Innehållsförteckning för September/October 2018 från Cook's Illustrated

BACK COVER ILLUSTRATED BY JOHN BURGOYNE France lays claim to many of the world’s great breads, most notably the lean, chewy, deeply browned BAGUETTE. Variations include PAIN D’EPI, in which the dough is cut into pointy lobes to resemble a wheat stalk. The name BÂTARD is often said to reference the loaf’s torpedo-like shape—a “bastardization” of a slender baguette and a round boule. Cuts in FOUGASSE dough increase its crust-to-crumb ratio; many versions include olives, cheese, or seeds. The cuts in an ÉCHELLE loaf form a “ladder.” A COURONNE is the French equivalent of pull-apart rolls. To make CHAMPIGNON, boulangers place a thin disk of dough on top of a roll to form the “cap.” With its substantial crust and mellow tang, PAIN AU LEVAIN is a classic example of…

Roast chicken and potatoes are near-universal favorites. Add a superflavorful pan sauce and you’ve got a slam dunk. A terrific example of this combination is chicken Vesuvio, a dish beloved in the Italian American restaurants of Chicago: Chicken and potatoes are cooked in a single skillet along with a garlicky white wine pan sauce that practically makes itself. So why aren’t we all making chicken Vesuvio at home? Before I answer, a look at how the dish comes together in a restaurant kitchen: A line cook makes each serving to order by searing a half chicken skin side down in an olive oil–slicked skillet and then adding potato wedges, which brown and crisp in the rendered fat. Everything is sprinkled generously with minced garlic and dried herbs, and then the…

It seems funny to admit that a fish was once my nemesis, but there was a spell back when I was a line cook when that was exactly the case. For five straight nights, I carefully prepared what appeared to be pristine swordfish steaks and began to plate them up, only to find that they were soft and mushy. The restaurant waitstaff then had to inform the diner that his or her entrée choice had been taken off the menu for the evening. Back then, I didn’t know what to attribute the poor—not to mention wasteful—results to, and we ultimately stopped serving swordfish altogether. But I’ve long wondered why the texture of swordfish can sometimes be perfect—meaty, juicy, and tender—and other times so unpleasant. It was time to use a…

Mention pasta salad and most folks think of a hodgepodge of overly firm noodles, raw broccoli florets, and spongy canned black olives, all drenched in bottled Italian dressing. That’s why my colleagues looked gleeful when I—not one of them—got the assignment of trying to rehab this sorry dish. But then I thought, I spend a lot of time perfecting hot pastas (often for this magazine), so why not give some attention to a cold one? Before I started cooking, I settled on fusilli. Its corkscrew shape would trap dressing, and it’s easy to spear with a fork. And right off the bat, I addressed the rubbery pasta problem. Instead of boiling the noodles until they were al dente, I cooked them longer until they were a little soft. Here’s why:…

Is there anything you can’t do with a Dutch oven? We use these large, heavy-duty pots for boiling, searing, frying, braising, and baking food and for sous vide cooking. We turn them into smokers, steamers, coolers, and panini presses. They might just be the busiest pots in our kitchen. Our longtime favorite from Le Creuset works perfectly, but at $367.99, it costs a pretty penny. At the other end of the spectrum is a classic cast-iron model that costs seven times less—and there’s a pot in every price bracket in between. So how much do you need to spend to get a Dutch oven that will last for years, is capable of cooking everything you throw at it, and makes said cooking as easy as possible? To find out, we…

The summer after my sophomore year of college, I got braces—and my jaw broken. On purpose. My doctor called it preventive surgery, which made it sound prudent. My jaw had been growing out of alignment for years, and his description of a pain- and headache-free existence was enough to convince me to go for it. What he didn’t dwell on was that my jaw would remain wired shut for seven weeks. After surgery, it didn’t take me long to put together a list of the things for which an open mouth is paramount. First, there’s sneezing and coughing. With a closed mouth both feel like being slapped upside the head, but from the inside. And of course, there’s yawning. No satisfaction or relief comes from a closed-mouth yawn. (Does it…

