Indholdsfortegnelse for July/August 2018 i Cook's Illustrated

My mom’s name is Martha, but she’s always gone by Marty. Marty worked as a registered nurse on the cardiac-orthopedic floor of a local hospital for more than 40 years. When I was a kid, she’d come home from long shifts on her feet and cook dinner for my sister, my dad, and me. We’d sit down to eat her excellent from-scratch cooking—maybe cream of chicken and rice or her milky Maine-style fish chowder with crispy bacon. And she’d talk about what was on her mind: surgeries, needles, pandemics, bad falls, and the best practices for wound care. Within minutes the clatter of spoons on ceramic would cease. Marty, sensing the deep silence, would look up to see three faces, now as pale as her chowder, staring blankly back. To…

High-end, tech-minded chefs and bartenders cheat the normal laws of cooking by using a contraption called a rotary evaporator (or “rotovap”). The device, which costs upwards of $8,000, works by gently heating a liquid, such as tomato juice, in a vacuum chamber. The vacuum lets the juice boil at near room temperature, which lets volatile flavors get extracted from the liquid and concentrated. It’s a tool that could revolutionize fresh tomato sauce, which has an inherent dilemma: Simmering cooks out the very thing that makes a ripe tomato so special—its bright, sweet, delicate flavor. On the other hand, if you don’t cook juicy tomatoes long enough to evaporate a good bit of their liquid, the sauce won’t have enough body to cling to pasta, and its flavor won’t be intense…

Every adult I know goes through the same mental checklist before leaving the house in the morning: Keys? Phone? Wallet? Granola bar? Okay, maybe that last one is just me. But granola bars should be on your must-have list because they’re tasty and easy to eat on the go. And because they contain fiber, protein, and healthy fats, they make great snacking alternatives to hastily grabbed cookies or chips. That said, buying granola bars can be disappointing. Many commercial bars are so sweet that they’re really just undercover candy, and most are pretty light on hearty additions such as nuts, seeds, and dried fruit. Such stinginess is especially annoying because granola bars are pricey, even though most are largely composed of inexpensive oats. I decided that the best way to…

In the summer, ceviche is one of my go-to dinners for three big reasons: It’s easy and quick, it doesn’t require turning on the stove or oven or even firing up the grill, and it’s the only dish that truly allows the fresh, clean, delicate flavor of seafood to shine. Ceviche, of course, is the Latin American dish in which pieces of raw fish are “cooked” in an acidic marinade until the flesh firms and turns opaque. Full disclosure: When I make ceviche at home, I don’t normally use a recipe. I juice some limes, cut up the fish (usually a firm-fleshed white variety such as sea bass, snapper, or halibut—whatever is freshest at the market), and let the fish marinate in the lime juice until it just begins to…

If you’ve got peaches, you should make a peach tarte Tatin. You say your peaches aren’t quite ripe? You’re allergic to long ingredient lists? You always fret that you’ve added the wrong amount of thickener to fruit pie filling, and fluting a fancy pie crust edge makes you feel graceless and inept? Excellent: This is the dessert for you. But first a quick review of how the original apple version of tarte Tatin is made. You start on the stovetop, cooking a skillet full of apple chunks with butter and sugar. There’s no thickener required because apples give off just a small amount of moisture when they’re cooked, and it evaporates during this step. When the fruit is lacquered with a dark caramel, you place a disk of raw puff…

Tasting Burrata Imagine slicing open a tender ball of fresh mozzarella to find a luscious, thick cream teeming with plush bits of curd. A mozzarella offshoot, burrata is made in much the same way, but before the ball is twisted and sealed, it’s stuffed with a mixture of curd and cream. Cheesemakers in the Puglia region of Italy began making burrata in the early 20th century as a way to use up leftovers from the production of fresh mozzarella. Then, around the turn of the century, artisanal cheesemakers in the United States started crafting their own versions; large manufacturers eventually followed suit. We wondered if any domestic supermarket options could deliver the luxurious experience we associate with burrata, so we rounded up four nationally available products priced from $3.80 to…

