Innehållsförteckning för November - December 2015 från Cook's Illustrated

The Nun Study investigated the process of aging and the onset of Alzheimer’s disease in 700 nuns from the School Sisters of Notre Dame. What made this study unusual was that in 1930 these same nuns, who were then in their twenties, were asked to write a brief autobiography setting out their reasons for entering the convent. The 2001 results found that those nuns who had expressed positive emotions in their 1930 write-ups, including love, hope, and gratitude, were much more likely to be alive and well 60 years later. The increase in life expectancy was as much as seven years. In the Old Testament, the Israelites complained about the lack of food and water in the desert, about the manna, and about the dangers they faced from the Egyptians…

Everyone knows chicken Marsala, a menu staple at virtually every Italian American restaurant in the United States. But despite its wide-ranging appeal, the dish is rarely made at home. That’s too bad, because it’s relatively simple to prepare and—when done right—truly satisfying: thinly pounded chicken cutlets, dusted lightly with flour, pan-seared until golden brown but still tender and juicy, and napped with a sumptuous sauce of Marsala wine and thinly sliced mushrooms. What’s not to like? Well, as it turned out, quite a bit. When I prepared a handful of recipes, not one dish could hold a candle to the best restaurant versions. For starters, the thin cutlets tended to dry out by the time they browned. What’s more, their flour coating turned gummy as soon as I spooned the…

Back when cooking methods were primitive and every turkey was free-range, smart cooks filled the cavity of the bird with scraps of bread to capture the flavorful juices that would otherwise be lost during roasting. With a moist, dense texture, this stuffing no doubt provided a welcome counterpoint to meat that was probably a bit dry and tough. Today’s cooks have all the tools to produce a juicy turkey, yet we still tend to serve a soft, steamy stuffing— even when it’s baked in a dish alongside the bird instead of inside its cavity. I thought that a moist and tender turkey might be better served by a stuffing that boasted a looser, lighter texture similar to that of a bread salad. With chew and crunch, my new stuffing would…

Most pecan bars take their cue from pecan pie, with a single layer of nuts dominated by a thick, gooey, ultrasweet filling sitting atop a pat-in-the-pan crust. I’m not opposed to that style, but it’s mainly about the filling and only a little about the nuts. As a lover of nuts (pecans especially), I’ve always thought it would be great to have a bar that emphasized the star ingredient. The closest I’ve come are recipes that ditch the rich, egg-based custard in favor of a toffee-like topping. These call for heating sugar and butter together until thickened, stirring in the nuts, and spreading the mixture over a parbaked crust before popping it into the oven. But when I tried a few such approaches, I found that the resulting bars still…

Pasta e ceci—pasta and chickpeas—have been paired up in Italian cuisine for centuries. The combination is cheap, simple, and pantry-ready, and the dish itself—a sibling of pasta e fagioli —is hearty, flavorful, and fast to make. It’s one of those one-pot meals that home cooks turn to over and over again. Just about every Italian household has a version, which explains why published recipes range dramatically—from brothy soups to hearty stews and even lightly sauced pastas. Simple aromatics like onion, celery, carrot, and garlic are common but not compulsory, as are additions like pancetta, tomato, rosemary, and parsley. In fact, the only constants are the namesake ingredients—and even those can vary. It’s common to see both dried and canned chickpeas, as well as fresh and dried pasta of various shapes.…

We tasted 10 top-selling extra-virgin olive oils plain, with bread, over tomatoes and mozzarella, and in vinaigrette, rating the oils on their fruity, fresh, bitter, and peppery flavors and overall appeal. Information about source, olive varieties, and bottling location were obtained from manufacturers. We also had the oils tested at an independent laboratory for quality and freshness. (An independent group of trained olive oil tasters conducted a separate double-blind tasting of the oils, but we didn’t factor their assessment into our rankings.) Results were averaged and products appear below in order of preference. RECOMMENDED CALIFORNIA OLIVE RANCH Everyday Extra Virgin Olive Oil PRICE: $9.99 for 500 ml ($0.59 per oz) OLIVE VARIETIES: Arbequina, Arbosana, Koroneiki SOURCE: Northern California BOTTLED IN: Artois, California COMMENTS: “Fruity,” “fragrant,” and “fresh” with a complex…

