- 400 recipes engineered for perfection
- Tips for using an instant-read thermometer
- 50 Kitchen concepts to learn and master
- ATK’s recommended kitchen cookware
- Practical Food Science on virtually every page
America’s Test Kitchen has spent 30 years investigating how cooking works - and why recipes sometimes don’t. Flip through the pages of, “The Science of Good Cooking” and you’ll be transported into the Test Kitchen working alongside editors, food scientists, tasters and cookware specialists’ putting their perfectly engineered recipes to the test.
Learn the right way to sauté, find out the best way to cook a pot roast, and understand the scientific principles involved in producing perfectly beaten, stable egg whites. What’s their ultimate end goal? Easy, “to investigate the fundamental principles of cooking so that you become a better cook.”
Perhaps the most important take away we found among its pages is the belief that, “temperature always matters.” From the initial temperature of the ingredients you use, to the internal temperature of the finished product, temperature will affect the quality of any finished recipe. Idioms such as, “room temperature,” and “chilled,” are made clear, and charts are provided to help you gauge doneness using temperature.
Along with recipes and temperatures, you’ll be shown recommended equipment for your kitchen, knife basics, food safety information, conversions and equivalents, and our favorite, emergency ingredient substitutions. One cup of sour cream in place of plain yogurt - who knew?!
ATK’s Founder and Publisher, Christopher Kimball, invites you to enjoy this book. In it he says, “You will find the answers to most of your cooking questions, especially when it comes to “why” - the most important question of all.”