Plunge Tomato Paste Instead of spooning tomato paste from its small can, Gary Schwartz of Lake Elmo, Minn., “plunges” it out. He uses a can opener to cut the lids on both ends, removes the lid from only one side, and uses the freed-up lid on the opposite side to push the paste into a bowl. Crumple Parchment Paper for Blind Baking Alice Hall of Chardon, Ohio, lines pastry shells with parchment paper when blind-baking but finds it difficult to position the stiff parchment snugly in the shell before adding pie weights. Crumpling the paper into a ball and then unfolding it helps it settle into the pastry. Watermelon “Sticks” Eating watermelon wedges is messy, so Trisha Novy of Philadelphia, Pa., cuts the melon into sticks that are tidier to…

Maybe it’s nostalgia—the first bite that cracks the shell, sending orange grease down your wrist. Or perhaps it’s the satisfying combination of spiced meat, creamy cheese, and cool, crisp lettuce that makes hard-shell tacos so popular. Either way, Americans have an enduring love for this lunchroom and dinnertime staple. Ease is a big part of the appeal: Relying on a packet of powdered taco seasoning and a sleeve of prefried taco shells means that dinner comes together in a flash. But when I recently prepared tacos using the contents of a supermarket kit, my middle school memories were obscured by a dust cloud of flat spices covering dry, nubbly meat. Choose Your Shell Adventure I’d followed the instructions for preparing the shells, baking them for a few minutes before serving,…

Here’s an idea for showcasing summer tomatoes that you may not have considered: Grill them. A stint over a hot fire softens the fruit’s flesh and concentrates its sweetness. Meanwhile, the smoky char of the grill adds another dimension of flavor. If that’s not enough to grab your attention, consider this: Tomatoes cook quickly, so you can grill them while your steak or other protein is resting and the coals are still hot. For my first attempt, I used the easiest approach I could think of: simply placing 2 pounds of whole tomatoes on the grill. But by the time the fruit had sufficiently charred on the exterior, it was starting to turn mushy and disintegrate within. Plus, the interior didn’t pick up any grill flavor to speak of. It…

If you’re enjoying grilled corn only with butter and salt, you’re missing out. Take just one bite of Mexican street corn, called elote, and you’ll know why it has become wildly popular in the United States. A charred ear of corn is slathered with rich, tangy crema; coated with salty cotija cheese; sprinkled with chili powder; and finished with a squeeze of lime. This smoky, creamy, bright, salty ear has just one catch: It’s messy to eat. Some vendors offer elote in salad form (esquites), with charred kernels layered or tossed with the garnishes. You get the ideal ratio of flavors and textures in every bite but with the convenience of a fork. I wanted to find a way to make this flavor-packed side dish even when I’m not firing…

Mozzarella comes in many forms, including string cheese, dense blocks for shredding, and larger balls of “fresh” high-moisture mozzarella. You can also make it at home with a few specialty ingredients in less than an hour. According to the traditional method, milk, rennet, and an acid are heated until the curds separate from the whey. The curds are strained, salted, and plunged into hot water to make them flexible. Once removed from the water, they are stretched until they become smooth and elastic. Finally, the cheese is shaped into a block or a ball and cooled, and then it’s ready to eat. What Exactly Is “Fresh” Mozzarella? For centuries, fresh mozzarella has been made in Italy using buffalo’s milk. But since buffalo mozzarella is not aged and is usually produced…

WHAT IS IT? Resembling the skeleton of an old umbrella, a bois lélé is the denuded twig from the so-called swizzlestick tree (Quararibea turbinata), which grows throughout the eastern Caribbean. Beginning in the late 19th century, British colonists in the Caribbean islands used the stick, which features short spikes radiating out from the end of a central pole, to mix a type of drink drink called a “swizzle.” We acquired a bois lélé from a local mixology shop and used it to mix a classic version of the cocktail. After filling a highball glass with crushed ice, orange and pineapple juices, dark rum, grenadine, and a dash of bitters, we inserted the bois lélé spiky side down and rapidly rubbed the upper portion between our palms to spin the stick…

