Innehållsförteckning för November/December 2023 från Cook's Illustrated

Back in the late ’80s, my parents and their friends gathered at each other’s homes and cooked dishes from Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961) and the latest issues of Gourmet. They called it Gourmet Group. One night when we were hosting, my mom set out a platter of poached and chilled jumbo shrimp arranged in a wide ring around a small bowl of homemade cocktail sauce. The knock of the platter hitting the coffee table still registered in the air when my sister and I grabbed our first shrimp. We got comfortable, cross-legged, on the shag carpet, and dunked and devoured cold, snappy shrimp slicked with ketchup-y horseradish. It felt luxurious and exciting. So exciting, in fact, that in just shy of 20 minutes we’d cleaned…

Like many cooks, I find deep joy in treating those I love to a memorable holiday meal. This year, I’m excited to wow my family and friends with glazed short ribs. These ribs ooze gorgeousness, with rich, velvety meat that cuts easily with a fork and flaunts a dramatically dark, tangy-sweet glaze. Everyone at the table will adore them; plus, the bulk of the prep—which is a breeze—happens well in advance. The recipe is modeled after one that my colleague Andrea Geary used to cook at a top restaurant in Scotland. Her concept was straightforward and brilliant: The day before serving, she braised boneless beef short ribs—a heavily marbled cut that’s rich in collagen—in stout (she was in the Scottish Highlands, after all) and then chilled the ribs in their…

In early Ireland, the weeks before the November 1 celebration of Samhain, the Celtic new year, were the time to harvest the season’s crops, butcher the livestock—and ward off malevolent spirits. Legends say that the line dividing the human and spirit worlds became blurred as the new year approached. To appease any otherworldly visitors, households left offerings of food out on their doorstep—often colcannon, mashed potatoes studded with green vegetables such as kale, cabbage, scallions, and leeks and topped with a glistening well of melted butter. Inside the house, families might be sharing their own bowl of the mash, often served for Samhain with hidden trinkets folded in to make predictions about the upcoming year. Find a ring in your portion, and you’d be married by year’s end; find a…

When you’re tasked with bringing a side dish to a holiday dinner, it pays to be a little strategic. The ideal dish ticks a few boxes: It must be sturdy and stress-free to transport. It should require minimal-to-no further prep work once you’ve reached your destination. Ideally, it would be a dish that doesn’t require reheating so that you needn’t take up any of your host’s oven space or burners. Bonus points if it’s also colorful and festive. My recommendation? A roasted vegetable salad. Vibrant and palate cleansing, salads bring welcome freshness to a spread of rich holiday dishes. And upgrading from simple dressed greens to heartier vegetables makes them even better to bring to a party: Roasted vegetables are delicious at room temperature, and they can stand up to…

The Benefits of Cooking Dried Hominy The dense, meaty texture of hominy and its rich corn flavor can be had from a can, but the vegetable is even more satisfying when you cook the nixtamalized dried kernels yourself. You’ll also be left with a nutty-sweet cooking liquid to enrich soups and stews. The following approach makes 6 cups to use in our Pozole Rojo recipe (page 15) or anywhere else a little chewy texture and sweet corn flavor would be welcome. Look for smooth, intact kernels and the words “pelado” or “mote pelado” on the bag, which means the corn has been nixtamalized and hulled and is ready to cook. (Packages labeled “hominy” with broken kernels aren’t for pozole and are more typically used for grinding into meal.)–A.P. METHOD: Pick over…

Line Your Recycling Bin with a Paper Bag When Sam Gendel of Venice, Calif., brings home a paper shopping bag from the grocery store, he doesn’t recycle it right away: He uses it to line his recycling bin. When the bag is full, he puts the whole package out to be recycled. (Extra bags can be folded and stored at the bottom of the bin.) Reuse Resealable Bags When Joan Worley of Maryville, Tenn., purchases dried fruit, cookies, nuts, or any other item that is packaged in a resealable bag, she keeps the bag, rinses it clean, and uses it for storing other foods. The bags are sturdy and often see-through, though she frequently adds a dated label to track what’s inside. Personal Frozen Pizza Portions Anna Schiff of Oberlin,…

Shrimp cocktail is a splurge, whether you’re popping crustaceans at a raw bar or poaching a batch yourself. Each bite should feel like luxury: plump, snappy, well-chilled meat with clean, oceanic sweetness that gleams on your palate. Nailing that profile is all about poaching the shrimp just right. First, the water must be judiciously seasoned to underscore shrimp’s natural brininess. Second, the shrimp must reach, but not exceed, their ideal doneness. That’s hard to do well, because small, lean shrimp go from raw to rubbery in an instant and because it’s hard to monitor the temperature of so many pieces. There are a few unusual steps I take to ensure proper seasoning. First, I brine the shrimp in water laced with both salt and sugar. Then I also poach them…

