Perfect Vegetables: Part of "The Best Recipe" Series [Hardcover]

Editors of Cook's Illustrated Magazine (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2003 | Series: The Best Recipe Series

How to prepare and cook everything from asparagus to winter squash Do you know why most stuffed peppers are soggy and bland? Is it better to blanch or steam broccoli? Will washing mushrooms make them waterlogged? In Perfect Vegetables the editors address these and hundreds of commonly asked questions about vegetables. There are more than 350 recipes including Glazed Carrots with Bacon, Grilled Portobello and Spinach Salad and Tomato and Mozzarella Tart

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: America's Test Kitchen; First Edition edition (August 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0936184698
• ISBN-13: 978-0936184692
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 0.9 x 10.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #96,834 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #41 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Special Occasions > Holidays

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Perfect Vegetables is the work of Cook's Illustrated magazine, a publication devoted to providing the "best" American recipes. Like the magazine, from which its contents is largely drawn, the book offers super-tested recipes--as many as 18 tries for stuffed tomatoes, for example--for an A to Z vegetable range, artichokes to zucchini. The book also includes dozens of technique and equipment notes ("Stir-Fry Basics," is one), plus a short section on vegetable soups. An impressive recipe range is here and accounted for--classic dishes like grilled eggplant and braised fennel, plus "newer" formulas for the likes of Grilled Red Peppers with Mint and Feta and Glazed Curried Carrots with Currants and Almonds. Are these the ultimate versions of the dishes included? Certainly they represent exhaustive investigation--and most cooks will find the Perfect Vegetables take, which offers many technical refinements (preheat your baking sheet to ensure golden oven-baked fries, for example) enlightening.

Vegetable entries begin with a detailed discussion that highlights the cooking methods for each that ensure best results. (Steaming, for example, gets the nod for artichokes, as it yields the "deepest, most pronounced flavor.") Master recipes follow, such as that for steamed artichokes, plus formulas for tasty accompaniments like Lemon Mint Vinaigrette, or variations, such as Roasted Baby Artichokes with Roasted Garlic Aïoli. Techniques are beautifully illustrated with line drawings and photos. The ingredient and equipment investigations, which often include ratings, are mini consumer reports. Devotees of Cook's Illustrated and those new to its "obsessive" approach to dish making, should happily embrace this encyclopedic compendium. --Arthur Boehm

From Publishers Weekly

For vegetarians and food enthusiasts weary of soggy carrots, smelly cabbage or lumpy mashed potatoes, the editors of Cook's Illustrated present a tome devoted to vegetable perfection from artichokes to zucchini. Carefully researched and thoroughly tested, each section (organized alphabetically by vegetable) includes an informative history and interesting food facts; tips on how to select the freshest vegetable at the market; and detailed approaches to cooking and serving. The volume answers oft-asked questions about preparing and storing foods, and includes both basic recipes ("master recipes") and tastier dishes (Green Beans with Sautéed Shallots and Vermouth, Mashed Potatoes with Brie and Tarragon and Glazed Carrots with Currants and Almonds) for each veggie. Step-by-step illustrations on preparation help the home cook master technique: detailed lessons, for example, are provided for preparing artichokes for braising and corn for grilling, dicing an avocado and segmenting an orange. There's a section on why chopping onions can make you cry, as well as suggestions to stop the flow of tears. (Light a candle or wear swimming goggles.) "Best of" segments are peppered throughout the book, offering the reader results of taste and equipment tests from the Cook's Illustrated staff. Those looking for merely a recipe book may feel overwhelmed by the plethora of information and advice, as the test kitchen staff leaves no ingredient unchecked (they devote 56 pages to potatoes), but chowhounds and home chefs alike should delight at every obsessive and flavorful detail.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: America's Test Kitchen; First Edition edition (August 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0936184698
• ISBN-13: 978-0936184692
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 0.9 x 10.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #96,834 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #41 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Special Occasions > Holidays

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

188 of 191 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Good book, but many repeats January 6, 2006

By Renee Gleason

I love Cook's Illustrated. I subscribe to their magazine, I subscribe to their website and I own several of their cookbooks. Very rarely have they ever steered me wrong with any of their recipes and tips. This is one book that I was disappointed with, however---not because the recipes aren't great or the layout of the book isn't up to par, but because many of these recipes can be found in their comprehensive cookbook "The New Best Recipe" (a great book, btw. It has just about everything you could ever need). There are only a few different recipes in Perfect Vegetables that cannot be found in the New Best, and the money I spent to get a handful of new veggie recipes was not worth it, in my opinion. If you already own the New Best, than I would be very hesitant to spend any money on this book. I would physically look through the book at a bookstore before buying to see if this is something you would really like to own. If you don't own New Best and are looking for a wonderful veggies cookbook, than this one is for you!

79 of 80 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great vegetable recipes and ideas September 18, 2003

By A Customer

Thus far, I've made several recipes from this book and everything has turned out delicious! I've found it very helpful to use in planning side dishes for dinner parties or for dinner in general. Even if you don't follow the recipe exactly -- like improvising based on the ingredients you have on hand -- they provide enough variations for you to find something you can work with. Because the recipes are arranged alphabetically by vegetable used, it's very easy to browse and find exactly the recipe that sounds best to you. And, it's a great reference for ideas. Roasted Baby Carrots and Sugar Snap Peas with Garlic and Toasted Nuts were both fantastic.

