Indholdsfortegnelse for September/October 2019 i Cook's Illustrated

When I was a kid, my parents installed one of those fancy smoke alarm systems in our house. It was the kind where if you accidentally forgot you were roasting a chicken and filled the kitchen with smoke, the fire department would magically appear at your front door. One cold September morning after the system was installed, my dad started up his car in the garage and then ran back into the house to grab his coffee. A wisp of exhaust clung to his coat and set off the alarms, and before we knew it a fire truck was tearing up the front lawn. After the alarm system was reset and the cats reemerged from their hiding spots, my uncle Frank happened to stop by for a visit on his…

Before I delve into the specifics of my recipe for chile verde con cerdo, the classic Mexican stew of pork simmered in a tangy tomatillo and green chile sauce, I have a secret to share: When it comes to braising meat, all recipes work more or less the same way. Of course, I’m not talking about specific ingredients. American pot roast, daube Provençal, and pork vindaloo are made with completely different seasonings and taste nothing alike. But if you look closely at how each dish is put together, the processes have the same basic approach: Brown the meat to build a flavorful fond, add a modest amount of liquid, cover the pot, and simmer it all gently until the meat is tender and the liquid has reduced to a concentrated,…

It’s widely accepted culinary arithmetic: Potatoes plus oil plus heat equals browned crispness. Think hash browns, French fries, and roasted potatoes. But Spanish cooks make a potato dish that defies standard mathematics; their patatas panaderas (translation: “bakers’ potatoes”) add up to meltingly tender potatoes with nary a hint of browning. (That’s a good thing—I’ll explain.) It comes together easily: Thin slices of peeled potato are scattered with onions and garlic, bathed in extra-virgin olive oil and sometimes white wine, and then piled into a pan and baked. The oil adds richness without making the dish, well, oily, and the lack of browning means that the earthiness of the potatoes comes through loud and clear. I peeled and thinly sliced 2½ pounds of Yukon Gold potatoes—their moderately waxy, buttery flesh makes…

We’ve all watched our holiday host put on a show before carving the roast, slashing a knife in the air against a honing rod. It looks impressive, but does it really sharpen the knife? To find out, I bought nine honing rods. All had the same design: a sticklike rod with a handle on one end. The rods ranged from 8 to 12 inches long and were made of steel, ceramic, or diamond-coated steel. The surfaces of the rods varied, too, ranging from smooth to ridged to a combination of textures. To test them, I bought nine copies of our favorite chef’s knife and headed to the kitchen. Our preferred honing technique is to plant the tip of the rod on a cutting board so that it’s perpendicular to the…

We sampled Mitica Fontina Val d’Aosta, a widely available version of one of Italy’s most distinct cheeses, plain and baked in breakfast strata. Tasters found it to be impressively complex: “savory” and “earthy,” with a nutty sweetness. The cheese is produced according to strict Denominazione di Origine Protetta (DOP) guidelines in Italy, where it’s aged in caves for at least 80 days. To know that you are buying an authentic DOP version of fontina, look for a reddish-brown rind with the DOP seal (above). A winning choice for a cheese plate, it also melts well, making it a good addition to baked dishes such as lasagna and strata. RECOMMENDED MITICA Fontina Val d’Aosta PRICE: $19.99 for 1 lb ($1.25 per oz) STYLE: Fontina Val d’Aosta ORIGIN: Valle d’Aosta, Italy INGREDIENTS:…

Soba noodles have been an important part of Japanese cuisine for hundreds of years. These long, slim noodles are hearty and slightly chewy, with a delicate nutty flavor. We love them both in time-honored Japanese recipes and in some nontraditional applications, such as soba noodle salads. To find our favorite dried soba noodles, we purchased six products, priced from about $3 to about $9 per package, and sampled them in two blind tastings. First, we ate them plain with a side of tsuyu, a Japanese dashi-based dipping sauce. Next, we sampled them in a salad with vegetables. One of the biggest differences we noticed was the presence of wheat flour and how it affected the noodles. Traditional dried soba noodles have just two ingredients: buckwheat flour and water. Because buckwheat…

