Here In America's Test Kitchen: All New Recipes, Quick Tips, Equipment Ratings, Food Tastings, and Science Experiments from the Hit Public Television Show [Hardcover]

Editors of Cook's Illustrated Magazine (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

At a certain point you have to ask yourself, do you really need another couple of hundred recipes all carefully clustered around a food concept, or do you want a more manageable number of recipes that all work--guaranteed? Welcome to Here in America's Test Kitchen by the editors of Cook's Illustrated magazine. Not only can you rest assured that the results will taste as good as they look in the color photo, you get to learn along the way exactly why these recipes work so well. If you are a little confused about which salt or which pasta is going to bring you the pleasure you deserve, that information's in there, too, along with the inevitable concerns about kitchen tools. Ingredients, tools, technique, kitchen science, good humor, insatiable curiosity, bonhomie--this is the world of Here in America's Test Kitchen.

With Here in America's Test Kitchen, a companion book to popular PBS TV series, the kind editors of Cook's Illustrated have placed the busy cook first and foremost in their concerns. Fine, the rustic bread is going to be a weekend project. But what about coming home after work knowing a few friends are going to fall by and being able to crank out award-winning nachos, Buffalo wings, fresh guacamole, and delicious sangría with complete confidence? That's where this book starts. Along the way you'll find the perfect fried rice and kung pao shrimp, or steak au poivre with a brandied cream sauce. Beef burgundy, Texas chili, barbecued salmon, pasta classics, American casseroles--these editors know what you want to put in your mouth. What they do best is showing the process they went through to get the exact result they were looking for. If you cook your way through this book, cover to cover, you will not only be a good cook, you will know exactly why that is so. And you can take that to the bank. --Schuyler Ingle

From Publishers Weekly

Kimball, founder of Cook's Illustrated magazine and host of the PBS show America's Test Kitchen, offers a preface to this guide to the tools, techniques and ingredients needed in today's kitchens, along with about 50 recipes. At first glance the casual cook might be daunted by the recipes, but by following the careful instructions an inexperienced cook could turn out a perfect meal consulting just one or two of the 26 chapters (e.g., "Party Foods," "Chicken in a Flash," "Ham Dinner," "Cookie Jar Favorites"). The editors offer such homey dishes as Cheesy Nachos, Spaghetti Putanesca, Scalloped Potatoes and Lemon Meringue Pie. Moreover, the recipes have been formulated to ensure short lists of ingredients and common home equipment. Veteran cooks will revel in the analysis of the science behind the recipes-the single bread recipe here, five pages long, answers questions that dozens of other cookbooks do not-and will appreciate the illustrated technique sidebars and brand-name comparisons of everything from pastas to saute pans.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 350 pages
• Publisher: Boston Common Press (December 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0936184590
• ISBN-13: 978-0936184593
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 8.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #423,600 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

71 of 74 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Julia Collin is like, so cute..., January 7, 2003

By 

Brian Connors (Yarmouth, MA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Here In America's Test Kitchen: All New Recipes, Quick Tips, Equipment Ratings, Food Tastings, and Science Experiments from the Hit Public Television Show (Hardcover)

... but I won't talk about that in this review.

What I will talk about is a cookbook that takes the culinary gearheads at Cooks Illustrated and allows them to let it rip -- if the Best Recipe series is a solid and thorough series of workshops for the technically-minded cook, and the first America's Test Kitchen book seems to be a slightly dull but not unenjoyable tasting menu some of the crew's favorite recipes, Here In America's Test Kitchen is a blowout, a blow-the-roof-off-and-call-the-cops kegger of cool recipes. It doesn't say it explicitly, but this book is all about party food and comfort food.

Party food? Buffalo wings (their secret: extra Tabasco and a bit of vinegar), sangria, chili, barbecue ribs, and grill-roasted turkey for a different twist on Thanksgiving. (I think they do a different turkey recipe in every book.) Comfort food? Beef burgundy. Steakhouse filet mignon. Kung pao shrimp (with several choices of fried rice). Even green bean casserole and the missing meat lasagna recipe that should have been in Italian Classics. There's lots of things to look at and cook here, each one sliced and diced in classic Cooks Illustrated style to get the best possible results.

