Customer Reviews

The Best Recipe: Soups & Stews

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Best Recipe books have an interesting perspective on cooking and cookbooks. Resolutely scientific, recipes are developed in their test kitchens according to methodical experimentation -- you get not only the best recipe, but insight into the variations of the recipe that failed. This makes for interesting reading, and highlights many practical errors and pitfalls that spoil a good clam chowder or weaken a chicken paprikash. For example, they put to test the idea that beef bourguignon is only as good as the wine used in the cooking. (The answer, sadly, is yes -- good wine makes better beef bourguignon.) In many places, this puts them at odds with staunch traditionalists, advocating, for example, the use of canned stock in certain dishes (which is tantamount for many cooks to a heresy). The systematic approach might then threaten the art of cooking, while advocating a new scientific approach, but the results in my experience (not only this book but also from cooking illustrated from which the recipes are drawn) tend to be quite good -- and like any good scientific result, reliable.

It is worth noting that because of this detailed approach to classic dishes as problems that must be solved, there are relatively few recipes in the book relative to its length. I enjoy the reports, though they might put off someone looking for straightforward recipes.

If you are not familiar with Cook's Illustrated magazine, you are in for a real treat! Every recipe I have made from their magazine, and now from this cookbook is perfect. When I was looking for a good soup and stew cookbook and I saw this one, I knew it would be the one to have. They try and retry recipes dozens of different ways until they hit upon the perfect method, perfect ingredients; and I swear, they come up with the perfect recipe. And at times, it isn't so much the ingredients as the methods that make the dish so good - little tips such as adding flour to the pan after the meat has been sauteed in the Beef Stroganoff recipe instead of flouring the beef. They even tell you how wide to slice the beef - and believe it or not, all these little tips add up to the perfect dish. No matter how many times I've made something, when I tried their recipe, it was better than the way I had been making it. The chicken stews alone are worth the price of the book.

Impressive selection of soups by Jack Bishop and the Staff of Cook's Illustrated.

Asian recipes include Wonton, Hot & Sour, Thai Curry, Miso, Indian Curry, Vindaloo among others, including Oxtail Soup with Asian Flavors. I was pleased CI included this variation of oxtail soup - a favorite from my childhood.

Other European/Ethnic recipes represented are Osso Buco, Irish Stew, Scotch Broth, Bouillabaisse, Coq Au Vin, Cassoulet, Borscht, Matzo Ball Soup, Moroccan Lamb Tagine. There's many others too numerous to list, but you get the idea. There's alot of classic recipes in this collection, some with some variations.

There's also a nice selection at the end of rice, potatoes, polenta, breads and biscuit recipes - I can't think of any better accompaniment.

Hats off to the designer of The Best Recipe Series. These are some of the most elegantly designed cookbooks/references I've ever come across. I think the 2-column format appeals to the "academically inclined" in us. The finely detailed illustrations by John Burgoyne are inline with the textbook concept.

If you like this book, you may also like Bernard Clayton's 1987 paperback, The Complete Book of Soups and Stews.

Another well-tested, well-written set of recipes from Cooks Illustrated! Got the book a couple of weeks ago and have had tremendous success. The Tuscan Tomato Bread Soup is out of this world and very easy; same with the Pasta e Fagioli. The Beef Stew was the first I've had with tasty tender meat, rather than the stringy stuff found elsewhere. Each one tastes great, and looks beautiful too.This weekend, Cioppino's on the menu.

This book would have recieved 5 stars if it had a few more recipes, like a Minnesota Wild Rice or a ground meat Chili recipe with beans (they do have Texas and Cincinnati Chili). Still, it has over 200 recipes and each of them is a winner.

These recipes were chosen over many others as a result of trial and error testing. The result is a well-organized book with delicious soup and stew recipes. With the cool days of fall and winter ahead, especially in my country, soups and stews become almost a staple meal, particularly for lunches. The chikcen noodle soup contained in this one is actually my favourite, and do not think for one minute all chicken noodle soup is chicken noodle soup because this recipe definitely stands out. Clam chowder and lobster bisque are also big hits in Eastern Canada, especially for those of us who living on this small Island where fishing is a primary resource. Clams, mussels, oysters and lobster are abundant in season.

If you are a fan of soups and stews, invest in this terrific book. The book also contains all kinds of useful tips and techniques but what impressed me the most was definitely the recipes.

I used to think "The Daily Soup" was the last word in preparing and making soups and stews, but it pales in comparison to this thoughtful, well executed volume. Everything about the Cook's Illustrated book series impresses. The production values are first rate, the research is superb, and the writing walks the fine line between prose and tech. I commend Mr. Kimball on his singular vision. It results in books like this one that make cooking a real pleasure for a moderately skilled cook like me. This book is a must have for every kicthen!

This is a wonderful book because it highlights the science and deterministic nature of good cooking. They first suggest some basics for your kitchen, aiming to be practical and spending only where it truly makes a difference.

Next, is a foundation of beef, chicken, vegetable and seafood stock recipes. I enjoy reading these because they're very methodical in trying to understand how to best do things, often suggesting short cuts where "20% of the effort results in 90% of the flavor." There's clearly substantial trial and error, but nice summary of what worked and didn't.

