The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science Hardcover – September 21, 2015

I have been waiting for this book to come out and it exceeds my expectations! "The Food Lab" by Lopez-Alt is a dense collection of science based tips, explanations, techniques, and recipes for the home cook. This is a must have reference and cookbook for home cooking enthusiasts.

I really like the way this book has been laid out:

- The introduction is a modest overview of the author and his background followed by some really helpful information on equipment (such as an explanation on techniques for holding knives, how heat transfers through metal for consideration in what type of pan to use, essential equipment to have in your kitchen, and how to store and organize your fridge and pantry).

- Recipes in subsequent chapters are divided by meal type. Technique tips and explanations are dispersed through the recipes in every chapter.
* The breakfast chapter is lengthy and starts with explaining eggs - their composition and properties related to how they change when they cook, whether brown eggs are healthier than white eggs, how to hard or soft boil an egg,... and much more.There is a great range of recipes including numerous egg dishes, bacon, pancakes, biscuits, and hot chocolate.
* Soups and Stews has an in depth explanation of stock followed by recipes including black bean soup, tomato soup with grilled cheese, chicken, and dumplings, chili, and French onion soup.
* Meat recipes characterized by how to "Fast Cook" in 30 minutes or less for a variety of steak, pork chops, chicken, and fish recipes.
* Cooked Vegetables has a great range of side dishes such as Brussels sprouts, Mexican street corn salad, roasted cauliflower, mashed potatoes, glazed carrots, and quite a few more recipes.
* The Ground Meat chapter explains not only how to grind your own meat, but how to season it as well as recipes for making and cooking sausage, meat loaf, and burgers.
* There is a Roasts chapter for poultry, lamb, and pork. There is a ton of great instructions and tips in this chapter that could be used for making a Thanksgiving meal (with recipes of course as well).
* The Pasta chapter covers details around boiling pasta and how he tested different techniques to determine the best way to cook pasta. Recipes in this chapter include mac 'n' cheese, risotto, linguine with clams, lasagna, and spaghetti.
* The Salad chapter emphasizes picking the right types of greens, the complimenting salad dressing tastes, and accompanying textures to add to make a perfect salad. This chapter has recipes such as tomato and mozzarella salad, iceberg wedge, beet and goat cheese salad, potato salads, and coleslaw.
* The final Frying chapter covers types of oil to fry with and different types of vessels to fry in. Recipes included here are French fries, chicken, fish, and onion rings.

- The front and back book covers insides have conversion tables to be opened or flipped to quickly as a reference.

This book is over 900 pages and has a ton of photos both for techniques and presentations. The author's tone is filled with humor and is not pretentious. The explanations are really clear and educational.

I will be updating this review further as I make recipes within the cookbook. I recommend this book to all experience levels of cooks as well as science-minded people.

This book is a monster. At almost 7 pounds and nearly a thousand pages, you can bet that it is comprehensive. Like most cookbooks today, it begins with a background of the author, who is an MIT grad turned culinary scientist. He goes on to discuss gear and technique as well as recommendations for essentials- all pretty standard so far. Though I do appreciate that he adds a premium and budget pick for each gear recommendation.

J. Kenji Lopez-Alt then launches into a nine-part collection of recipes. Each one is well-documented with technique and experimentation as the author discusses how and why he made the recipes the way he did. There are some things which go contrary to cooking norms (flip your steak often, and searing does not lock in juice), but there are explanations for the methods behinds the madness. I appreciate that this book not only has full-color photos and in-depth articles accompanying each recipe, but it really builds on fundamentals of cooking. Even if you never bother to make a recipe from this book verbatim, it will greatly increase your cooking skills from practical knowledge of physics, chemistry, taste, and technique. Many recipes build on one another, and the flow of the book is very good. There is a lack of baked of goods and desserts in this book, but I'm not sure that there would be room for them!

Overall, this book is on par with other amazing at-home cookbooks such as Modernist Cuisine at Home. I especially enjoy his sections on eggs, steaks, chilis, and fried chicken. There are several vegetarian recipes, but many are meat-based (surprising for someone who does a month-long blog annually about living vegan).

I would highly suggest this book. I look forward to cooking and expirementing my way through it.

This is a cook book that everyone must buy. It is absolutely amazing, and also a fantastic gift!! I am a scientist myself, and so the descriptions and the science behind the cooking is SO cool! Great gift for scientist friends in particular!! I have attached a few photos of some of the things I have prepared from the cook book and Kenji's website. The meals I have prepared have turned out absolutely delicious, AND they look very much like his professional photos too!!! This is the first time where I've followed the recipe, and what I make looks like what the authors made! This book is absolutely amazing. It will educate you, it will make you a smarter and more confident chef, and it will absolutely entertain you! Kenji has some subtle jokes throughout and some extremely cute pictures of dogs. Awesome book and will be purchasing for family and friends as gifts!