Innehållsförteckning för March/April 2021 från Cook's Illustrated

Editor in Chief The popular YouTube channel Pasta Grannies features grandmothers kneading, rolling, and cutting fresh pasta from their home kitchens across Italy. After six years of weekly videos, it has grown into something of an archive of regional Italian pasta, brought to you by the people who have been preparing it by hand for most of their lives. I’d forgive you if you put down this magazine for a moment to check it out (but do come back). It’s that good—and that important in terms of what it captures and preserves. We’d be smart to document all grannies (not just the pasta ones) and grandpas this way. If my Grammy T were still with us, I know exactly what her video would look like. It’d open on a scrubby…

In ancient Greece, there was a vegetable so revered that Greeks offered pure-gold replicas to Apollo, god of sun, light, music, poetry, prophecy, and more. The prized produce? Radishes. (Beets, on the other hand, were cast in silver; lowly turnips, lead.) Glorifying radishes sure makes sense to me: In their crisp, peppery-hot raw state, these colorful roots can enhance salads or crudités platters or star in an elegant appetizer where I generally like to complement their pungency with sweet and/or creamy ingredients. If the fire of raw radishes is not your thing, then cooking them—whether sautéing, braising, or roasting—is the way to go. That’s because their assertiveness comes from a compound created by an enzyme in their skins that’s easily deactivated with heat. It’s related to the compounds that give…

I first fell in love with tourte aux pommes de terre (or pâté aux pommes de terre) in a class taught by my friend—and pastry expert—Mitch Stamm. The pie, which is popular in central France, consists of lightly seasoned, thinly sliced potatoes and onion that are coated in heavy cream or crème fraîche and baked inside a double-crusted pastry shell. There’s no denying that the rich combination of potatoes, crust, and cream makes for a dish that is très décadente. But if you love silky potatoes, buttery pastry, and rich cream, it’s a perfect dish for when you’re in the mood to indulge, and I couldn’t wait to add my own version to the Cook’s Illustrated canon. I started with the crust. The vast majority of recipes specify puff pastry,…

METHODOLOGY • Test nine models (five mitts, two gloves, and two double mitts), priced from about $9.50 to about $66.00 per set • Working in a hot oven, rotate and remove a baking sheet filled with cookies • Lift and remove a Dutch oven filled with simmering water from a hot oven, and then pour the water into the sink • Lift and replace a hot Dutch oven lid three times • Maneuver a pie plate filled with fragile raw pie dough into a hot oven and then out of the oven once the pie crust is baked • Working in a hot oven, rotate and remove a full cake pan • Transfer a hot cast-iron skillet, weighed down with a 4-pound roast chicken, from the stovetop to a hot…

Pimentón: The Pride of Spain Pimentón, or Spanish paprika, is essential to the country’s cuisine. It contributes brick-red color and fruity chile flavor (and sometimes smokiness) to dishes from paella and migas to patatas bravas and espinacas con garbanzos (page 19). It is available smoked or unsmoked and in a range of heat levels from mild to spicy, which can make shopping for it a bit confusing. The first step is to decide whether you want a smoked or an unsmoked product. Smoked pimentón comes from La Vera in Spain’s Extremadura region. There, the peppers used for pimentón are dried slowly over smoldering oak fires for up to two weeks, giving them a distinct smoky taste and aroma. Unsmoked pimentón hails from a region in southeastern Spain called Murcia. Both…

Cheese making in Greece is an ancient art—one that dates back to Homer’s time, when the poet wrote in The Odyssey about Polyphemus, the cyclops shepherd whose “cheese-racks were loaded with cheeses” and whose “vessels, bowls, and milk pails… were swimming with whey.” Many scholars consider this an early reference to FETA, the tangy, creamy-yet-crumbly block that, according to DOP standards, must be made from at least 70 percent sheep’s milk. A by-product of feta production, MANOURI is a smooth, buttery round made from sheep’s- or goat’s-milk whey; it’s often drizzled with honey for dessert. MYZITHRA, another whey cheese, is typically stronger-flvored and tangier. The cheese pie kasseropita is made by layering sheets of phyllo dough with a mixture of egg and KASSERI, a stretched-curd cheese similar to provolone. Young,…

Weighing Out Fizzy Liquids for Cocktails When adding seltzer, soda, tonic water, or prosecco (or any other carbonated drink) to cocktails, Josh Starmer of Chapel Hill, N.C., likes to put the cocktail glass on a kitchen scale and measure by weight ounces as a proxy for fluid ounces. This way, more bubbles make it into the final drink, since he doesn’t have to pour the effervescent beverage into a measuring cup first. Door Hook Turned Sponge Holder Scott Eckert of Henderson, Nev., uses a plastic over-the-door hook to hold his kitchen sponge in his double-compartment sink. The curved hook fits snugly over the sink divider, and the squared-off part that normally hangs on the door is used to hold the sponge, allowing it to dry between uses. An Artistic Way…

