Innehållsförteckning för March - April 2016 från Cook's Illustrated

Why buy bone-in chicken breasts? First, the crisped skin adds flavor and nice textural contrast. Second, bone-in breasts are far less expensive than boneless. Lastly, unlike boneless, skinless breasts, which have no barrier against drying, bone-in breasts have built-in protection (skin and bone), making them more foolproof to cook. PRONE TO DRYING OUT Boneless, skinless breasts are entirely exposed to the heat. EASIER TO KEEP MOIST The skin and bone provide protection.…

Just like egg whites, baking soda raises the pH on the surface of the meat, making it more difficult for the proteins to bond and therefore keeping the meat tender and moist. To demonstrate the effect of treating meat with baking soda, we soaked one batch of flank steak in a baking soda mixture and left a second batch untreated. We cooked both samples sous vide to 160 degrees and then used a texture analyzer to see how much force was required to “bite” into slices. The results: Meat treated with baking soda was about 20 percent more tender than untreated meat.…

CORNED BEEF HASH SERVES 4 We like to serve this hash with poached or fried eggs, but any style of egg will work. 3 tablespoons unsalted butter 1 small onion, chopped fine Salt and pepper 2 pounds russet potatoes, peeled and cut into ½-inch pieces 2 garlic cloves, minced ¾ cup water 12 ounces cooked corned beef, shredded into bite-size pieces 1 tablespoon hot sauce, plus extra for serving 1. Melt butter in 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add onion, ¾ teaspoon salt, and ½ teaspoon pepper and cook, stirring frequently, until onion is translucent, about 3 minutes. Increase heat to medium-high; add potatoes, garlic, and water. Cover and cook for 6 minutes. Remove lid and continue to cook, stirring frequently, until potatoes are cooked through and no water…

For safety reasons, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommends cooling liquids to 70 degrees within 2 hours after cooking and 41 degrees within 4 hours after that. We found that the best way to cool down the hot liquid—without raising the temperature of the refrigerator and risking the spoilage of other food—is to first let the liquid cool to 85 degrees on the counter, which takes about an hour. At that point, it’s safe to transfer to the fridge, and the total time it takes to cool to 41 degrees is 4 hours and 30 minutes—well within the FDA’s recommended range.…

Our Make-Ahead Vinaigrette relies on mustard and mayonnaise (emulsi_ ers) to help the oil and vinegar combine into a uni_ ed sauce. Mustard contains a polysaccharide, and the egg yolks in mayonnaise contain lecithin; both of these agents attract oil and are compatible with water, so they hold the two disparate components together. Molasses (a stabilizer) contains large compounds called melanoidins that increase the viscosity of the emulsion and make it di_ cult for the oil droplets to coalesce and separate lets from the water.…

It may sound like a small mammal, but posset is actually an old-time English dessert that most Americans have never encountered. Until fairly recently, even most English cooks would likely have associated the name with a tart, creamy drink dating back to the Middle Ages. But today’s posset, which has been taken up by English celebrity chefs and cookbook writers and is starting to appear on American restaurant menus, is something altogether different: a chilled dessert with the marvelously plush texture of a mousse or pudding that comes together almost by magic from nothing more than sugar, cream, and citrus juice. There are no temperamental egg yolks or add-ins like gelatin, flour, or cornstarch needed to help the mixture thicken and set—or to interfere with the clean, bright taste of…

Greek yogurt has taken the American supermarket by storm, growing from just 1 percent of the yogurt market in 2007 to nearly 50 percent today. High in protein and indulgently thick and creamy, it’s a satisfying snack and also acts as a key ingredient in savory dips and sauces or as a substitute for sour cream or cream cheese in baking. We last tasted Greek yogurt in 2010 and thought it was time for a fresh look. At the time of our last tasting, most Greek yogurts were available only in nonfat versions. Today, the whole-milk variety is on the verge of taking over. Because we generally prefer to work with wholemilk dairy in the test kitchen, we decided to focus on it for this tasting (we also held a…

