customary rating of products from tasting panels evaluating mayonnaises and milk chocolate to equipment, covering such diverse objects as ice cream makers and skillets.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Another Great Test Kitchen Book
The books that accompany this PBS cooking show just keep getting better. I have seen criticsms of the previous two Test Kitchen books that say they contain a number of recycled recipes from the "Best Recipe" series, but in fact there is little, if any, cross-over. Additional research since some of the early cookbooks were published has sometimes resulted in a completely re-worked and improved recipe for a particular dish, but never the same recipe just re-printed from the Best Recipe series to the Test Kitchen series.

I enjoy cooking very much, and the staff of Cook's Illustrated produces the best recipes I have ever tasted. Blind taste testing at each step of recipe development hones these recipes until it would be hard to think of a way to improve them. Tasters are drawn from a pool which includes staff members, volunteers from the community, and visiting chefs, so a broad range of palates is represented. Furthermore, potential pitfalls are charted ahead of time so that you can reliably avoid them.

Often a team effort waters down the "voice" of the product. An interesting cookbook results from the passion of one or two cooks for their subject. But not in this case. The team effort produces a whole more potent than any one person could accomplish alone. This is a terrific cookbook.

Keeping it rolling -- ATK pulls out another stellar volume
The scrappy, fun America's Test Kitchen books, companions to the top-rated TV series of the same name, tend to compare to the more staid Best Recipe series the way classes at the local adult education center compare to college courses -- not necessarily as deep or down to earth, but a lot more varied and just as informative. This, the third Cooks Illustrated book devoted solely to the TV series, carries on the fun of last year's party-and-comfort-food oriented book and the original ATK Cookbook with an emphasis on things that might fall into the category of diner and cafe food.

Organized by episode like its predecessors, Inside America's Test Kitchen goes down home with pan-roasted chicken and a quickie ragu bolognese, revisits Chinatown with beef and broccoli (a followup to last year's Kung Pao shrimp), and has fun with ethnic home cooking like cassoulet (trimmed down for weeknight use) and pollo fra diavolo. Trips to your local luncheonette include blueberry pancakes, Denver (i.e western) omelettes, the German Apple Pancake (i.e. the Baby Apple to New Englanders), corn muffins, and lemon cheesecake; even the espresso bar makes an appearance with chocolate chip cookies (including reviews of prepared cookie doughs) and a full frontal assault on the often-sawdusty oatmeal scone (flour choice is critical).

In my review of last year's book, Here in America's Test Kitchen, I pointed out that it was a keg party; if that's so, this is the hangover cure for the next morning. It's perhaps a bit difficult to top the fun factor of a cookbook that starts you off with the best buffalo wings ever, but with yet another cool factor that's off the charts, the ATK crew have at least equaled it.

Terrific
I've bought a number of books published by Boston Common Press, and all of them, including this one, are superb cookbooks for the home cook. They explain exactly what to do and why to do it that way. In my experience, cookbooks of any sort (especially restaurant cookbooks by celebrity chefs) tend to suffer from poor writing and give uneven results. This one does not. To my palate, perhaps one out of every fifteen recipies falls flat, producing merely good rather than excellent results. Virtually everything is a crowd-pleaser.

The only caveat I have to add is that there is a certain amount of overlap between different Boston Common Press books and Cook's Illustrated magazine. If you own lots of their books or subscribe to Cook's, find a copy of this book at your bookstore and thumb through it to see how many recipies are redundant. Still, an great buy.