Indholdsfortegnelse for July/August 2019 i Cook's Illustrated

One cool summer evening in 2005, I found myself sitting by a small campfire and holding a thin metal rod with a forked end. Skewered onto the prongs was a hunk of slab bacon scored at intervals down to the rind and heavily coated with paprika. My charge was simple: Hold the bacon over the fire until its fat started to render, dab the fat onto a thick slice of country bread, and repeat. Eventually, the bacon turned crispy and the bread became saturated. I then topped my bread with slices of raw onion, radish, and the crispy bacon. To my mind, it was—and stil is—the world’s finest open-faced sandwich. Making it took a while, and that was just the point. As I pressed the sizzling bacon into the bread,…

DIRECT HEAT How it works: When the food is placed directly over the heat, the searing-hot cooking grate creates char marks that impart a range of smoky, earthy, and even sweet flavors. In addition, meat juices and rendered fat can drip onto the coals, where they break down and vaporize (and sometimes create small flare-ups), and then condense on the food, adding more grill flavor. INDIRECT HEAT How it works: Placing food over a cooler zone—not directly over the heat—cooks it gently so that the outside doesn’t burn before the inside finishes cooking. Note that cooking only over indirect heat and without smoke will yield little grill flavor. SMOKE How it works: Wood—either large chunks or chips wrapped in foil—that’s placed in the fire will not ignite due to limited…

My love for junk food is no secret in the test kitchen. In fact, I am the keeper of the Cook’s Illustrated team snack corner, which typically includes everything from chocolate bars and pretzels to popcorn and chips. So I was excited when I was tasked with developing a recipe for kettle chips, the thick and crunchy style of potato chips that I happen to love. The prep work is a cinch—you don’t even have to peel the potatoes—and the frying method is actually tailor-made for home cooks (keep reading and I’ll explain why). Plus, if you’ve ever had freshly fried, still-warm chips, you know that they’re a real treat (especially homemade versions of classic flavors such as barbecue, sour cream and onion, and salt and vinegar). There’s also a…

Hearty, flavorful soba noodles are a staple of Japanese cooking. Made from buckwheat, the seed of a flowering plant closely related to rhubarb and sorrel, these noodles boast an earthy taste and a slightly chewy texture. Soba noodles can be slurped up along with hot broth, but they also are often enjoyed in a spare bamboo-tray presentation featuring twists of chilled noodles; a dipping sauce made with soy sauce, mirin, and rice vinegar; a dab of wasabi on the side; and shredded toasted nori (dried seaweed). The simple dish, called zaru soba, is a beautiful way to showcase the noodles’ earthy, nuttysweet flavor and resilient chew. There are also nontraditional recipes that take the concept and turn it into a more casual one-bowl noodle salad fleshed out with crisp vegetables…

The dressing for our soba noodles gets its depth from mirin, a Japanese rice wine that can take different forms. The traditional form is hon-mirin (“real mirin”), a delicately savory-sweet wine that’s made exclusively from fermented rice and is available online and in some liquor stores. Supermarkets sell a product labeled “sweet cooking wine,” “sweetened sake,” or “aji-mirin” (“tastes like mirin”) that’s made with sweeteners, alcohol, rice, and salt. We have determined that in applications where mirin is a main ingredient, it’s worth seeking out the traditional, high-quality mirin. However, in recipes such as this one that call for just a few tablespoons, it’s fine to use the supermarket stuff, which is much cheaper: In a taste test, we couldn’t tell which batch of noodles contained which type of mirin.…

WHAT IS IT? While this tool looks like a twist corkscrew, it is actually an implement used to do the opposite: place a cork into a bottle. Prior to the advent of the screw-top bottle in the 1920s, if a home cook wanted to bottle a homemade wine, vinegar, cider, or other liquid, they would turn to a corker to seal the top. Armed with empty bottles and a handful of corks, I headed into the kitchen to see how this model, a brass version made in France in the early 1900s, might work. A century ago I would have needed to boil my corks to soften and sterilize them, but luckily, modern corks come sterilized and have more give, so I could skip this step. I opened the arms…

Skinning Chickpeas To quickly remove chickpea skins when making hummus, Kristine Lukasik of New Hampton, N.Y., gently rubs skin-on chickpeas between her hands in a bowl of water. The beans sink to the bottom while the skins float to the top, so she can easily rake the skins away with her fingers. Water Balloon Ice Packs Deborah Palmer of Carmichael, Calif., makes homemade ice packs by freezing water balloons; the size of the ice packs can be adjusted by filling the balloons with more or less water. Hanging Herbs to Dry Louise Gudac of Talladega, Ala., dries herbs by suspending them from clothes hanger clips, each of which can hold two or three sprigs. Reminder to Salt Bread Dough Some bread recipes call for letting the dough rest briefly before…