53 of 56 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous Book for Veggie Lovers March 3, 2004

By Tashi

Amazon Verified Purchase

Although we are not vegetarians, we, and our friends love fresh vegetables. This is the most comprehensive compilation of vegetable recipes we've seen, and an asset to anyone's cookbook collection. We have tried at least a dozen recipes, and we have made some of them more than once. Each one works just as described, and the additional information on why the particular method was chosen as the best is very useful. This is a winner!

36 of 38 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars MAKES NON VEGGIE EATERS LIKE VEGETABLES January 10, 2005

By liz albert

THIS COOKBOOK IS FANATASTIC!! I don't like cauliflower but I followed a recipe and it turned out fabulous. My husband doesn't like as asparagus and he ate up the roasted asparagus with roasted red pepper vinagerette.

This cookbook makes you like vegetables. It never leaves my kitchen, I cook with it almost everyday.

They perform hundreds of trials in a test kitchen to develop the best way to make, say, glazed carrots. The goal is a tasty dish with the fewest amount of dishes possible.

For the best spinach salad with hot bacon dressing, or the best green beans you must get this cookbook!

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Finally - Vegetables Get Some Respect December 24, 2007

By jerry i h

Vegetables have always been the Rodney Dangerfield of food: they never get any respect. They are variously beaten, cooked, stewed, molded, mashed, seasoned, sauced, and pureed to death, sometimes more than once in the same recipe. This behavior even includes places that you expect would have more respect for our botanical friends: Indian/Hindu/vegetarian, Oriental/Buddhist/vegetarian, California/vegan. The cookbook aisles are littered with the carnage of bad vegetable recipes. Properly cooking vegetables is neither easy nor fast. Correctly done, the vegetable portion of your meal often takes MORE time and/or effort than, say, the protein centerpiece of your meal.

This book qualifies as a genuine vegetable encyclopedia that you can rely on for accurate information and proper cooking methods. You get 44 vegetables. Each and every one gets several pages and a thorough treatment, including recommended prep methods and recipes. Typically, each vegetable gets a half dozen or so pages (beets and okra get 2 pages, potatoes 50). This book is an alphabetical encyclopedia of the proper way to prep and cook vegetables. It was a real joy to finally see vegetables given the respect they deserve. Be mindful, however, that this means that cooking your vegetables are no longer quick, easy, and simple.

Their prep methods for artichoke and asparagus are very good, but causes you to throw away some edible parts. Do you know the best way to ripen avocados? This and much more about vegetables will be revealed to you. Can you cook a brussel sprout that people will actually eat? Do you have to cut an "x" in the base? Did you know that there are a couple of frozen vegetables that actually pass muster with the authors?... The vegetables chosen are all the standard, usual ones you will find in any supermarket. The authors have the integrity to avoid special, rare, hard to find vegetables that might be fabulous, but impossible to get unless you are a celebrity super-chef in Manhattan. A properly prepared vegetable, although just a side-dish, should be good enough, with a glass of wine, to serve as a light supper all by itself. Are the vegetables you typically prepare at home this good? I was rather surprised that squash (winter and summer) got short-shrift in this book. They are so cheap, so plentiful, so easy to get, and so good, why not devote more attention to them? The only answer I can imagine is that the staff of CI are not very fond of squash, regardless of season.

This is a truly brilliant cookbook, but I knock it down a notch for the poorly thought out format. It is designed just like their periodical, Cooks Illustrated. The format might be suitable for a magazine, but it is a serious mistake for a book designed to be a ready reference for the home cook's bookshelf.
1) Problem #1 - Side Bar Mania. Kitchen tool reviews and taste tests are randomly scattered throughout the test. They are listed in the index under `equipment' and `ingredients' respectively, right where the home cook is likely to forget that they even exist in the book. These should be collated right in front along with the TOC.
2) Problem #2 - Where are the `master recipes'? This book uses a concept they call `master recipe' for the main prep/cooking method for a vegetable plus the variations. The TOC only lists the vegetable. This might be OK for a chapter that has only one master recipe, but is a major flaw for chapters that has 15 such `master recipes'. Each and every master recipe should be listed in the TOC. As is, this book is only marginally useful as a reference.
3) Problem #3 - More Side Bar Mania. Important information about the particular vegetable tends to be buried in each chapter. In potatoes, for example, important information about their storage (and that the frig is OK for them) is buried 4/5 of the way through potato chapter in the middle of a section about French potato salads, where you will never find it unless you read the entire chapter. How is this suppose to help the home cook?
4) Problem #4 - OK, now I am just picking nits. The photographs are out of focus and kind of irritating to look at. How could a food stylist permit this to happen? OK, one baby bok choy is in focus, but the other 3 are blurry; and this flaw is true of all except one (grilled corn) of the color photos. Read more ›

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The best recipe book for cooking vegetables March 7, 2010

By Regina A. Rhoa

This is a must have for any home cook. The recipes actually make vegetable taste good. You will no longer fear Kale or Brussel Sprouts after making these recipes. Whether you are a vegetarian or just want to cook side dishes. This book is extremely easy to use and as with all Christopher Kimball books, the recipes are tried and true. Our book is so worn because we use it every night.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Want to Prepare Veggies? Must Buy This! August 25, 2009

By Sue Edwards

I feel everyone else has said many of the same things I would say. If you have a child going into college, buy them this book. If you have friends getting married, buy them this book. If you hated your mom's mushy vegetables, buy this book! I have never made a recipe in this book that I didn't love. Even friends who don't like veggies, love when I prepare them this way.