[.ca] America's Test Kitchen (ISBN 093618454X)

From Amazon.com:
Based on the popular PBS TV series, Cook's Illustrated's America's Test Kitchen Cookbook presents more than 200 recipes in short, essay-like investigations that reflect exhaustive ingredient, equipment, and method testing. Over the years, Cook's Illustrated magazine has set itself to the task of finding the best versions of favorite dishes. The result has been often-definitive reports on how to achieve fare like thin-crust pizza, oven-fried chicken, and blueberry muffins. Readers who look to the magazine for the last word on dish preparation, and others seeking reliable, enlightening cooking counsel, will welcome this book. Each recipe includes a What We Wanted statement (in the case of french fries, for example, "Golden brown fries with a nice crunch on the outside and an earthy potato taste"); explores various dish approaches (the perfect fat for fries is investigated and determined, among other cooking issues); What We Learned ("Use russet potatoes, soak them in ice water, and fry in peanut oil twice); the recipe itself; and other features such as Testing Lab (a detailed view of the dish's perfecting process). A full range of dishes are explored, from puréed soups, sandwiches, and barbecue fare to holiday dinners, seafood classics, and sweets such as apple pie, bar cookies, and chocolate desserts. Fully photo illustrated, and with useful step-by-step technique drawings, the book is a valuable kitchen resource that will help readers cook better. --Arthur Boehm

Shop carefully:
These books are great! I love my Cooks' Illustrated Books and use them all the time. My one and only complaint is that they have now published the Best Recipe series and now the Test Kitchen books and they don't have enough recipes to fill them each one with enough unique recipes to distinguish one book from another. A few repetitions is understandable, but they have gone way over the top. If you buy more than two of these books, the third is bound to be composed of a third the recipes from each of the first two. Same test info, everything. This only leaves 1/3 of the recipes as original. Because of this, I say look carefully before deciding which one from this series you purchase unless you want multiple copies of the same testing articles and recipes.

Think of it as a sample size...:
This was the first Cooks Illustrated cookbook I bought (I now have three) and it's... well, limited. It's meant to accompany the TV series, though in actuality it's really only a small part of what the TV show is about. Like other Best Recipe books, it occasionally nicks material from the other books (a frequent Cooks Illustrated annoyance) but it still manages to work nicely, and the recipes in it are still enough to get the reader going. It's the odd one out of the series, limited as it is to a fairly narrow selection of items, and it has a rather strange but appetizing Southern accent (strange because of the show's basis in New England). It also has plenty of pictures that give it a playfulness that the bigger books lack. I do recommend this book, with some reservations (though the recipe that teaches how to butterfly a turkey is not something you're going to find anywhere else, and might be worth it if it saves someone some frustration on Thanksgiving). I really wanted to give it 3 1/2 stars, and rounded up because I don't like being cheap with praise. Just understand that it's a sample of what Cooks Illustrated is all about, and really just a cleverly done ad for their bigger books, and you will definitely not be disappointed.

If you enjoy the show, you'll love the book...:
I've enjoyed the cooking show, America's Test Kitchen, for several years. Their web site ... includes the current season's recipes -- but not the full list. If your local PBS station is running a show from an earlier series, then the recipes are not readily available. Well this book has all of the information. It has the recipes (plus usually one or two that weren't included in the show because of time constraints). It has the product reviews and it has the explanation behind food science involved (why you want to a russet potato for one kind of recipe and a boiling potato for another recipe). Many of the techniques are also discussed -- but the book leaves out Bridget's joy of whanging away at a recalcitrant piece of meat. Personally, I'm waiting for them to do a kitchen tool review on rubber hammers! I still enjoy the show -- but find that I regularly return to the cookbook. My definition of a good cookbook. Now I'm looking for the next season's cookbook.

Combination cookbook & textbook!:
I've always wondered why sometimes you use baking powder and sometimes you use baking soda, and sometimes both. Now I know! This book explains cooking theory in little side articles that are easy to find (and easy to ignore if you don't care about them). It has lots of recommendations, for things like cooking equipment (I bought a new grater & love it) as well as ingredients. And there are a couple of recipes that have become classics at my house. Try the chocolate cream pie; it's to DIE for! The ingredient that they investigated in that one was baking chocolates. You'll be surprised which one ended up being used! One of my favorite cookbooks; it stays on the counter rather than getting filed away.

More than just recipes:
If you are interested in the chemistry of cooking, you'll love this book. The recipes are good but the reasons behind why certain ingredients work better than others, which brands are better tasting than others, etc. is so interesting if you really want to cook well.