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Summary: Starting my Granddaughter out right!
Review: Our oldest gr-dau is now in college and living in an apt. away from home. She is starting to enjoy cooking and I discovered she did not own even one cookbook---not one! So in addition to giving her a CD of family recipes, I Amazoned her two cookbooks--one of them The Best Recipe. In addition to recipes that WORK (important for getting started successfully) the book develops an understanding of the Why and How, which will only build her fund of knowledge. This could easily replace Joy of Cooking as the starter cookbook of choice. The book will enhance beginners and the veteran's repertoire.
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Summary: The Best Versions of American Standards
Review: You can't go wrong with any of the recipes in this cookbook. Worth the cost for the amazing turkey recipe alone, which everyone agreed was the best they'd ever had. Simple, clear instructions, and fascinating details on the hows and whys of it all.
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Summary: A truly unique cookbook
Review: I collect cookbooks and have hundreds of them but this is the one and only cookbook I have found that gives you extensive rationale as to why you should use specific ingredients, i.e., which variety of potatoes to use for potato soup, or which limes to use for key lime pie. Any editors that would try 38 recipes before deciding on the best Creme Caramel, have to be serious about their recipes. So far, I have tried about 12 of the recipes and every one has been truly outstanding. Be sure to try the Creme Caramel, the lemon meringue pie, the key lime pie, the potato soup, and the coffee cake, just to mention a few. Several people on my Christmas list are receiving this as a gift this year.
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Summary: Wisdom for the Everyday Cook at a very good price
Review: There is a catch in the title of this book. That is, what is the 'best recipe' depends a whole lot on what you want in the recipe. Rachael Ray's best recipe for a beef stew is one, which will be done in less than 30 minutes. Daniel Boulud's best recipe for beef stew is the most flavorful which will go well with his wine cellar. 'Better Homes and Garden's' best recipe may be the one, which is the least expensive with a reasonably good taste, regardless of the time required to prepare it. 'Light Cuisine's' best recipe is the one with the fewest fat and fewest saturated fat calories. You get the picture.The 'best recipe' in the opinion of the editors of 'Cooks illustrated' is generally the one with the most flavor which can be completed in a reasonable amount of time. This means that it may in fact be quite possible to achieve a more flavorful result if you are willing to spend more time with the preparation. There are usually additional special criteria depending on the recipe. My favorite example is the recipe for a simple tomato sauce. The objective of the editors is to use a minimum number of ingredients (tomato, oil, garlic, and salt) in order that they may achieve the most distinctively tomato flavor in the result. This eliminates many common tomato sauce ingredients such as carrots, wine, onions, thyme, basil, tomato paste, and meat. This strategy may have its virtues, but it will not convince me to change my allegiance from Mario Batali's basic tomato sauce with grated carrots, onion, and thyme. It will also not convince me to change from using canned whole peeled San Marzano tomatoes. But, the article did bring out many useful facts and opinions for evaluating other recipes. For example, it revealed that tomato puree in canned tomato products has been cooked before canning, so it has a less bright flavor than the whole or chopped tomatoes. For those who may be using butter in making sauces, it ventured the opinion that butter dulls the bright acidic flavor of the tomatoes. Another useful suggestion was that olive oil be added in two stages. Part should be added at the beginning to bring some flavor out of the garlic. The remainder should be added at the end to add fresh olive oil flavor. But this is what Italian chefs have been doing for the last 200 years. I think the lesson from the tomato sauce story is that the 'Best Recipe' recipe will not necessarily be better than others, especially those formulated by talented, successful chefs. It is also true that some of their findings may simply be things chefs have been doing for a long time anyway. The difference between the way Molto Mario presents the sauce and the way Cooks Illustrated presents the sauce is that Cooks Illustrated explains why certain things work and why others do not. This lesson is repeated in earnest in their discussion of recipes for vegetables. In a world where everyone stresses that vegetables not be overcooked, why does Mark Bittman repeat a Paula Wolfert presentation of a Moroccan recipe which cooks the bejesus out of green (string) beans, with the statement that this recipe can simmer on a back burner for up to an hour and it's taste will not suffer. Well, it turns out, as Cooks Illustrated explains, that green beans have a very firm skin which requires a lot more cooking in the first place to make them light on the tooth. And, once cooked, this skin will retain its crispness long after your broccoli or asparagus will have descended into mush. This lesson is repeated for most common vegetables found in your local megamart. You will get the best blanching, steaming, sautee, or roasting time for each vegetable, and their opinion on which method best suits each vegetable. I read this section with great interest. But, if I want a recipe for doing my broccoli rabe, I will go to Alice Waters or Marcella Hasan, depending on whether I wish to compliment an American or an Italian style meal. But, that's because I have a lot of cookbooks at hand. If you enjoy reading about cooking and your budget for cookbooks is slim, I would put this book at the top of your wish list, just as I would put 'Cooks Illustrated' on the short list of culinary magazines I buy. My greatest satisfaction in reading this book is the way in which the authors have cited sources for their ideas. Cooking is a combination of manual and intellectual skills where achieving the best result is due to both practice and knowledge. Knowledge can be discovered, written down, and communicated. So, I am delighted, for example, when the authors cite John Thorne as the starting point for their excellent macaroni and cheese recipe. They candidly state that they could do very little to improve on it. Similarly, in the essay on Foccacia, they cite the work of Carol Field as the basis for their recipes. This is much more true to life than an author's giving the impression that they came up with 200 recipes all by themselves. I really wish this were a more common style in culinary writing. Bottom line is that for less than 30 bucks, this is a first class cookbook, even if it does not represent gourmet restaurant cooking.