In Sonora, Mexico, a state dominated by cattle ranches, tacos al carbón are a specialty. They’re not complicated—al carbón just means that the protein, usually steak, is cooked over charcoal. The meat is seasoned with a marinade or spices, grilled, tucked into soft corn tortillas, and topped with straightforward garnishes such as charred scallions and lime juice. I would adore these tacos even if they weren’t so simple to make, but thefact that they come together easily is an undeniable perk. Many cuts of steak are used for tacos al carbon, but skirt and flank are high on the list. I chose flank here. Like skirt steak, flank is thin and beefy, cooks quickly, and has lots of surface area for picking up flavor. And flank is less expensive and…

Considering its eminence in Mexican cuisine, salsa roja has a curiously modest name. It translates prosaically as “red sauce,” but that moniker fails to convey the zippy tomato-and-chile-based sauce’s ability to elevate so many foods: nachos, tacos, or quesadillas; fried eggs, potatoes, grilled chicken, or steak. I’m such a fan that I always need a batch in my refrigerator so that I have some at the ready whenever the mood strikes. Salsa roja is made with tomatoes, a fresh chile (or several), onion, cilantro, and possibly garlic and dried chiles. Some or all of the ingredients are cooked, at least briefly, and the sauce is blended. It sounds straightforward, but there’s a fascinating amount of variation among recipes. Some cooks char and blister the ingredients, while others cover them with…

Accounts of how soba originated vary, but some sources say that buckwheat came to Japan as early as 10,000 BC in the form of a porridge that sustained Buddhist monks during journeys from China. In the late 16th century, the Japanese began to make soft buckwheat-flour dumplings called sobagaki. Then, during the Edo period (1603–1868), the dumplings evolved: In a process that required much more skill, a mixture of buckwheat flour and water was kneaded, stretched thin, and cut into the slender strands that we know today as soba noodles.…

Baking a blueberry, peach, or cherry pie is a terrific way to celebrate the abundant fruits of summer. But I’ve spent the past several months baking pies for a forthcoming test kitchen pie book, and I urge you to consider another, less common fruit filling for your next summer pie: plums. The sweetness of ripe plums is offset by their acidity level, which is higher than those of most other fruits; when baked, plums offer a unique sweet-tart fruitiness that will have you hooked from the first bite. Plum Delicious For my pie, I used red or blue-black round plums (2½ pounds for a 9-inch pie); they are the most common and have an appealing, sweet yet bright flavor. If you’ve ever made a peach pie, you probably remember the…

Mini Stand Mixers Our favorite full-size stand mixers, the KitchenAid Pro Line Series 7 Quart Bowl-Lift Stand Mixer and the KitchenAid Classic Plus Series 4.5 Quart Tilt-Head Stand Mixer, are powerful, but at 26 and 21 pounds, respectively, they can be cumbersome to lift and maneuver. Mini stand mixers bill themselves as lighter and smaller but still capable of tackling most recipes. To test these claims, we looked at three mini stand mixers with bowl capacities of 3.5 quarts or less, priced from about $40 to about $250. We used each model to mix cookie dough and cake batter, make frosting, knead bread dough, whip heavy cream, and whip egg whites for meringue. The way a model mixed was key. Our favorite mixer, the KitchenAid Artisan Mini 3.5_Quart Tilt-Head Stand…

Like so many of our readers, I love a simple roast chicken that tastes of nothing but concentrated chicken-y goodness. Our most popular chicken recipe, Weeknight Roast Chicken (September/October 2011), accomplishesexactly that—and with a method that couldn’t be easier. There’s no brining, no salting, no knife work, and no dirtying of dishes required. I wanted to create an equally simple method for the grill, and as with the Weeknight Roast Chicken recipe, pretreatments and extensive prep work were off the table. So were rubs, marinades, and sauces. But I did want the bird to taste of the grill—not so much as to overpower the clean chicken flavor, but enough that you could tell that it had been cooked over coals. Be Direct There are two main ways to achieve grill…

If you’re not steaming fish, you should be. It’s a delicate method for cooking a delicate protein that leads to supremely moist, tender results. It’s fast enough to do on a weeknight but delivers company-worthy elegance. And when it’s done well, there’s a real flavor benefit—if you know how to season and dress the fish. Both Chinese and French cuisines have classic approaches to steaming. Cantonese cooks steam fish whole (typically sprinkled with aromatics such as garlic, ginger, and scallions) in a bamboo steamer set in a wok filled with a few inches of boiling water. Once cooked, the fish is transferred to a platter, doused with soy sauce and maybe a splash of rice wine, and garnished with fresh scallions. The final flourish is a drizzle of hot oil…

WATERMELON-LIME AGUA FRESCA SERVES 8 TO 10 (MAKES 7 CUPS) TOTAL TIME: 15 MINUTES Watermelons vary in sweetness. Adjust the amounts of lime juice and sweetener to your taste. 8 cups seedless watermelon, cut into 1-inch pieces2 cups water¼ cup lime juice (2 limes), plus extra for seasoning2 tablespoons agave nectar or honey, plus extra for seasoning⅛teaspoon salt Fresh mint leaves (optional) Working in 2 batches, process watermelon and water in blender until smooth, about 30 seconds. Strain mixture through fine-mesh strainer into 2-quart pitcher; discard solids. Stir in lime juice, agave, and salt. Season with extra lime juice and extra agave to taste. Serve over ice, garnished with mint, if using. (Agua fresca can be refrigerated for up to 5 days; stir to recombine before serving.)…