There are a few good reasons the ground meat dish called keema has been beloved on the Indian subcontinent since at least the 15th century, when it even graced the tables of Turkic sultans and later, Mughal emperors. First, it’s a preparation that warms you from the inside out: Spices such as cinnamon, cumin, and cardamom mingle with the meat’s juices, creating a fragrant sauce that coats the supple bits and lightly pools in their nooks and crannies. It’s also quick to make and highly versatile: Serve it alongside rice, rolled into rotis, or stuffed into vegetables. Spread it between two halves of a plush roll and you’ve got keema pav, sold in Irani cafes all over the subcontinent. No wonder that keema shows up in so many seminal works…

New England seafood shacks sure know how to make the most of the white fish caught in the cold, deep waters of the North Atlantic. They dunk the fillets in a thick batter, deep-fry them until they’re crispy and golden brown, and load them onto a toasted bun with tender lettuce and a smear of tartar sauce. It’s a quintessential coastal sandwich that’s all about the succulent fish and its shatteringly crispy coating. The fish is so good because the batter creates a physical barrier that protects the delicate fillets (haddock, cod, and halibut are popular choices for their large, sturdy flakes) from the hot oil and mitigates moisture loss. As the batter crisps and browns, the fish inside gently steams to moist, tender perfection. After reviewing our existing recipes…

I’ve been a sous vide enthusiast since the early days, when water-bath cooking and consumer-grade circulators were just taking off. Being able to pull off uniformly rosy steaks, silky fish fillets, and just-set poached eggs—and never worrying about missing the mark—were the perks that lured me in, and they still impress me every time I cook. But lately what keeps my immersion circulator in heavy use is how effortless it can make meal planning. Its precision also makes it a great tool when you’re cooking for company, since you can be sure that your results will turn out perfectly. And in many cases, you can cook the food ahead of time and either reheat it or leave it at its target temperature until you’re ready to serve it or apply…

Sniff an intact clove of garlic, and you won’t smell anything. But smash that same clove, and it comes to life, unleashing a ripe, complex pungency that defies its small size and plays an integral role in just about every cuisine around the world. That transformative nature, and its tremendous range of flavor and aroma, is what makes garlic so compelling to cooks. Depending on how you prepare it, garlic can be the hot sting in aioli and mojo; the aromatic depth in countless stir-fries, curries, and braises; or a mellow, creamy, caramelized spread for slathering on bread or mixing into doughs or sauces. It has been a culinary staple since as far back as ancient Mesopotamia—scholars have uncovered references to garlic and other alliums in recipes chiseled in cuneiform…

Seville’s favorite vegetable-based dish is visually unassuming: a mound of butter-soft chickpeas interspersed with plenty of well-cooked spinach and perhaps a few crispy bits of fried bread sticking out of it like sails. But its enticing aroma will stop you in your tracks. The smokiness of the paprika hits first, followed by earthy cumin, hints of musky-sweet saffron, and subtle hot-pepper heat, all of which are underpinned by garlic and fruity olive oil. Pile a forkful onto a piece of crusty bread and take a bite: Some of the slightly thickened juices seep into the crumb, but the rest are hidden away in the tiny folds of the spinach, so the mixture bursts with flavorful liquid as you chew. This is espinacas con garbanzos, a hyper-regional dish with strong Moorish…

When you invest in a sturdy chef’s knife, cooking immediately becomes easier, safer, and more satisfying. The same is true of a good pair of oven mitts. You don’t need to worry about burning your hand on a hot skillet handle or accidentally dropping a stockpot halfway between the stovetop and kitchen sink. Seeking a pair that let us work safely and nimbly, we purchased nine ambidextrous models in three styles. About half were mitten-shaped, and we also included gloves and “double mitts,” which are basically two pot holders connected by swaths of fabric. The sets cost from about $9.50 to roughly $66.00. We used each to maneuver full cookie sheets, cake pans, and pie plates into, around, and out of hot ovens; carry and empty Dutch ovens filled with…

Smart Mugs Coffee sitting in a mug frequently becomes tepid faster than we can drink it. Smart coffee mugs, which often work with a smartphone app, promise to keep beverages hot for extended periods of time. We were intrigued, so we bought three models, priced from about $79 to about $165. From the outside, these mugs look similar to a regular mug, but their thick bases house internal heating components, a high-capacity battery, microprocessors, and various temperature sensors. Two of the models let you set specific temperatures, and one automatically holds coffee between 140 and 149_degrees. After conducting a series of tests, we highly recommend the Ember Mug2, 14 oz (model CM191400US). Besides being simple to set up and use, it was the most accurate model we tested. When on…