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Summary: I get it when he dies
Review: I received this book as a wedding gift from my second cousin. After my father saw it (about 5 minutes after I unwrapped it), I never saw it again!! He loves the book. He reads it every day and we are treated to wonderful dinners weekly. He loves to cook and he is a scientist, so this book appeals to his logical mind. He loves to read how they came about their end products (their best recipes) through experimentation. My father has always been known for his great brisket. After reading this book, his brisket is now finally heaven sent! Don't tell him I said that! ha! ha! I'm getting one for my sister-in-law for Christmas and I've put it on my wish list too (I can't wait until the reading of the will!)
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Summary: Huge and Expansive...a lot of "how" and "why"
Review: Let me preface this review by stating that I am a big fan of America's Test Kitchen. I mostly like their methodology. This is not a professional chef or a restaurant who hires a ghost writer and spits out a couple of great recipes surrounded by a host of lackluster ones for the sake of cashing in on his/her fame and milking adoring fans of their hard-earned money. These recipes are from a kitchen that accepts nothing less than perfection. Nothing in the recipe is taken for granted; it is all explained in painstaking detail. Not only is the recipe process explained in meticulous detail, but the numerous tests that were conducted to arrive at the "best recipe" are outlined, so the reader can agree or disagree with the test kitchen's methods. At the very least, you'll know why they do something, and whether or not it's worth it to you to skip the step (if possible). Not only that, but even though the cooks are perfectionists, they are also cognizant of the fact that people don't have all day to cook meals, like professional chefs do. The recipes are as streamlined as humanly possible. Where else can you find a dynamite chicken stock recipe that has great stock ready to go in under 2 hours? Or a 2 hour roast turkey? Interspersed throughout are also science tidbits and product reviews, several of which are somewhat dated (especially the rice cookers, which have enjoyed a surprising technological boost in the past few years). But if that's why you buy this book, you'd be better off at their website, or looking elsewhere in general. The shining star of this book is the recipes. Every one I've tested to this point has been superlative, and relatively easy. And I feel like I know why I'm doing things, which makes the process a great deal more fun. There's no adventure in performing a recipe like a script...knowing what went on in the creative (and scientific) process makes one feel more involved in the whole thing. And it also lends itself more readily to adaptations, since you know what part each piece plays, you know how easily each part can be replaced. A small caveat: if you own other Cook's Illustrated books, go to a bookstore and read through this one first; Cook's Illustrated is notorious for recycling recipes in their books. The same applies if you love this book and want to check out some of their others. Try to browse them first. It's the only way to avoid having two hefty tomes with duplicate information.
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Summary: If you love to cook you'll love this book!
Review: Not your average cookbook. The recipes are great and the explanations of the how & why to do things are even better. If you want to know what, and why, certain ingredients and/or methods make the recipes the absolute best - then you must have this cookbook! You'll love it!
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Summary: 5 star recipes......no stars for the index....
Review: I agree with all the five star reviews, except for one thing....the index is very difficult to read.....I went through with a marker and drew in divisions between the alphabet sections, and put a header on each page, but it is still tedious......I suggest in future editions the authors use varying type face, and different font sizes to distinguish between topics and subtopics. I have at least a hundred cook books, and this is the first one I reach for.
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Summary: Great for cooking and learning
Review: This is not your average cook book. Each "recipe" starts off with an explaination of what the authors were looking for from a standard recipe (like, cooking a quiche for example). Then they give a couple of base recipes for that item, then off to some modifications. It also explains what to do to get the best results (how to add ingredients, what temp is best etc) and why. Not only will the food taste great, but you will learn WHY to cook a certain way and HOW to start making up recipes of your own if you want. Great book, all of the pages of ours are starting to get sticky from use! Definately worthwhile and a great gift for cooks.
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Summary: Cookbook Lover's Delight
Review: Easy read, good instructions, and great receipes. A must have!
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