America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook: A Culinary Epinions in Book Form
Written: Dec 31 '05 (Updated Jun 08 '08)
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Pros: Extremely well researched, easy to follow recipes
Cons: The thin pages tear rather easily, a few inconsistencies in the recipe directions
The Bottom Line: An invaluable and comprehensive guide for the beginner home cook, full of reliable, practical recipes and lots of kitchen tips.
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| lyagushka's Full Review: |
I'm on a cookbook binge lately. Time is in shorter supply since I've started working full time. But it seems that I more willingly devote my free time to cooking now than when I was gainfully unemployed and had nothing but time on my hands. So the produce of my kitchen has never been better and it's been especially hard to keep the winter pounds off this year.
The America's Test Kitchen is the organization that publishes the magazine Cook's Illustrated. And now they've published their second cookbook, simply called The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook. The underlying premise for this large project is that quotidian meal preparation and eating together around a common table is a building block of both a strong family and a strong community. So the recipes in this cookbook are mostly American mainstays rather than flashy, elaborate works of culinary art. There's plenty of room, however, under the "mainstay" rubric to include bits of world cuisines that have influenced American eating and cooking habits. For instance, a recipe for curried chicken salad is included right next to the one for classic chicken salad. Reflecting current trends in family cooking, the cookbook also includes a section devoted to slow-cooker and pressure-cooker recipes for those who need to put food on the table within tight time constraints.
Even the appearance of this book reminds me of family and tradition. It's an old-fashioned three-ring binder with a sturdy cardboard cover that looks a lot like the well worn Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook my mom kept in the kitchen from as early as I can remember. The pages have been three-hole punched and there are tabbed dividers between each section of the cookbook. All of these pages come wrapped up in cellophane when you purchase the cookbook. Putting them in place correctly takes about 10 minutes if, like me, you can't help starting to read the recipes as you arrange them in the book.
The sections are arranged fairly logically, starting with appetizers at the beginning and finishing up with desserts near the end. A nice section of menus immediately precedes the index. The light cardboard inserts that separate each section of the cookbook list each recipe in the section to follow, along with the page number it appears on. This arrangement makes it very easy to find most of the recipes without needing to resort to the index. This is helpful, because there are so many pages in this cookbook (848) that flipping all the way to or from the back of the book is a little cumbersome. Aside from the recipes themselves, the cookbook also includes various topical guides. For instance, in the meats section there is a two-page illustrated guide to various cuts of beef that can be served as steaks and another one for roasts. The various names for the different cuts are given, along with their qualities and cost relative to other cuts.
The recipes in this cookbook have been subjected to the same rigorous testing standards used to produce Cook's Illustrated. One gets the sense that these recipes weren't so much tested as thoroughly bloodied by the test cooks. The introduction states that so many iterations of each recipe were tested in order to learn how things might, through emergency substitution or mis-measurement, go tragically wrong in your kitchen. Forewarned is forearmed, as they say.
Anyone familiar with Cook's Illustrated will recognize the mini-reviews for various cooking tools and kitchen gadgets as well as foods featured at the front of the Family Cookbook and scattered throughout the various sections. In most cases, rather than listing the merits and drawbacks of each colander, brand of ketchup or oven thermometer, they merely recommend the one or two best items that they tested, giving the criteria by which they were judged.
There are lots of photographs in the cookbook, both color and black-and-white, as well as some diagrams. Not every recipe has an accompanying picture, and very few of the photos are of the finished dish. The editors chose instead to provide images that clearly illustrate steps in the recipes. There are nine pictures showing how to remove the meat from a cooked lobster, for example.
A great deal of information has been crammed on to each and every page. Some pages even manage to include more than one full recipe, along with sidebar tips or mini-reviews. Tips can cover anything from the methodology for safely flambéing foods to removing pin bones from a side of salmon. I haven't scrutinized each and every page of the cookbook, but as far as I can tell, each recipe falls either entirely on one page or on two facing pages. So I don't think there's any need to flip pages while following a recipe. As a bonus, the three-ring binder format ensures that the book will easily stay open to whatever page you want to work from for as long as necessary.
Even the recipes meant for entertaining are relatively modest. The authors evidently don't subscribe to the school of thought that elevates the rustic simplicity of peasant food cooked for ten hours over a smoldering pile of oak embers to the status of haute cuisine. These recipes are just what they claim to be - family cooking for a modern age. So when they include recipes for party bread sticks or tomato tarts, they start with store-bought puff pastry dough and go from there. The meals prepared by these recipes will provide sustenance and good ideas for gatherings of family and friends. Just don't expect to knock the socks off the maître d' of a Michelin starred restaurant with these recipes.
I followed the Family Cookbook's instructions for prime rib for our Christmas Eve feast and I had great results with them. There was a little bit of ambiguity in the recipe because at one point it calls for 20 minutes of resting after the roast is taken out of the oven and in another part of the recipe it says to let the roast rest for a full hour. I ended up doing something in the middle, just because it took that long to get everything else ready. The roast was very well cooked for my taste, so I was pleased with the recipe.
On the other hand, I thought my own recipe for spaghetti alla carbonara was superior to the one recommended in the Family Cookbook. There was a good suggestion for thinning the sauce in this recipe that I found useful, but I preferred the flavor of my recipe to the Family Cookbook's. Still, there certainly was nothing wrong with the recipe given here, and it was quicker and easier than the one I use. So I wouldn't count this as a fault.
Having a great deal of experience as a cook, I normally look for new ideas in a cookbook, rather than standby recipes or methodology. But this cookbook is so very well grounded in the basic foods and fundamental procedures of the kitchen, that I'm very glad to have it in my collection. I know that whenever I want a recipe for something simple like scalloped potatoes, deviled eggs or beef stew, I will find a foolproof recipe in the Family Cookbook. I think it's going to replace my husband's venerable and (pancake-) battered Betty Crocker Cookbook. Aside from having a catalog of old standbys in this cookbook, I actually benefit from reading the tips. There are always new tricks to learn about cooking, even for old dogs.
To sum up, this is an exceptionally practical volume I would unhesitatingly pick out as a gift for someone setting up their first independent household, or someone who wanted a reliable beginner's guide to cookery. I think someone new to cooking would turn to this book again and again and again for many years. Very highly recommended.
Other items from the America's Test Kitchen:
• The New Best Recipe - 1000 canonical recipes, perfected
• Cook's Country Magazine - ideal for beginning cooks, or experienced cooks who want a return to the basics
I can also recommend these cookbooks:
• Indian Cooking - an excellent cookbook by Jaffrey for beginner cooks, includes many meat dishes
• Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian - for slightly more experienced cooks, essential for vegetarians
• Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone - Madison's compendium of vegetarian cookery, great dessert section
• Cooking with Pomiane - a deliciously nostalgic review of culinary history, narrated by a great wit
• The Boulevard Cookbook - sumptuous recipes from San Francisco's favorite restaurant
• Tapas: A Taste of Spain in America - accessible and delicious recipes for nibbles or a hearty meal
• The Bread Baker's Apprentice - superlative, expert instruction for mastering yeasted breads
• Baking With Julia - Julia Child's award-winning "bakebook", covers all type of baked goods
• Dim Sum - a thorough introduction to these tasty Chinese morsels
• Nigella Express - quick recipes for those who really like to cook
• The Good Egg - fresh & tasty recipes based on the incredible, edible egg
• The Wellness Encyclopedia - an excellent reference guide to the nutritional facts on most anything you could put in your mouth
Recommended:
Yes
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