One of my earliest cooking memories is of my dad positioned at the grill, squirt bottle in one hand and grill tongs in the other, working furiously to rescue chicken thighs from a three-alarm blaze. In a rush to get dinner on the table, he would position the thighs directly over the fire to cook them quickly. Within minutes, their rendering fat dripped into the flames, ignited, and grew into a blaze that forced him to shuffle the chicken around the grate while he simultaneously tried to quell the fire with water from his squirt bottle. I can’t lie: The pyrotechnics were pretty thrilling to watch as a kid. But eating the chicken was less thrilling—the chewy meat tasted of acrid smoke and was covered with rubbery, badly charred skin.…

I usually start the summer months dreaming about ambitious grilling projects such as ribs and brisket, but when the evenings turn hot and humid, I find myself seeking out lighter, fresher options that I can make more quickly. That’s how I learned about bun cha, a vibrant Vietnamese dish of rice noodles, grilled pork, and crisp vegetables, all pulled together with a light yet potent sauce. In the street-food stalls of Hanoi, where the dish originated, cooks prepare fatty cuts such as pork shoulder or belly in two ways: They slice some into thin strips and marinate it in fish sauce, sugar, black pepper, and maybe some minced shallots or onions, and they finely chop the rest (cha refers to chopped meat), mix it with similar seasonings, and shape it…

LEGEND: C CHARCOAL GRILLS G GAS GRILLS UPDATE We recently discovered that the Weber Spirit E-310 Gas Grill has been replaced with the Weber Spirit II E-310 ($499.00). We ordered and tested the updated model and are happy to report it’s our new favorite gas grill. We’ll publish the updated testing results in a future issue. Charcoal Preheat Time: About 5 minutes Gas Preheat Time: About 15 minutes C 1 Using lighter fluid Lighter fluid can impart a chemical flavor to the food. > BEST PRACTICE Light coals in a chimney starter. Method: Place wadded-up newspaper in the bottom chamber and briquettes in the top. Light the newspaper. When the top coals are covered in ash, dump the coals into the grill. C 2 Packing too much paper into the…

I recently questioned my colleagues about the hot fudge sauce they ate as kids, and their recollections were strikingly similar: It was more sweet than chocolaty and was so thick that it fell onto ice cream in globs. There are still plenty of sickly sweet, overly thick, barely chocolaty sauces out there, but our adult palates crave something less sugary, with darker chocolate and a luxurious, pourable consistency. Also, with the wisdom of age, we’ve learned that devouring an entire batch in one sitting isn’t prudent, so an ideal sauce could be refrigerated and reheated multiple times. Most fudge sauce recipes have a short ingredient list: bar chocolate and/or cocoa powder, sugar, and dairy. I planned on using a blend of cocoa powder and unsweetened chocolate so that I would…

If you cook or bake regularly, you should have a food thermometer. A good thermometer takes the guesswork out of cooking, telling you exactly what’s going on inside your food. The old dial-faced ones are slow and imprecise: Digital is the only way to go. We’ve highly recommended the ThermoWorks Thermapen Mk4 ($99.00) for years. But recently, competition has emerged, and many of the new models are less expensive. Could any top our old favorite? To find out, we gathered 11 digital thermometers priced from $11.95 to $99.95, including the Mk4 and the ThermoWorks ThermoPop ($29.00), our top-rated inexpensive model, and put them all through a series of tests to examine accuracy, speed, comfort, visibility, ease of use, and durability. Accuracy and Speed Are Paramount Our first tests were focused…

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED OXO Good Grips 9" Tongs MODEL: 28481 PRICE: $11.99 NOT RECOMMENDED CUISINART Automatic Cold Brew Coffeemaker MODEL: DCB-10 PRICE: $99.99 RECOMMENDED WINCO Flat Pastry and Basting Brush, 1½ Inch MODEL: WBR-15 PRICE: $6.93 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED VICTORINOX Swiss Army Fibrox Pro 6" Chef’s Knife MODEL: 47570. US2 PRICE: $20.99 RECOMMENDED OXO Good Grips Stainless Steel Steamer with Extendable Handle MODEL: 1067247 PRICE: $17.95 9-Inch Tongs We typically reach for 12-inch tongs to protect our hands from heat and messes in the kitchen. However, some cooks prefer the feel of a shorter pair, so we tested six pairs of tongs priced from $11.99 to $35.00, all 9 to 9.5 inches in length. We put each pair of tongs through a battery of kitchen tests—from portioning angel hair pasta to transferring…