New Best Recipe Cookbook

New Best Recipe Cookbook

Best 1,000 recipes, tested and approved in America's Test Kitchen

by Cook's Illustrated
Hardcover, 1028 pages
Current Retail Price: $35.00
Used Price: $4.20 (1 in stock) Condition Policy

Would you make 38 versions of crème caramel to find the absolute best version?

The authors of this book did. Here are 1,000 exhaustively tested recipes plus no-nonsense kitchen tests and tastings.

In America's test Kitchen, the editors of Cook's Illustrated test variations on a recipe 10, 20, 30, or even 50 times to evaluate everything from baking temperatures, mixing methods, and ingredient choices to cooking techniques and equipment choices—all in the quest to deliver the best recipe while also answering every conceivable cooking question. And along the way, they make sure to tell you where things might go wrong because they know that food is expensive and time is a precious commodity. The result? A comprehensive cooking resource and more than 1,000 recipes you can count on time and time again. This all-new edition not only contains the best recipes for your favorite home-cooked foods—from Meat Loaf with Brown Sugar-Ketchup Glaze and Chicken Pot Pie to Old-Fashioned Chocolate Layer Cake and Apple Crisp—it also explains how and why these recipes work so that you will become a better cook.

Featuring the best of the best, this edition represents the editors' picks from 10 years of cooking in America's test Kitchen. Expanded to include tutorials on grilling, baking, stir-frying, and much more, The New Best Recipe is the ultimate cooking resource for novice and experienced cooks alike.

This new edition features 1,000 recipes, 800 illustrations, step-by-step cooking tutorials, and hundreds of opinionated equipment and ingredient ratings.

Review by Amanda Evans

Idealist, former perfectionist, and now mother of five, Amanda Evans is also former co-owner of Exodus. Amanda's reviews focus on those items that matter to wives and mothers (which covers more than you might think!). Read more of them here.

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  "The New Best Recipe" Really Is the Best
Amanda Evans of Oregon, 4/22/2011
When I first got married I needed one of those big, complete cookbooks, you know, the kind you refer to for everything from how to cut up poultry to what to make for Tuesday dinner. After I mentioned this, a friend gave me The Best Recipes as a belated wedding gift and it has filled that need completely. In fact, this is the only cookbook I really *need*.

I like it because it's not just full of great recipes. Each one comes with an article documenting the testing process, informing me how and why the results they found are "the best." They are well-written and fun to read, but they also let me knowledgeably cut corners or make substitutions: I know exactly what I'm sacrificing or changing.

This is not a cooking-made-simple cookbook. Nor are the recipes created with "health" in mind. Flavor, texture and results are the first priority in America's Test Kitchen. If it takes a few extra tablespoons of butter or a couple extra saute pans to achieve it, then that's what they call for. But if I decide to substitute an ingredient or change a quantity or skip toasting the walnuts because of health or budget or time, I always know I was starting at the right place.

Also included are several helpful blurbs about the science of cooking. Did you ever wonder why pancakes sometimes turn out fluffy and other times turn out rubbery? Or what happens to the starch and moisture content of diced potatoes when they are fried? With this book you won't have to wonder anymore. And the test kitchen doesn't just experiment with recipes. They test to find the highest quality equipment and the best brands of many items from garlic and mayonaise to waffle irons and ice cream scoops.

It may seem daunting enough to get in the kitchen and make a meal, let alone crack open a hefty book like this. But cooking is a lot of work. This cookbook can make your efforts really worth eating. (The biscuits I made this morning really were the BEST!)
  The New Best Recipe
HappyHomemaker of Oregon, 4/14/2011
Before each recipe in this book is an article explaining two things: what they wanted for this particular dish, and how they got there. That is my favorite part about this book. Not only do I get to learn some of the science behind cooking, thereby improving my overall skills, but also this: if I DON'T want the same thing they wanted, I now know how they got there, so I can take the recipe back a few steps, and then get what I want!

This volume has all the basics, plus more. It makes a great gift for a new bride.
I am so glad I have this cookbook in my library!