Ten years ago, this magazine published a recipe for chocolate chip cookies that we consider perfect: crisp, deeply caramelized edges; chewy centers; gooey pockets of dark chocolate; and complex, toffee-like flavor that’s not too sweet. Trust me when I say that a glass of milk will never know a better companion. So when I decided to make chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwiches, I figured I had the cookie part all figured out. I baked off a batch, sandwiched two around a scoop of my favorite premium ice cream, and froze the sandwich until solid. Then I tried to take a bite. The cookies were so hard my teeth couldn’t get through them, and all that force caused the ice cream to squish out the sides. When I finally did…

Cold temperatures are known for dulling flavor. They diminish the responsiveness of our tastebuds’ receptor proteins, hindering our ability to taste, and they slow the movement of aromatic compounds, preventing our noses from detecting them. To compensate for the flavor-zapping effect of freezing our ice cream sandwiches, we use brown sugar instead of white and up the amounts of browned butter, brown sugar, vanilla, and salt. This not only boosts the complex flavors we taste on our tongues but also increases the number of aromatic compounds we smell, resulting in better-tasting cookies.…

I love the gorgeous bright color of briefly blanched green beans in salad, but I’ve never loved their starchy, still-raw taste or their so-called crisp-tender texture, which is usually not tender at all. But cooking vegetables until they’re soft enough to be speared with a fork generally means you’ve got to boil the living color out of them—not to mention all their fresh, grassy flavor. Years ago, I stumbled across a tip in Harold McGee’s indispensable tome On Food and Cooking (1984) that described how heavily salted water speeds the cooking of vegetables. According to McGee, the key is to cook vegetables in extremely salty water—so salty that it has the same 3 percent concentration as seawater. I’d never acted on it since it translates into 2 tablespoons of salt…

1. Buy soba that lists wheat flour along with buckwheat flour on the ingredient list. This type has a milder flavor than the pure buckwheat style, and because of the gluten contributed by the wheat, it boasts a more resilient texture and a nutty-sweet taste. 2. Don’t salt the water since the soba is served with a highly seasoned dressing and the noodles themselves may have been salted during manufacturing. 3. Follow package directions for timing since brands vary widely. Check the noodles for doneness early and often. 4. Rinse the noodles with lots of cold water after draining them to stop cooking and remove excess surface starch that could cause clumping.…

CATEGORY WINNER GREEK FAGE Total Classic Greek Yogurt PRICE: $6.99 for 35.3 oz ($0.20 per oz) INGREDIENTS: Grade A pasteurized milk and cream, live active yogurt cultures (L. bulgaricus, S. thermophilus, L. acidophilus, Bifidus, L. casei) COMMENTS: Our favorite whole-milk Greek yogurt combines all the qualities we love about the style: It’s “plush,” “pillowy,” and “buttery” in texture, and its “delicate” flavor is “acidic but not overly so.” Unlike some Greek yogurts on the market, it’s strained and has no added thickeners or stabilizers. It was the “perfect backdrop” to the other ingredients in tzatziki and a good “neutral” base for granola. ICELANDIC (SKYR) GREEN MOUNTAIN CREAMERY Skyr Icelandic Style Yogurt PRICE: $4.99 for 24 oz ($0.21 per oz) INGREDIENTS: Pasteurized whole milk. Contains the following live cultures: S. thermophilus,…

CLASSIC RASPBERRY JAM MAKES FOUR 1-CUP JARS TOTAL TIME: 30 MINUTES, PLUS 13 HOURS COOLING Shred the apple on the large holes of a box grater. 2 pounds (6½ cups) raspberries3 cups sugar1 Granny Smith apple, peeled and shredded (1 cup)1 tablespoon lemon juice 1. Place 2 small plates in freezer to chill. Wash and dry four 1-cup jars. 2. Bring all ingredients to boil in Dutch oven over medium-high heat, stirring often. Once sugar is completely dissolved, boil mixture, stirring and adjusting heat as needed, until thickened and mixture registers 217 to 220 degrees, 10 to 15 minutes. Remove pot from heat. 3. To test consistency, place 1 teaspoon jam on chilled plate and freeze for 2 minutes. Drag your finger through jam on plate; jam has correct consistency…

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Resourceful cooks in hot climates have been cooling sweets with ice and snow for millennia. Floral, fruity syrups served over ice—early editions of the Persian sharbat—made their way to Sicily and spawned Italian SORBET. Adding milk to the mix created silky GELATO; its mousse-like cousin, SEMIFREDDO, is custard that’s lightened with whipped cream or egg whites, frozen, and elegantly plated. Butterfat-rich ice cream appears in novelties such as a layered ICE CREAM CAKE or a cookie-enclosed ICE CREAM SANDWICH. Soda fountains scoop vanilla ice cream into root beer to create a ROOT BEER FLOAT. Some accounts say that when carbonated beverages were banned on Sundays, a soda fountain patron could enjoy a dish of ice cream drizzled with chocolate syrup, cheekily called an ICE CREAM SUNDAE. A paper cup packed…