Great pesto is all about the quality of its few ingredients: basil, extra-virgin olive oil, cheese (traditionally Parmesan), garlic, and pine nuts. This simplicity gave us high hopes for prepared pesto purchased from the supermarket. We found seven options (six shelf-stable, one refrigerated), priced from $2.99 to $11.49 per container, and tasted them plain and tossed with pasta. To our chagrin, most of the pestos were bad—which wasn’t surprising when we found ingredients like potato flakes, spinach, cashews, and white balsamic vinegar listed on their labels. Several products suffered from musty, bitter, and sour off-flavors. Why? Nuts and oil go rancid quickly when exposed to light or air, and basil’s flavor starts to fade once it is chopped. Any of these ingredients can also go bad before packaging. As a…

To keep the recipe for our Roasted Bone-In Chicken Breasts (page 5) simple, we decided to forgo brining and salting. But since we wanted well-seasoned chicken, we knew we had to put salt under the skin, not just on top. In the past we’ve advised working your fingers between the skin and flesh to loosen the skin and then going back underneath to apply the salt. But doing so can be messy and awkward, and getting the salt evenly distributed over the meat can be a challenge. Here’s our new approach. Using your fingers, carefully separate chicken skin from meat. Peel skin back, leaving it attached at top and bottom of breast and at ribs. Repeat with remaining breasts. Sprinkle measured amount of salt evenly over all chicken, then lay…

Cleaner Cheese Crumbling Rebekah Mahoney of Grafton, Mass., recently discovered a less messy way to crumble soft cheeses such as blue or goat before adding them to salads: She places the refrigerator-cold cheese in a zipperlock bag and crumbles it directly in the bag before turning it out onto her dish. Saving Pasta Scraps Mimicking the bags of mixed pasta scraps commonly sold in Italy, Pauline Fanuele of Nesconset, N.Y., saves strands and pieces of short store-bought pastas to use in soups and stews. Taco Shell Prop Roger Cummings of Olympia, Wash., garnishes four hard-shell tacos at a time by steadying them in an empty, plastic wrap–lined egg carton. Plus, any garnishes that drop onto the plastic are easily discarded afterward. Getting a Grip on Radish Prep Laura Candler of…

With the push of a button, robotic vacuums do the cleaning for you; many can even be programmed to work when you’re out of the house. When active, they scoot around the floor vacuuming, and most automatically return to their charging base when they’re done cleaning (or when their power runs low). Some robot vacuums cost nearly a thousand dollars, and we wondered if we could find one we liked for a whole lot less. We rounded up seven robots, priced from $119.99 to $499.99, and set them to work, first picking up a messy combination of flour, salt, wet coffee grounds, chopped vegetables, and garlic peels from a hard floor and then cleaning up sprinkles spilled in a carpeted office. We quantified cleaning ability by weighing all the debris…

If ever there was a bread made for crust-lovers, it has to be fougasse. Revered by professional bakers, this loaf is still relatively unknown to everyday cooks, at least outside its home territory of Provence. It is related by name and pedigree to focaccia, which comes from just over the border in Italy. But unlike its Italian cousin, fougasse gets an elegant twist: After being stretched and flattened, the dough is given a series of cuts, usually in fanciful geometric patterns, to create multiple openings in the finished flatbread. As pretty as the sculpted breads are, the openings are not just aesthetic: They dramatically increase the crust-to-crumb ratio so that nearly every bite includes an equal share of crisp crust and tender, airy interior. The cuts also help the bread…

The test kitchen has a sure-fire method for producing perfect hard-cooked eggs: Put the eggs in a saucepan, cover them with an inch of cold water, bring the water to a boil, cover the pot, let the eggs sit off the heat in the cooling water for 10 minutes, and then transfer them to an ice bath for 5 minutes before peeling. You’ll get tender whites and uniformly opaque (but not chalky) yolks every time. But eggs cooked this way can be difficult to peel—a problem that has more to do with the membrane that lines the shell than with the shell itself. When that membrane cements itself to the egg, it must be painstakingly peeled away and often takes pieces of the white with it, leaving an unappealingly pitted…