Split Seconds. That was the name of the winning cookie entry in 1954’s Pillsbury Bake-Off cookie category, and it lured me in immediately. They are like jam thumb-prints but, as the name implies, they are quick to make. Instead of molding dozens of tiny dough balls, making a depression in each, and filling the hollows with jam, I divided the buttery dough into only four portions, rolled each into a long rope, and placed them on a cookie sheet. I then made a channel down the length of each and filled the channels with jam before baking the logs. When the logs were cool, I cut them into attractive diamond shapes for serving. Because the recipe calls for only the most commonplace ingredients—flour, sugar, butter, eggs, vanilla, salt, baking powder,…

Moka Pots The best moka pots are easy to use and can brew a batch of strong and concentrated coffee quickly. A stovetop moka pot consists of three parts: a bottom chamber, a perforated funnel, and an upper chamber. You fill the bottom chamber with water just beneath a valve that acts as a water-fill line and also prevents too much pressure from building up. Then, you fill the funnel with coffee grounds and place it in the bottom chamber, screw the chambers together, and heat the pot on the stovetop. Water travels up and makes contact with the coffee grounds and then freshly brewed coffee comes out through a center tube in the upper chamber. Our winner is the Bialetti Moka Express (model 06799), which has stood the test…

Happy pasta-and-bean season—that cold-weather gravitational pull toward belly-warming, low-fuss meals that can be mostly thrown together from pantry staples such as dried pasta and canned beans. In my kitchen, a lot of that cooking leans Northern Italian, because classics such as pasta e fagioli and pasta e ceci check all the boxes: They’re economical (both icons of cucina povera), nutritious, quick to prepare, and brimming with savoriness. Plus, when I’m full up on holiday meal prep and eating, it’s just the kind of cozy food I want to unwind with. Lately I’ve been thinking of this pair less in terms of canonical dishes and more as a riffable formula, since neutral pasta and beans can be pulled in countless directions. Think: bacon, brussels sprouts, and mustardy bread crumbs; salmon, snow…

DOES FISH SAUCE NEED TO BE REFRIGERATED? If exposed to light and kept at room temperature, fish sauce won’t go bad, but the color may lighten and the flavor will become more complex as the sauce continues to age. To slow this down, it’s not a bad idea to keep it in the refrigerator. IN WHAT UNEXPECTED WAYS CAN YOU USE FISH SAUCE? Fish sauce is most commonly used in Southeast Asian recipes, but we highly recommend adding a splash to other dishes as well. Don’t feel like finely mincing anchovies for Caesar salad? Add a few splashes of fish sauce. Bolognese needs a little extra zing? Sprinkle in a little fish sauce as it simmers. When your dish is lacking in salt and umami, fish sauce can tie things…

FUKUJINZUKE YIELD: 2 CUPS TOTAL TIME: 45 MINUTES, PLUS 12 HOURS 20 MINUTES RESTING AND COOLING The ginger and mushroom are flavoring agents; they are not meant to be eaten. We highly recommend seeking out lotus root, but if it’s unavailable, use additional daikon. If daikon is unavailable, another type of radish can be used. Vegetables ½ cup lotus root, peeled, quartered lengthwise, and sliced ⅛ inch thick (2 ounces)I cup daikon radish, peeled, quartered lengthwise, and sliced⅛ inch thick (4½ ounces)1 cup Persian cucumbers, sliced into ⅛-inch rounds (4½ ounces)½ cup Japanese eggplant, peeled, quartered lengthwise, and sliced⅛ inch thick (1¾ ounces)Kosher salt for salting vegetables3 shiso leaves, sliced thin (optional) Pickling Liquid ⅓ cup unseasoned rice vinegar¼ cup mirin¼ cup water¼ cup sugar3 tablespoons soy sauce1 (2-inch) piece…

Swedish winters are frigid and dark, but the tradition of fika, the daily break to enjoy a comforting beverage and a baked good or two, provides a jovial bright spot. KANELBULLAR (cinnamon buns) and KARDEMUMMABULLAR (cardamom buns) are commonly baked at home and stashed in the freezer for quick reheating; however, fika (also the name used for the baked goods) can be purchased at a konditori, a coffeehouse/patisserie. CHOKLADBISKVIER, almond and meringue cookies topped with buttercream and enrobed in chocolate, are a typical sight at these shops. A variety of small cookies, or småkakor, are almost always present at coffee gatherings—the spread might include jam-filled HALLONGROTTOR or the chocolate and vanilla SCHACKRUTOR. When children learn to make fika, their first recipe might be for CHOKLADBOLLAR, an easy, no-bake treat made…