RECOMMENDED INSTANT POT Ace Multi-Use Cooking & Beverage Blender MODEL: Ace 60 PRICE: $99.00 RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS FINEX 12" Cast Iron Skillet with Cover MODEL: S12-10001 PRICE: $275.00 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FLETCHER’S MILL Maple Muddler MODEL: MUDDLER1 PRICE: $12.95 RECOMMENDED GOURMIA GVS9945 Handheld Vacuum Sealer Set MODEL: GVS9945 PRICE: $21.99 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED CALPHALON Classic Nonstick Double Griddle Pan MODEL: 1932457 PRICE: $54.99 The Instant Pot Blender Over the years, we’ve tested many blenders that promised to make hot soup, but since they relied on friction from their spinning blades to heat the food, they all delivered lukewarm soup at best. So we were intrigued when Instant Pot, the maker of the incredibly popular multicooker, launched the Instant Pot Ace Multi-Use Cooking & Beverage Blender, a blender with a heating element built…

Braising meat in a stew such as our Green Chili with Pork (Chile Verde con Cerdo) is simple: You build up flavorful browning and then slowly simmer the meat in a covered pot until it’s tender and the modest amount of braising liquid reduces to a flavorful sauce. Our updated approach still incorporates those key elements, but we’ve rethought every step to maximize flavor and efficiency. SALT MEAT Salting for 1 hour seasons the meat and keeps it moist during cooking. BROWN TRIMMINGS, NOT MEAT Searing the trimmings creates savory flavor while allowing the unbrowned stew meat (added later) to stay juicy. ADD MINIMAL LIQUID, THEN MEAT Less liquid makes for a tighter, more concentrated sauce, which takes on the meat’s savory depth during braising. BRAISE IN OVEN, NOT ON…

As a professional cook, I have loads of vegetable preparation methods filed in my brain, which makes it easy to shop for and throw together weeknight meals. Are carrots looking good at the market? Roast them with a touch of butter and flavor according to whatever else is on the menu. Spinach? Sauté with aromatics. Asparagus? Pan-steam until crisp-tender. And so it goes: I have equally straightforward one-pan techniques for almost every vegetable out there. Except eggplant. Faced with a pile of these dark, glossy specimens, I’m stumped. Sure, I can make a great eggplant Parmesan or fire up the grill for authentic baba ghanoush, but that’s project cooking. If I just want a simple side, I’m out of ideas. The result is that I often bypass eggplant, and that’s…

A rustic apple crumble has always been my favorite way to highlight apples: It lets their bright, tart character shine. But even recipes that promise to put the apples first inevitably have you bury the fruit in sugar and then double down on that sweetness by blanketing it with a thick layer of streusel. By the time you add a scoop of ice cream, the whole ensemble tastes sweet from top to bottom and totally misses the point—it’s like heating really good olive oil so that it loses its grassy bite or cooking a thick, well-marbled steak until the center goes gray. Don’t get me wrong: I love everything about apple crumble—the pragmatism of using up the fruit, the throw-together ease, and the satisfying contrast of tangy, tender fruit against…

KEY GOOD FAIR POOR HIGHLY RECOMMENDED BOB KRAMER Double-Cut Sharpening Steel MODEL: 893388 PRICE: $47.96 STYLE: Steel TEXTURES: Ridged and smooth LENGTH OF HONE: 12 in EASE OF USE: PERFORMANCE: BLADE CONDITION: TESTERS’ COMMENTS This tool had one of the longest and thickest rods in our lineup; testers found it easy to use. The rod’s two alternating textures, lightly ridged and smooth, let you choose to start honing gently with the smooth side or be a bit more aggressive by using the ridges first. Under a microscope, we noticed that this rod had more and finer-textured ridges than others in this style. “Wow,” one tester said, praising the way the freshly honed blade glided through paper and tomatoes once honed. Using it “felt really natural” to most testers, and the…

After cutting up watermelon, don’t throw away that rind—pickle it instead. Pickled watermelon rind is a classic Southern treat that’s traditionally made with a sweet brine; our version calls for less sugar and more vinegar and includes cinnamon and cloves. First, we soaked the rind in a saltwater solution for 3 hours to season it. Next, we simmered it in fresh water to soften it. Finally, we simmered the rind in a flavorful pickling brine until it just began to turn translucent before transferring it to jars and letting it cool for storage. –Nicole Konstantinakos PICKLED WATERMELON RIND MAKES TWO 1-PINT JARS TOTAL TIME: 45 MINUTES, PLUS 24 HOURS COOLING We developed this recipe using Diamond Crystal kosher salt; if you use Morton kosher salt, reduce the amount to 3…

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I’ve never met a bite of fried chicken that I didn’t like, but my favorite is the first bite of a fried chicken thigh. The crunch is big because thighs are thin and tapered, so there’s a high ratio of crispy crust to chicken. And when you bite through that crust, you’re met with juicy, rich dark meat. Happily for me, a Japanese style of fried chicken called karaage not only traditionally uses chicken thighs but also happens to be very easy to prepare. To make it, you debone bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs; cut the meat into small chunks; marinate them in a soy-and-sake-based mixture that’s seasoned with garlic, ginger, and sometimes salt or sugar; dredge them in potato starch; and fry them until they’re brown and crispy. Because the…

