Customer Reviews

Inside America's Test Kitchen: All-New Recipes, Quick Tips, Equipment Ratings, Food Tastings, Science Experiments from the Hit Public Television Show

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

The books that accompany this PBS cooking show just keep getting better. I have seen criticsms of the previous two Test Kitchen books that say they contain a number of recycled recipes from the "Best Recipe" series, but in fact there is little, if any, cross-over. Additional research since some of the early cookbooks were published has sometimes resulted in a completely re-worked and improved recipe for a particular dish, but never the same recipe just re-printed from the Best Recipe series to the Test Kitchen series.

I enjoy cooking very much, and the staff of Cook's Illustrated produces the best recipes I have ever tasted. Blind taste testing at each step of recipe development hones these recipes until it would be hard to think of a way to improve them. Tasters are drawn from a pool which includes staff members, volunteers from the community, and visiting chefs, so a broad range of palates is represented. Furthermore, potential pitfalls are charted ahead of time so that you can reliably avoid them.

Often a team effort waters down the "voice" of the product. An interesting cookbook results from the passion of one or two cooks for their subject. But not in this case. The team effort produces a whole more potent than any one person could accomplish alone. This is a terrific cookbook.

The scrappy, fun America's Test Kitchen books, companions to the top-rated TV series of the same name, tend to compare to the more staid Best Recipe series the way classes at the local adult education center compare to college courses -- not necessarily as deep or down to earth, but a lot more varied and just as informative. This, the third Cooks Illustrated book devoted solely to the TV series, carries on the fun of last year's party-and-comfort-food oriented book and the original ATK Cookbook with an emphasis on things that might fall into the category of diner and cafe food.

Organized by episode like its predecessors, Inside America's Test Kitchen goes down home with pan-roasted chicken and a quickie ragu bolognese, revisits Chinatown with beef and broccoli (a followup to last year's Kung Pao shrimp), and has fun with ethnic home cooking like cassoulet (trimmed down for weeknight use) and pollo fra diavolo. Trips to your local luncheonette include blueberry pancakes, Denver (i.e western) omelettes, the German Apple Pancake (i.e. the Baby Apple to New Englanders), corn muffins, and lemon cheesecake; even the espresso bar makes an appearance with chocolate chip cookies (including reviews of prepared cookie doughs) and a full frontal assault on the often-sawdusty oatmeal scone (flour choice is critical).

In my review of last year's book, Here in America's Test Kitchen, I pointed out that it was a keg party; if that's so, this is the hangover cure for the next morning. It's perhaps a bit difficult to top the fun factor of a cookbook that starts you off with the best buffalo wings ever, but with yet another cool factor that's off the charts, the ATK crew have at least equaled it.

Fascinating and instructional book. They explain not only how to prepare the recipes but WHY you use different methods. I found the comparisons of brands of foods and utensils extremely helpful.

I liked the fact it didn't just tell me how to do something it told me why.

While there aren't many recipes (around 30)
all have turned out very well.

It's difficult to go wrong with America's Test Kitchen. I love their recipes--and the equipment ratings are extremely helpful.

I've only made about six items from this book--but all have turned out extremely well.

I highly recommend this book.

It's a brilliant book. It's not jam-packed with recipes, but for each recipe and technique they tell you everything they varied in the recipe and what effect it had on the final result.

Very educational!

My favorite publisher of cookbooks keeps me having successes in the kitchen. If you don't like wasting grocery money or time, these are the books to use for never having to scrape a failed effort into the garbage.

Just what I wanted. Delivered quickly as always. Enjoyed the cookbook almost as much as I enjoy watching the show. Worth the price and the short wait to receive it. You came through again, Amazon. 5 Gold Stars for you!

I've bought a number of books published by Boston Common Press, and all of them, including this one, are superb cookbooks for the home cook. They explain exactly what to do and why to do it that way. In my experience, cookbooks of any sort (especially restaurant cookbooks by celebrity chefs) tend to suffer from poor writing and give uneven results. This one does not. To my palate, perhaps one out of every fifteen recipies falls flat, producing merely good rather than excellent results. Virtually everything is a crowd-pleaser.

The only caveat I have to add is that there is a certain amount of overlap between different Boston Common Press books and Cook's Illustrated magazine. If you own lots of their books or subscribe to Cook's, find a copy of this book at your bookstore and thumb through it to see how many recipies are redundant. Still, an great buy.