I was especially delighted to see they covered a variety of international cuisines, including Thai and Indian curries (from scratch!), borscht, miso, boullabaisse, minestrone, and gazpacho.

This is easily a "must have" for the creative cook.

Never knew how to make a stew properly.Was never sure which technique or equipment was best. This book answered all my questions. Now, I can even adapt recipes I tried in the past with (at best) mixed results, with success. This is a book to trust.

In all of their books and magazines, the editors of ?Cooks Illustrated? should have a qualifier stating on which criteria their ?Best? judgment is made. My general experience with their writings is to find that they typically look for the fastest recipe which makes the fewest compromises with taste and which does not cost an unusually large amount of money. Although, it is clear from these recipes that these criteria do not keep it from naturally long procedures such as stock making or expensive basic equipment such as heavy stockpots. It is also clear that these priorities can avoid some longer methods that are needed to achieve the very best taste.

One important question about this book is how well it rates compared to other ?Cooks Illustrated? Best Recipe volumes. In general, I find little to distinguish one from the other except to say that this volume has the virtue of gathering together similar preparations such as the Chinese egg drop soup and the Italian Straciatella, a measure they have not always taken in other volumes, as when brioche and challah are done in two different recipes separated by several dozen pages.

While ?Cooks Illustrated? is commonly very modest about their findings and recipes, the presumption that these culinary journalists and journeyman cooks are coming up with insights which have escaped master chefs is pretty far fetched. The other side of the coin is that different chefs have different methods, and different cuisines have different approaches to the same technique. Witness the difference between French, Swiss, and Italian meringue. But, that doesn?t mean one meringue is always better than another is. An issue more relevant to the book at hand is stock making. The editors choose a saute method for browning meat and vegetables in their stocks, where most recipes brown meat and vegetables in the oven. This decision influences their recommendations of a stockpot, where they suggest a heavy stainless steel or enameled iron pot. The problem with this is that while an 8-quart pot of these metals may be manageable and affordable, a 12 or 16 quart pot is a different kettle of fish entirely. It is much heavier and it is much more expensive.

Many recommendations for a large stockpot are for aluminum or light gage stainless steel. Alton Brown in his Gear book recommends a heavier aluminum or stainless pot to enhance heat distribution, but not for browning. My vote is for browning meat and vegetables in the oven and going for the lighter stockpot.

Other information on stock making is invaluable, and not something you will find the typical master chef saying in their books. The comparison of stocks made with popular commercial brands of chicken versus free-range chicken is dramatic. And, the endorsement of Campbell?s labeled (Campbell?s and Swanson) chicken stocks has been consistent for several years. It is also interesting to hear that commercial stock makers use old egg laying hens to make their stocks and thereby get a stronger flavor than from young broiler / fryers.

The odd thing is that for beef, the reverse is true. The very best beef stocks are from veal, since these very young bones have much more collagen to create more tasty gelatin in the stocks. This is such basic (French) kitchen wisdom that I?m surprised that the book simply does not deal with veal stocks at all, even to say that veal stocks are not commonly used in soups.

The soup recipes are uniformly good and, as always, the reasoning behind each decision in selecting each recipe is well worth the effort to enhance one?s ability to think creatively about cooking. The very best part of each recipe development is in the illustration of how to select good ingredients and how do perform certain common techniques. I strongly suspect that the sidebar on some techniques ends up in many different ?Cooks Illustrated? volumes, but that?s OK. There is lots of special material to go around.

Stews are presented in five separate chapters covering Meat, Chicken, Seafood, and Vegetable stews plus ?Chilis, Gumbos, and Curries?. I suspect the distinction between a soup and a stew is more traditional and arbitrary than can be pinned down in a few words, but the author?s rule seems to be that soups are eaten primarily with a spoon while stews can be eaten with a fork.

While the authors and editors often come to agree with the established practices of generations of chefs, it is always fun to find an exception to a time-honored rule, as with the washing of mushrooms. The editors reproduced an experiment by food scientist Harold McGee to confirm that a quick wash causes mushrooms to pick up no more water than a like weight of broccoli. This may be old news to some, but it is still interesting news.

The final chapter is on recipes for soup accompaniments such as rice, potato, polenta, breads and biscuits. I can?t help thinking that much of this chapter was put in to fill out a page size requirement, as I simply do not know anyone who makes it a practice of eating rice, potato, and polenta dishes with soups and stews. The biscuits and bread recipes are entirely appropriate, but they would not take up much space alone.

I always get recent ?Cooks Illustrated? cookbooks and I am rarely disappointed with them, and this book is no exception. My only caveat is on very basic matters such as stocks, if you are not already familiar with them, is to get a second opinion from an authoritative book by the likes of Jaques Pepin, James Stevenson, or Shirley Corriher.

Recommended primer on good, basic recipes, especially if you are willing to make your own stock.

It takes more work (have your butcher cut the chicken) but people you never even knew will be begging you for some of your "famous" chicken noodle soup