Before I take you on a deep dive into carne adovada, one of New Mexico’s most celebrated dishes and quite possibly the easiest braise you will ever make, I need to back up and explain how hugely significant chiles are in New Mexican cuisine. For one thing, the state claims its own unique chile cultivars. The relatively mild peppers, which are sold both fresh—either unripe and green or ripe and red—and dried were first released by New Mexico State University in 1913 and have since become one of the defining ingredients in the local cuisine—not to mention the state’s most lucrative cash crop. New Mexico even passed a law declaring that only chiles grown in the state may be labeled as such. Dishes that feature the peppers typically contain few…

Rather than insert myself into the age-old debate over the origins of falafel—Egypt, Palestine, and Israel each claim it as a national dish—I prefer to think of it as a preparation with ancient roots and timeless universal appeal. But my recipe may prove to be divisive in another way: The key to its success comes from a technique associated with Asian bread baking. Before I explain how I landed there, however, it’s important to understand why falafel is inherently tricky to make well. Most falafel dough is nothing more than uncooked dried chickpeas or fava beans that have been soaked overnight so that they soften slightly before being coarsely ground in a food processor with onion, garlic, spices, and loads of fresh herbs (parsley and cilantro are typical). Grinding—not pureeing—the…

As I began this project, I was often asked the question “Do adults actually eat applesauce?” My response: If they don’t, they should, because applesauce is easy to make and it packs all the sweet-tart character of orchard-fresh apples into a deliciously concentrated format. Spooned warm and fragrant from a bowl, it’s a cozy treat on its own, but it also makes a great accompaniment to roasted meat or potato pancakes. Don’t let memories of that vaguely apple-flavored beige stuff from the supermarket turn you against applesauce. As a discerning adult, you deserve the real thing. The traditional method for making applesauce is simple: Cut unpeeled apples into chunks; throw them into a saucepan with some water, a bit of sugar, and maybe a pinch of salt; and bring it…

There is a story floating around the internet about a grandmother who gobbled up her grandson’s cookies as he slept beside her during a long flight. The motive for the 30,000-foot crime? Biscoff, the signature onboard snack of Delta Air Lines. The tempting cookie dates to 1932, when a Belgian bakery started selling speculoos. Fifty years later, the bakery began manufacturing speculoos for Americans under the name “Biscoff” and its popularity soared (see “How Biscoff Took Off”). The enthusiasm is understandable: Speculoos boast warm spice notes, nuanced caramel flavor, and a crisp, open texture that crumbles easily (the term of art here is “friable”). Imagine something between a delicate graham cracker and a hard gingersnap that nearly melts in your mouth. I wanted to use the one-of-a-kind texture of Biscoff…

Basmati versus Jasmine Rice It’s easy to confuse raw jasmine and basmati rices: They’re both long-grain varieties, and both contain a compound that can give them a popcorn-like aroma. We prepared a batch of each and, once they were cooked, their differences became apparent. The basmati grains remained distinct and maintained their long, slim shape. The jasmine rice had a plush, moist texture; its grains collected in delicate clumps, perfect for eating with chopsticks. Why the difference? It’s all about the two different molecules that make up starch. Basmati has a lot of amylose: a straight molecule that organizes into a tight formation, which helps each grain stay distinct when cooked, making basmati a great choice for pilaf. Jasmine rice’s starch, by contrast, has less amylose and more of another…

WHAT IS IT? First introduced in Edwardian England around 1910, this lidded vessel was used to cook meat stews and steamed puddings. (Not to be confused with American custard-based puddings, British steamed puddings are most similar to cakes and can be sweet or savory.) Made of ironstone, a type of pottery similar to stoneware, the Grimwade’s Quick-Cooker came in four sizes, with this 1-pint version being the smallest. Cooks would fill it with stew or pudding batter and then place a small piece of pastry dough over the center tube, creating a watertight seal once the lid went on. The sealed vessel cooked in a pot of simmering water; the device’s central “chimney” promoted quick, even cooking by introducing heat to the center of the pudding or stew. We tested…