Tasting Multigrain Gluten-Free Sandwich Bread In a recent tasting of white gluten-free loaves, we were hard-pressed to find any we could recommend. Would branching out beyond white bread provide better options? We bought nine brands of multigrain and whole-grain gluten-free sandwich bread, sampling them plain and toasted with butter, and were pleasantly surprised by two of the options. Our top-ranked bread had plenty of salt, while the two lowest-ranked breads contained the least. Our favorite was also one of two breads with the highest level of fat, helping to create a crumb that was fluffy and moist. It was also the only bread to add baking soda, while the runner-up added baking powder. In addition to boosting lift, both leaveners produce flavorful browning through the Maillard reaction for a better-tasting…

Smooth Cake Frosting When frosting the sides of a cake, Antonia Chandler of Houston, Texas, finds that her bench scraper is the best tool for smoothing the sides. She spins the cake on a turntable-style stand, holding the edge of the scraper steady against the side of the cake so that it smooths any uneven patches. Plastic Bag Space Saver When he’s short on storage space, Shawn Gagne of Los Angeles, Calif., uses pushpins to tack up cardboard boxes of zipper-lock bags on a wall in the pantry, where they’re even more accessible. Slow-Cooker Warming Tray Janet McCarron of Seattle, Wash., likes to set up a station for making candy or decorating cookies during the holidays and has found that her slow cooker comes in handy as a warming tray.…

ABSORBS MOISTURE Flour soaks up any wetness on the raw chicken but remains dry enough to brown. BROWNS EXTERIOR When the cutlets are seared, it’s the flour that browns and develops flavor, not the meat. PROTECTS INTERIOR Flour browns faster than meat, so the coated chicken can come off the heat before it overcooks. THICKENS SAUCE As the cutlets simmer in the sauce, some flour sloughs off and gives the sauce body. GRABS SAUCE The flour coating on the cutlets helps the sauce cling to the meat. BETTER CHICKEN MARSALA SERVES 4 TO 6 It is worth spending a little extra for a moderately priced dry Marsala ($10 to $12 per bottle). Serve the chicken with potatoes, white rice, or buttered pasta. For our free recipe for Better Chicken Marsala…

Though most often sauteed or roasted, raw Brussels sprouts make a great salad green. My method has always been to slice the raw sprouts thin, dress them, and let them sit—steps that help tenderize the tough leaves and brighten their pungent flavor. Sprouts also take well to punchy dressings and bold additions like rich nuts and cheeses, tangy dried fruit, and even smoky, salty bacon. A drawback to these slaw-like salads is that thinslicing the sprouts is tedious— and they can literally be a lot to chew on. I had one idea that sounded faster: pulling the leaves from the stem whole instead of slicing them. But it only took a few minutes of plucking for me to realize that pulling apart the tightly packed leaves was actually more timeconsuming…

SHOPPING Around the holidays, turkeys come fresh and frozen, large and small, and often stamped with confusing package labels. Here’s what to look for—and what to avoid. Fresh Isn’t Always Best Unless you’re buying a turkey fresh from a local farm, a frozen turkey is a better bet. Why? Frozen turkeys are frozen quickly and completely, which prevents large ice crystals from forming and damaging the meat. Turkeys labeled “fresh” may be chilled to as low as 26 degrees, a temperature at which tiny ice crystals can still form in the meat. If these crystals melt (which can happen if the temperature fluctuates during transport or thawing), they can merge with neighboring crystals, refreeze, and puncture the meat, allowing juices to escape during cooking and the meat to cook up…

Baked Alaska is the unicorn of the dessert world; everyone has heard of it, but few have seen one in real life. Maybe that’s because its three components—a circle of cake topped with a dome of ice cream and covered in meringue—make it sound too fussy to cobble together at home. Or maybe Baked Alaska seems intimidating since it appears to defy the laws of thermodynamics: Baking this dessert in a very hot oven browns and crisps the billowy meringue exterior while leaving the ice cream core frozen and firm. Some restaurants further heighten the drama by lowering the lights, dousing the creation with liqueur, and setting it ablaze at the table. Nevertheless, the dessert is still basically a dressed-up ice cream cake, and it’s no more difficult to make…

