Restaurant Favorites at Home: Part of "The Best Recipe" Series [Hardcover]

Editors of Cook's Illustrated Magazine (Author)

Book Description

Series: Best Recipe | Publication Date: September 2003

Would you like to cook restaurant recipes at home? Have you ever been tempted to make a restaurant recipe only to be disappointed by the results? The editors of Cook's Illustrated set out to find out how to make restaurant cooking at home a reality. After collecting together hundreds of recipes they selected 150 recipes that excited them most and spent thousands of hours in their test kitchen making those recipes work. They trimmed each recipe to its essentials without compromising on flavour or visual appeal. Restaurants usually prepare huge batches of food, so the recipes were reworked to serve 4 rather than 40. As a result, Restaurant Favourites at Home offers tried and tested recipes for starters, soups, salads, main courses, side dishes and desserts as well as the usual wealth of tips, tastings and equipment tests that are so much a part of all the Cook's Illustrated recipe books.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The editor and founder of Cooks Illustrated magazine and his devoted staff turn their culinary skills to the deconstruction of complicated restaurant recipes in this solid cookbook, which captures "the magic of five-star recipes without the madness of their execution." With the intention of simplifying and clarifying restaurant fare, the authors tested and retested complicated instructions and ingredients and pared them down to their essential elements. Thus, Insane Truffle Soup, served at Tru in Chicago, becomes Sane Truffle Soup, a recipe that keeps the essence of truffle flavor without blowing the home cook's budget. And Le Bernardin's Tuna Tartare with Piquillo Peppers, Roasted Tomatoes and Spicy Sweet Potato Tuiles becomes Tuna Tartare with Sweet Potato Crisps, where the roasted tomato garnish is replaced with sweet potato chips, which can even be purchased at a store. Hard-to-find or expensive ingredients and kitchen tools are substituted and replaced with easier to find equipment, and vague instructions are made more precise. Kitchen tips abound: among other suggestions, the editors offer advice on how to shred cheese without making a mess, peel and segment an orange and choose the correct cooking oil for any recipe. The novelty of some of these dishes, such as Green Eggs and Ham, will delight enlightened eaters. A fine addition to Cook's Illustrated's excellent book series, this volume should please cooks of all stripes.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Founded in 1980, Cook's Illustrated has emerged as 'America's Test Kitchen', renowned for its near obsessive dedication to finding the best methods of home cooking. The editors of Cook's Illustrated are also the authors of the range of best-selling cookbooks and they present America's Test Kitchen cooking show on public broadcast TV. The show features editors, test cooks, equipment testers and food tasters and has its own web site www americastestkitchen.com

Product Details

• Hardcover: 418 pages
• Publisher: America's Test Kitchen (September 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0936184671
• ISBN-13: 978-0936184678
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #384,211 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

77 of 80 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is my favorite Best Recipe book!, January 12, 2004

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Restaurant Favorites at Home: Part of "The Best Recipe" Series (Hardcover)

I wasn't expecting to enjoy this book so much. I was anticipating recipes from the kinds of restaurants I eat out in frequently, which are in my price range, and still prepare foods I don't often do at home. But the restaurants represented in THIS book are the extremely pricey, cutting-edge, wait-for-days-for-reservations places that I rarely can afford. These restaurants have incredible food. So I haven't even been able to taste a wide range of dishes in this unique category, let alone prepare them at home. A diverse group of people in the high-end food industry were polled to find the recipes that people ordered again and again. The editors pared 750 suggestions down to 150, with the chefs generously contributing their recipes for inclusion.

These are indeed things you could not cook at home. In this volume it takes more than the average amount of Cook's Illustrated tweaking to make the recipes accessible to the home cook. (Christopher Kimball noted in his preface that this project was more work than he had expected, and it's easy to see why.) But they don't stop until every problem is solved.

And the food!! I have made several of these recipes, and they are sublime. I have dog-eared dozens more pages with additional dishes I want to try. Each dish represents the particular vision of the chef who created it. Sometimes we think food like this it too weired for the average person to enjoy, but this is not the case. Everyone who tried my dishes to loved them, including children.