You can make a decent corned beef dinner by buying a corned beef brisket, simmering it in a big pot of water for a few hours, and adding carrots, potatoes, and cabbage at the end of cooking so they soak up some of the seasoned liquid. But you can make a superb corned beef if you skip the commercially made stuff and “corn” the meat yourself. (The Old English term refers to the “corns,” or kernels of salt, used to cure the meat for preservation.) When this curing process is done properly, the meat isn’t just generically salty (or overly salty, as commercial versions often are). It’s seasoned but balanced, with complex flavor thanks to the presence of aromatics and spices. And although the process takes several days, it’s almost…

Portioning broth before freezing it makes it easy to defrost only as much as you need (from a few tablespoons for a sauce to a few cups for soup). Broth portions can be frozen for up to three months. Ice cube trays or nonstick muffin tins Pour the broth into the tray or muffin cups. Once the portions are frozen, transfer them to a zipper-lock bag and freeze until needed. Zipper-lock bags Pour the cooled broth into a zipper-lock bag placed in a 4-cup measuring cup (the cup holds the bag open so you can use both hands to pour). Seal the bag (double up for extra protection) and lay it flat to freeze.…

I like to maintain a revolving door–style kitchen pantry, rotating items in and out depending on my mood. It’s how I pull off memorable dinners even when the fridge is nearly empty. While many ingredients come and go, there are three constants I make sure never to be without: spaghetti, garlic, and extra-virgin olive oil. Italians turn this trio into a quick pasta called aglio e olio, an ultrasimple recipe that coaxes loads of flavor from the garlic. But there are also many variations in which the garlic is augmented by a few additional ingredients. To make my weeknight sauces even better, I set out to perfect the garlic, pasta, and olive oil components as a base to which I could add other ingredients I had on hand. As a…

Mention the word “saucier” in the test kitchen, and you’re in for an earful. The loyalists among us rave that these vessels, which are essentially rounded saucepans with wider mouths, flared walls, and rolled lips, can do everything a conventional saucepan can do—and that their distinct design features make some cooking tasks even easier. These include preparations like oatmeal, risotto, and polenta, where the food is prone to getting lodged in corners and burning, as well as custards and sauces that require frequent stirring. And as their name and wide-mouth design imply, they’re built for reducing sauces. (“Saucier” is also the name given to French cooks who prepare sauces, stocks, and soups.) And though models vary in shape and size, sauciers offer depth and capacity, as well as easy access…

Our winning yogurt, Fage, has a creamy texture, but it is also so thick that we could stand a spoon in it. Fage produces that texture the traditional way: by straining off the liquid whey. Other manufacturers took shortcuts to achieve the thick texture associated with Greek yogurt, adding a thickener instead of straining. In these cases, the ingredient list will also include whey protein concentrate, milk protein concentrate, or pectin. These additives may make the yogurt look thick, but chalky texture will give them away.…

Deep green and glossy, fresh curry leaves have a faint lemony aroma and a complex flavor—our tasters noted hints of cumin, menthol, popcorn, and grass. While sometimes used in curries, curry leaves are unrelated to and only rarely found in curry powder—and they are definitely not a curry powder substitute. Since heating in fat helps draw out their mostly oil-soluble flavor compounds, curry leaves are typically fried lightly in oil or butter before other ingredients are added. We tasted them in a red lentil dish (masoor dal) and in a potato samosa filling and found that their unique flavor was a welcome contribution. However, we needed to use eight to 10 leaves rather than the three or four some recipes recommend. The leaves are typically left whole for cooking and…

The typical way to clean a leek–trim the leaf ends and the roots, cut the leek in half lengthwise, and wash grit and sediment from the halves under cold running water–doesn’t always do the job. The greatest concentration of dirt is usually found at the leek’s base, where the layers are tightly packed. Unless the leeks are going to be served halved (as in braised leeks), we prefer this method. We recommend using three times as much water as there are leeks for the rinsing step. 1. Lay trimmed, halved leeks cut side down on cutting board and cut to desired size. 2. Transfer leeks to bowl of cold water and rub together until layers separate. Set aside for 1 minute to allow grit to settle to bottom of bowl.…