TOO COLD: 425° TOO HOT: 475° JUST RIGHT: 450° For reliable, consistent results with recipes, a good oven thermometer is critical. When we used a high-tech digital thermometer to take the temperature of five different home ovens preheated to 350 degrees, some missed the mark by as much as 50 degrees. Here’s one big reason why: An oven’s internal thermometer only gauges the temperature of the location where it’s installed, which is necessarily in an out-of-the-way spot in the back, front, or side of the oven box. But these areas can be subject to hot spots or drafts that make their temperatures differ from the center of the oven. Only a good freestanding oven thermometer can tell you what’s really going on right in the middle of the oven, where…

SCREW-ACTUATED NUTCRACKER Though rudimentary in appearance, this tool made easy work of cracking a variety of nutshells. WHAT IS IT? It might look like an old-fashioned toy, but this gadget is a screw-actuated nutcracker. The screw nutcracker first appeared in the 17th century, although this particular version is a more contemporary model crafted in the early 1950s. To use it, a nut is placed in the cup and pressure is applied to the shell by turning the screw. When the shell breaks, the screw is backed out to allow access to the nutmeat. When we gave it a try, we found that it worked exceedingly well. Moderate pressure applied to the screw easily cracked any nut—from walnuts, almonds, and pecans to hazelnuts and Brazil nuts. –Steve Dunn Ensuring Weight and…

For many, hosting company at the holidays means pulling out all the stops to present a centerpiece-worthy entree. Old standbys like turkey or prime rib are great choices—except that they are only for crowds. Plus, they eat up precious time and energy: From salting and trussing to roasting, resting, and carving, it can take hours or even days to get them from supermarket to table. Enter rack of lamb. With elegantly curved rib bones attached to a long, lean loin, it is as grand as any beef roast or whole bird—but it cooks a whole lot faster and its small size makes it ideal for fewer guests. What’s more, its tenderness and delicate but distinctive flavor make it approachable for those who have not tried lamb (and may surprise those…

I’m not from Texas, so I’ve never had any trouble thinking that chili by definition could only mean a bowl made with hand-cut chunks of beef. If anything, I’m always more drawn to ground beef versions, since they skip the tedious step of breaking down a whole roast. That said, I’ve rarely encountered a ground beef chili that can hold its own against the chunky kind. It often suffers from dry, grainy, somewhat tough meat. I set myself the challenge of changing that. I wanted a big batch of thick, spicy, ultrabeefy chili—the kind I’d pile into a bowl with tortilla chips or rice and enjoy with a beer. In order to create that, I would first have to sort out how to give the ground meat the same juicy,…

In Asia and Africa, sweet potatoes are regarded as one of those foods that need no adornment. In fact, street vendors sell whole sweet potatoes—steamed, baked, grilled, or roasted—to passersby who enjoy their earthy, sweet complexity out of hand, skin and all. Americans also eat sweet potatoes cooked every which way, but we tend to pile them high with a slew of extras—like marshmallows, orange juice, brown sugar, curry powder, cinnamon, or nutmeg—that overpower their taste. Some cooks riff on butternut squash soup and turn sweet potatoes into a creamy puree. But, like other types of sweet potato dishes, the soups I tried were so loaded with extras that it was hard to identify the main ingredient. I wanted to strip away the nonessentials to make a silky, luxurious soup…

The Japanese technique of marinating fish in miso started as a way to preserve a fresh catch without refrigeration during its long journey inland. In the last few years, however, after its introduction by chef Nobu Matsuhisa at his namesake restaurant, it has become a popular restaurant preparation in this country. The technique itself is quite simple. Miso is combined with sugar, sake, and mirin (sweet Japanese rice wine) to make a marinade that is typically applied to oily fish like salmon or black cod and left to sit for about three days; during that time, the marinade seasons the fish and draws moisture out of its flesh so that it becomes quite firm and dense. The fish is then scraped clean and broiled, producing meaty-textured, well-seasoned fillets with a…

We tested 10 dialface thermometers, priced from $4.63 to $20.94, all with a temperature range of at least 150 to 500 degrees Fahrenheit. Prices shown were paid online. Models appear in order of preference. ACCURACY We weighed this criterion most heavily in our rankings. We tested four units of each model in ovens set to 250, 350, and 450 degrees Fahrenheit, using a lab-grade thermocouple to assess their accuracy. Models lost points if one unit was off by more than 10 degrees. EASE OF USE We rated each model on how easy it was to position and remove and on its stability on the rack. Thermometers lost points if they tipped over, fell off the rack, or were difficult to install. LEGIBILITY We evaluated how easy it was to see…

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