Shaking beef, or bò lúc lac, is a Vietnamese dish of stir-fried cubes of marinated beef and sliced onions served over a bed of watercress and accompanied by a dipping sauce of lime juice and pepper. The dish gets its name from the vigorous shaking and stirring required to achieve an even and thorough sear. The beef—well browned but still pink on the inside—is coated in a deeply savory glaze that also flavors and lightly wilts the watercress below it. It’s a study in contrasts: the warmth of the beef against the cool crunch of the watercress, its savory meatiness against the peppery bite of the cress and the tartness of the dipping sauce, not to mention the garlicky, tomato-rich “red rice” that is a common accompaniment. The cut of…

If you’re not familiar with pinchos morunos, let me fill you in: The dish consists of chunks of pork that are heavily seasoned with a bright, heady spice paste (lemon, garlic, smoked paprika, cumin, and coriander are common components); skewered; charred over hot coals; and served as part of a tapas spread. Pincho (“spike” or “thorn”) points to cooking the meat kebab-style; morunos implies a Moorish influence. I’ve become such a fan of the dish that I’ve taken to serving pinchos not just as a tapa but as the center of a meal. Getting to a great recipe required overcoming the inherent challenge of pork kebabs: The cuts that are typically used—tenderloin and loin—are lean, which means they are unforgiving on a hot grill and can easily turn dry and…

American shrimp cocktail will always be a classic, but I’m here to tell you that the Mexican take on the dish has a whole lot more personality. Cóctel de camarón offers an incredible mix of flavors and textures: plump, tender poached shrimp; crisp bites of raw onion and cucumber; and cool, creamy avocado are all coated in a tangy, spicy-sweet tomato sauce. Eaten ice-cold with a spoon and saltines, it’s like a festive, shrimp-packed Bloody Mary or gazpacho. I’ve made—and eaten—a lot of cóctel de camarón and know that success lies in nailing two key aspects: the cooking of the shrimp and the sweetness and consistency of the sauce, which always contains ketchup. There are several ways to poach delicate proteins such as shrimp: Start cold and bring everything to…

In the cheese world, fontina is a challenge to clearly define. Depending on where and how it is made, it can vary in intensity, from mildly milky to earthy or mushroomy, often with a pleasant sweetness that enhances other ingredients. Fontina has a reputation for melting well, so it’s the perfect addition to lasagna, pizza, stuffed chicken breasts, omelets, and more. The “true” fontina—Fontina Val d’Aosta—has been made in the northwest corner of Italy since at least the 13th century. This cheese has Denominazione di Origine Protetta (DOP) status, meaning that it must be made according to exact specifications. If you can find it at your local supermarket, it probably costs upwards of $20 per pound. You’re more likely to spot more affordable cheeses labeled fontina, fontal, or fontinella. Some…

Boost Savory Flavor with Maggi Seasoning Traditional versions of Vietnamese dishes such as shaking beef and red rice (see page 9) call for Maggi Seasoning, a flavor enhancer with a huge global following that’s only recently begun to gain traction in the United States. Made from hydrolyzed wheat and/or other protein sources and chock-full of glutamic acid, it packs an umami punch on a par with that of soy sauce, though its flavors are quite different. The seasoning, which can take liquid, powder, or paste form, was invented in 1886 by Swiss concentrated-soup magnate Julius Maggi. European chefs, including Auguste Escoffier, quickly adopted it, and eventually its use spread worldwide. Today nine different formulations cater to the tastes of cooks in countries as far-flung as Poland, Pakistan, Mexico, China, and…

Snacking in the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East is a ritual as social as it is sustaining. Small, shareable dishes—meze, mezze, or mazzeh, depending on the region—are savored with drinks and company. Most spreads contain cheese: dry, salty STRING CHEESE threads; crumbly bricks of sheep’s milk FETA CHEESE; or gooier varieties baked into the savory pie called BOREK. Cured meats might include ruby swaths of spiced beef BASTURMA, which delivers chew just shy of jerky, and SUJUK, a deeply spiced sausage made from lamb and/or beef that renders deep red fat. Fruity, dense OLIVES and PICKLED TURNIPS balance richness; the latter get their magenta blush from a slice of red beet in the brine. Bulgur-based dumplings called KIBBEH (or kofte) can be made with vegetables or meat and baked, steamed,…