Even though all salad dressing and vinaigrette recipes, including our Make-Ahead Vinaigrette on page 19, contain a measured amount of salt, most professional cooks like to season the salad itself as well. It’s a good idea for two reasons: First, it allows you to adjust the seasoning as needed; we generally dress salad greens and then toss in add-ins (radishes, carrots, etc.), so you can season based on how little or much you add. Second, it creates appealing distinct bites of salt throughout. For that reason, we prefer kosher and flaked salts, such as Maldon. Add-ins like fruits and nuts particularly benefit from the contrast of salty bites. So the next time you are serving a salad, add salt just after dressing it to get the seasoning just right.…

RECOMMENDED LODGE 12-inch Tempered Glass Cover MODEL: GC12 PRICE: $25.81 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED BONAVITA 8-Cup Coffee Maker with Thermal Carafe MODEL: BV1900TS PRICE: $189.99 RECOMMENDED OXO Good Grips Salad Dressing Shaker MODEL: 1188500 PRICE: $14.99 NOT RECOMMENDED NORPRO Spice Grinder MODEL: 775 PRICE: $8.48 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED THERMOWORKS Thermapen Mk4 MODEL: 234-XX7 PRICE: $99.00 TESTING Lids for Cast-Iron Skillets Our favorite traditional cast iron manufacturer, Lodge, now makes dedicated lids that fit its 12-inch traditional skillet, the winner of our most recent cast-iron skillet testing. One lid is made of tempered glass and costs about $26; the other is made of cast iron and costs about $33. We put both through their paces by covering frying eggs, caramelizing onions, and bubbling tomato sauce, washing each by hand (and oiling the cast-iron lid…

C hoosing boneless, skinless chicken breasts over less expensive bone-in breasts is like paying extra for a car that has had its air bags removed. You’re spending more for less protection. Boneless, skinless breasts are entirely exposed to the heat during cooking, and the bare meat turns leathery as it dries out. But bonein chicken breasts, with skin on one side and bone on the other, have protection built right in. What’s more, the crispy, nicely browned skin of roasted chicken adds flavor and textural contrast. Bone-in breasts have only one problem that I can see: People view the bone and skin as a complication rather than an asset. In fact, in my research I couldn’t find a single recipe for how to actually cook them well. I resolved to…

Years ago, the test kitchen nailed down our approach to stir-frying beef: Choose flank steak for its big, beefy flavor and relatively reasonable price; soak the meat briefly in a soy sauce–based marinade; and cook it in batches in a large nonstick skillet. Follow those guidelines, and you’re well on your way to a satisfying dish. And yet there is one quality that method doesn’t deliver: a texture typical of Chinese restaurant stir-fries, in which the meat is almost meltingly tender, with a luxurious, silky softness. I am a big fan of this texture and wanted to find a way to add it to our beef stir-fries. Seeking Softness The supple meat served at Chinese restaurants is achieved via a traditional technique called velveting. It involves marinating the meat in…

To Americans, rice is an everyday side dish made with minimal fuss. But in Iran, a rice pilaf known as chelow (pronounced CHEH-lo) is one of the most important dishes in the cuisine—and actually defines a cook’s reputation in the kitchen. What makes the dish so good is contrast: a marriage of unusually light and fluffy grains with a golden-brown, crispy crust that’s so buttery that you can’t help but go back for more. It’s a showpiece pilaf. The trade-off has always been the effort involved, as most shortcut recipes yield gummy, overcooked rice and pale, flavorless crusts. The best versions I’ve made call for rinsing the rice before soaking it for 24 hours, parboiling it, packing some of the rice down in hot oil to make a crust, and…

Most cooks assume that when an egg is difficult to peel, it’s because the shell is sticking to the egg white. But it’s the membrane between the shell and the white that’s really the problem. When an egg is very fresh or when it’s cooked slowly, the proteins in the white bond to the membrane instead of to one another, and the membrane becomes cemented to the white and impossible to peel away. The solution: Plunging the eggs directly into hot steam, which causes the egg white proteins to denature and shrink, reducing their ability to bond with the membrane.…

I make a lot of salads, so I like to mix up a large batch of vinaigrette to last for several days. But no matter how carefully I whisk the oil into the other ingredients, it doesn’t stay emulsified for long. Even our Foolproof Vinaigrette (September/October 2009) only holds together for a few hours—fine for dinner one night but not the next. One option is to rewhisk the dressing in a bowl, but it never truly comes back together. But recently I stumbled on a potential solution in an unusual ingredient. Finding myself short on wine and sherry vinegars, I supplemented with some of the thick, syrupy aged balsamic vinegar that I would ordinarily drizzle on steak, good cheese, or berries. This vinaigrette had a thick, viscous consistency . Not…