Storing Butter “Orphans” Whenever Elise Darrow of Denver, Colo., gets to the end of a stick of butter, she stores it in a clean, lidded plastic dairy container. (If the pieces are exact tablespoons, she leaves the measurement-marked wrapper on so that she can use them for cooking and baking.) This frees up her butter dish for a new stick, and the “orphans” don’t absorb any unpleasant refrigerator odors. Steady—Then Sanitize—Your Cutting Board Mike D’Angelo of Rockville Centre, N.Y., has long used the trick of placing a dampened paper towel under his cutting board to stabilize it. Recently he improved upon the technique by spraying the paper towel with cleaner. When he’s done cutting, he uses the sanitized towel to wipe the work surfaces clean. A Carrier for Hot Casseroles…

When was the last time you hosted a summer cookout and made a dish that your guests snapped up in minutes and raved about for the rest of the night? If you can’t recall, consider this recipe—a popular Japanese preparation called negimaki—an opportunity to up your grill game. The name may sound exotic, but its flavors and presentation are not. Negimaki is essentially a hybrid of beef teriyaki and rolled sushi, at least conceptually. To make it, cooks slice and pound a steak into thin strips, which they lay on a flat surface in an overlapping arrangement to form a rectangle. Then they roll the meat around a small bundle of scallions (negi means “scallion”; maki, “roll”) to form a tight cylinder, fasten it with toothpicks, grill it over a…

If your only experiences of pita have been the dry, flavorless rounds from the supermarket, you might wonder how this ancient bread—which dates back thousands of years—has persisted. But I can think of several reasons. The first being that good, fresh pita is a revelation: soft, tender, and pleasantly elastic, with flavor that’s both faintly sweet and reminiscent of the hearth on which it was baked. It’s got broad functionality, too: Tear it apart and use it as a vehicle for swiping up dips; wrap it around sandwich fillings; or take advantage of its built-in pocket and stuff it with falafel (see our recipe on page 13). And compared to the precision and skill required for other breads, making pita is a low-tech, casual endeavor—basically, you flatten a swath of…

Sichuan cooks have a method for preparing green beans called “dry frying.” It’s a two-step approach in which the beans are deep-fried, and then stir-fried with aromatics and maybe a little ground pork. There’s not much sauce because the beans are the real draw: blistered, with a soft chew and concentrated flavor. It’s a technique I would use regularly if dry frying didn’t require the hassle of, well, frying. Especially because the beans could pair well with so many flavors beyond the typical Sichuan profile. Instead, I tried shallow-frying a pound of beans in a couple of tablespoons of oil. They were only spottily blistered after 10 minutes because the ends of the raw beans curled up and didn’t make full contact with the oil. They were still firm inside,…

Basmati rice is our go-to choice for pilaf, biryani, and the classic Persian dish called chelow and as a base for curry. In India, where basmati originated, it is considered part of the national heritage; in 2016 it was granted Geographical Indication (GI) status, similar to the European Union’s protection for Champagne and Parmigiano-Reggiano. Indian cooks prize basmati for its fragrance as well as the extreme elongation and slenderness of the cooked grains. But in American supermarkets, it’s one of several options for long-grain white rice, so it’s easy to overlook. To learn more, we bought eight nationally available white basmati rices, two grown in the United States and six from India and Pakistan. We sampled them plain, cooked according to package directions; in our recipe for Basic Rice Pilaf,…

Miso paste is a powerhouse Japanese ingredient that adds complex, savory flavor to a variety of recipes, from soups and sauces to braised vegetables and grilled chicken. It starts with the cultivation of koji, a mold that is typically sprinkled over cooked rice and left to germinate for two to three days. The koji is then mixed with cooked soybeans, salt, and sometimes water and left to ferment, developing miso’s trademark sweet and savory notes. Producers create different varieties of miso by altering the ratio of koji to soybeans as well as the length of fermentation. White miso paste, the kind we most frequently use in the test kitchen, is ready in just a few weeks or months and has a higher proportion of koji to soybeans for a milder,…

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