58 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Uncommon recipes, not what I expected., October 26, 2004

By 

cynthia_colorado (Rocky Mountains) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Restaurant Favorites at Home: Part of "The Best Recipe" Series (Hardcover)

I assumed this book would contain recipes for classic dishes commonly found at restaurants. That is not the case. This book contains adaptations of unusual and imaginative dishes by world-class chefs. I was hoping for something simpler, closer to my level. More advanced gourmet cooks will appreciate this book more.

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bring out your inner chef, November 11, 2006

By 

Renee Gleason (New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Restaurant Favorites at Home: Part of "The Best Recipe" Series (Hardcover)

Somehow, I feel this book has not received its due credit or attention. As someone who is very familiar with Cook's Illustrated, I am very surprised that this book did not become one of their top sellers. Perhaps because it is somewhat of a departure from what Cook's Illustrated normally does that people have not been able to truly embrace its concept? I must say that even I was surprised that they set out on such an undertaking with this book, especially since their founder, Christopher Kimball, is a self-proclaimed loather of all foods fancy. But after the tremendous success I have had with the amazing recipes from this book, I am so thankful they ventured into restaurant quality territory.

Before I go on, let me first say that this is probably not a book for the uninitiated. If you are a beginner cook, I strongly urge you to start out with Cook's Illustrated "The New Best Recipe" cookbook. There is a wealth of information and techniques to be learned from this all-encompassing cookbook (the "Bible" to us Cook's Illustrated fans) and you will be better served to learn the fundamentals of cooking and baking before you try most of the recipes from "Restaurant Favorites". However, if you are a seasoned cook looking for delicious, foolproof recipes with the wow factor of a four star restaurant, then you have hit the jackpot with this book!

How CI approached this venture is they contacted scores of food editors from all over the country and asked them what dishes from their favorite restaurants they would most like to recreate at home. They then asked the chefs of those restaurants to share their recipes. In typical CI fashion, they took those recipes into the test kitchen and exhaustively tested them until they came up with a version that would translate into the home kitchen. Most high end restaurants use hard to obtain ingredients, difficult techniques, and have expensive equipment not normally found in home kitchens. They also have sous chefs on hand to help with lengthy preparation and dishwashers to clean their mountains of dishes. We home cooks are not afforded these luxuries. With this in mind, CI set out to transform these recipes into something the home cook could feasibly do at home, while still maintaining the integrity of the original dishes. They substituted expensive, hard to find ingredients with ones available to most home cooks, they simplified techniques, and they streamlined recipes to shorten preparation and cooking times. But all the while, they maintained the genius and drama of four star restaurant cooking. For those of us looking for ways to add new flavors and flair to our dishes without having to take expensive cooking classes, this book is like a gift from heaven!

There is a diverse array of recipes contained within, from the striking beauty and flavor of their "Crab Towers with Avocado and Gazpacho Salsas" to the homey flavors of their "Braised Short Ribs with Creamy Polenta". You will most likely find something to prepare for whichever occasion you choose. The recipes included run the gamut from first courses (appetizers, soups and salads), main courses (vegetarian, poultry, meat and seafood), side dishes and desserts. While this book may be a departure from what Cook's Illustrated normally does, you can still find elements that you have come to expect from them. Like product and equipment ratings, illustrations of techniques, and helpful tidbits that are scattered throughout the book. And like all other CI cookbooks, every recipe comes with a detailed write-up of their experiences in the test kitchen...how they arrived at the final version of the recipes, what lessons were learned in their undertaking, etc. As always, the good people at CI are not only recipe writers, but educators as well.

I cannot recommend this book enough to people who are looking for new and exciting recipes to wow their family and friends. You will be surprised at how doable all these recipes are, and you will be taking your cooking and entertaining to a whole new level. I do admit that I tend to use this cookbook more for entertaining than I do for every day cooking. While there are certainly recipes that you can make for weeknight meals (Tortilla Soup, Greek Salad, Jambalaya, German Pot Roast), more of them have that restaurant flair that seems more appropriate for dinner parties, holidays and special occasions than a Tuesday night in front of the television. But one thing's for certain, every recipe that I tried not only looked beautiful but tasted as good as or better than anything I've ever had in a high end restaurant. I can't thank Cook's Illustrated enough for this book. I've never thought I would be able to cook like this with such minimal effort!

If you are looking to elevate your cooking to an all new high, then you will definitely want this book on your shelf. You owe it to your inner chef to give it a try. :-)