I like to roast asparagus because the method allows me to cook enough to feed my large clan and requires very little hands-on attention. My usual approach couldn’t be simpler: Toss the spears with some oil, salt, and pepper; spread them on a baking sheet; and pop them into a 400-degree oven until they are deeply browned— the hallmark of any good roasted vegetable. But while the outcome has been good enough, I have always had a nagging sense that it could be much better if I concentrated on figuring out the ideal recipe (and made it foolproof while I was at it). I was already aware of one downside to roasting: Unlike heartier vegetables such as cauliflower or potatoes, which can withstand longer roasting times to develop good color,…

KEY GOOD ★★★ FAIR ★★ POOR ★ PERFORMANCE We stirred Parmesan risotto, sautéed aromatic vegetables and reduced broth to make gravy, and whisked pastry cream. To test reduction speed, we _ lled each model with 1,840 grams (about 8 cups) of 75-degree water, timed how long each took to boil over high heat on the same burner, boiled the water for 10 minutes, weighed the results, and repeated the weighing again after 10 more minutes of boiling. Sauciers received high marks if they produced good-quality results in the three recipe tests and o_ ered a relatively broad cooking surface and a rounded shape that made it easy to stir and whisk. EASE OF USE We evaluated the length, circumference, and angle of the handles, as well as the weight of…

Peeling Asparagus—Is It Worth the Fuss? When developing our recipe for Roasted Asparagus (page 21), we considered different ways to prep the spears. We finally settled on trimming 1 inch off the base of each spear and then peeling the lower half of each stalk to remove its woody exterior. These spears certainly looked prettier than those we trimmed using our old method—snapping each stalk at its natural breaking point—but we realized there’s another reason to trim and peel the spears: There’s less waste. To find out exactly how much less, we divided bunches of standard and jumbo spears (we knew it wouldn’t be worth peeling pencil-thin spears) in half and snapped one group of spears and trimmed and peeled the other. We weighed the spears before and after. What…

Supermarket shelves teem with a multitude of boxes, bags, and burlap sacks labeled “basmati.” Does it matter which you choose? In a word, yes. True basmati can only come from India or Pakistan. The real deal must meet standards for grain dimension, amylose content, and grain elongation during cooking, as well as for aroma. In addition, unlike American basmati, authentic basmati is aged for a minimum of a year (and often much longer) before packaging. Aging dehydrates the rice, which translates into cooked grains that expand greatly in length—more so than any other long-grain rice. While our recipe for Persian-Style Rice with Golden Crust (Chelow) (page 11) will work with standard long-grain or Texmati rice, these options will lack the aromatic quality and more delicate, lengthy grains of Indian- or…

BAKING CLASS Dough Hydration The amount of water a bread dough contains greatly affects a bread’s texture. Simply put, dough hydration is the weight of the water in a dough relative to the total weight of flour it contains, expressed as a percentage. For example, a 75-percent-hydration dough has 75 grams of water for every 100 grams of flour. Hydration affects bread texture because of the way water and gluten—the protein responsible for providing most of the structure in bread—interact with one another. Gluten is a network of stretchy flour proteins capable of containing the carbon dioxide produced by yeast while the bread proofs. The more water surrounding the gluten, the more pliable it is, and—up to a point—the more it can expand around the gas bubbles as they grow…

A thin, dry “skin” forms on the surface of puddings because as the mixture is heated, two things happen: Water evaporates, and proteins and sugar become more concentrated. Together, this results in a dry barrier on the liquid’s surface. You can prevent the skin from forming during cooking by stirring, but what about afterward? The most common method is to press parchment paper onto the surface, which prevents evaporation. But this approach can be messy and fussy, particularly when dealing with individual portions in cups or ramekins. When developing our recipe for Lemon Posset with Berries (page 23), we came up with a simpler way: We let the mixture sit until a skin had formed, passed it through a fine-mesh strainer, and then portioned the pudding and refrigerated it until…