This is a must-have book. It's loaded with behind-the-scenes pictures just like its predecessor, and the food in it is picked out for fun factor and/or just novelty; they even claim to make stuffed peppers appetizing, which is a pretty daring proposition. Get this book, and I promise you'll enjoy just reading it; if other TV cookbooks with their closeups and cutting-edge graphic design are food porn, this stuff is Penthouse Letters.

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A New Chef's Must Have, June 5, 2003

By 

Shana (Somerville, Morocco) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Here In America's Test Kitchen: All New Recipes, Quick Tips, Equipment Ratings, Food Tastings, and Science Experiments from the Hit Public Television Show (Hardcover)

There are three things I love about this book:

1. It's easy to use. So, when you're just starting to learn to cook you think, "I need something short and simple to try". The people at Cook's Illustrated take the opposite approach: They give you more complex recipes with minutely detailed instruction sets. At first, the book appears difficult. But then, you realize that what they've actually done is take all of the guesswork out of making good food. The instructions never say something like "Beat Egg Whites until glossy and firm". They say, "Get out your mixer, turn it on to medium (about a 5 on a KitchenAid) and beat the egg whites for 3 minutes." By providing precise instructions, they help even the most novice cook achieve tasty and predictable results each and every time they cook.

2. Unlike a lot of cookbooks, it's not a coffee table book. Each and every recipe in here is something you can make in your kitchen with ingredients you can get at the Shaw's (Star Market, Ralph's, Food Lion, Kroger, etc.) Market.

3. Each of the recipes is a lesson. By cooking your way through this book, you'll actually learn so many top notch ways to make basics that you'll be able to cook from any other cookbook out there on the market today.

My advice is to give this book to the novice chef in your life and then sit back and enjoy the results. You'll like the food so much you'll buy it for everyone you know.

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Quality Cooking Advice & Phenomenal Ribs!, December 13, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Here In America's Test Kitchen: All New Recipes, Quick Tips, Equipment Ratings, Food Tastings, and Science Experiments from the Hit Public Television Show (Hardcover)

As someone who consider's themselves an elite "home chef", I stopped using recipe books years ago and just built on the basics that I'd gleaned from reading what I considered the "essential" cookbooks. Then, one stormy Saturday afternoon when the husband was at work and the kids were away at Grandma's, I stumbled on America's Test Kitchen on PBS. Needless to say, I loved what I saw.

Now I am a Cook's Illustrated fan. I have not come across anything done by these folks that isn't absolute quality cooking instruction - no matter what your level of cooking expertise. That's because ATK doesn't just write the recipes - they write articles and background about every recipe that breaks down each element of the recipe and explains why certain ingredients, techniques and equipment work so much better than others in producing the best tasting recipe. Even if you never follow an America's Test Kitchen or Cook's Illustrated recipe step-by-step, the things you learn just by reading the recipe books can be carried over into all of your cooking. If, like me, you are a non-recipe cook, there is still much to be learned here.

"Here in America's Test Kitchen" carries on the standard of excellence that Cook's Illustrated has established for itself. Detailed recipes that are actually essays about what goes into creating each recipe and why certain ingredients and methods are used will elevate the level of every home cook - regardless of your current level of expertise.

This book contains some of the best recipes I've ever had. The BBQ Rib recipe prepared with a dry rub and slow cooked over a smoky grill is simply the best rib recipe I've ever made - spicy, smokey, fall of the bone tender with a wonderful crisp skin on the outside. At a recent 4th of July party, these ribs and the ATK buffalo wings were a huge hit. And the cookie jar favorites - chewy, flavorful double chocolate cookies and ginger cookies are family favorites. The recipes here aren't always the quickest, the cheapest or the lowest in fat and calories, but if you are looking for the best in flavor and texture, with America's Test Kitchen you can't go wrong.