Innehållsförteckning för January/February 2025 från Cook's Illustrated

I was born in early February at a hospital that sits 42 degrees, 34 minutes, and 44 seconds north of the equator. Which is to say, I was born into a lifetime of snowstorm birthdays. If you’re a spring baby, whose birthday aligns with the season of pastels, asparagus, and a renewed sense of joie de vivre, you won’t understand. If you were born during the hot months, and the photo album that cradles your childhood birthday parties is all lawn sprinklers and drippy ice cream cake, you can’t relate. And if your first breaths were of crisp autumn air, your ride home from the hospital a brilliant blur of yellow and red leaves, well, you’ll struggle to commiserate. This isn’t a takedown of snowstorms, which I love. It’s a…

It’s tempting to take fond for granted, but you mustn’t. Though unassuming in appearance, the bronzed bits that form on the bottom of a pan as meat juices sizzle, evaporate, and brown are pure flavor, and the more of it that you can create, the meatier, richer, and all-around bettertasting your food will be. Fond was on my mind as I conceived a trio of simple, sausage-centric one-pot meals. I wanted the umami goodness of the links to permeate the whole shebang, and sticky, flavorsome fond was the answer. Deglazed and melted into a braising liquid, it would carry porky richness out of the sausage casings and into the entire dish. As luck would have it, a sausage-cooking technique that we’ve come to love does a great job of maximizing…

When I was a kid, my dad would occasionally return to the stove after dinner was cleaned up. He’d tend to a bubbling batch of ground beef chili, passing his wooden spoon through the thick, ruddy mixture as night fell. When the meat was supple and the pot’s contents imbued with the spices, he’d let the chili cool until bedtime before refrigerating it for dinner the next day. Dad knew that beef required long, slow simmering to break down its stubborn collagen. But a simple shortcut would have saved him a lot of time: Swapping ground beef for ground turkey, which is low in collagen, can pave the way to chili that goes from cutting board to bowl in about an hour. That said, there are pitfalls to watch out…

In the spring of 2002 on an island off the west coast of the Scottish Highlands, I was bewitched—not by the mischievous fairies that were said to frequent the island’s rocky glens, nor by kelpies, the duplicitous horse-like spirits that reportedly inhabit Scotland’s lochs and streams. No, I was beguiled by a serving of steamed marmalade pudding. The island was Skye, the setting, the world-renowned The Three Chimneys restaurant. The presentation of their signature dessert was unpretentious: a warm, spongy, auburn wedge—cake-like but coarser and visibly moist—surrounded by velvety, primrose-yellow pourable custard. I paused before digging in, inhaling the aromas that wafted upward: citrus and butter, undergirded by toasty brown sugar notes and punctuated by the boozy zing of the Drambuie that laced the sauce. That first, haunting bite—fluffy, light,…

Oil Your Measuring Spoons When Krista Harris of Irvine, Calif., is making a salad dressing, she measures the oil before any of the other ingredients. This way, her measuring spoon is greased when it comes time to measure ingredients such as mustard and honey. Even the stickiest ingredients slide cleanly out of an oiled spoon. Juice Citrus into a Fat Separator When Beth Ottesen of Vero Beach, Fla., juices lemons with a reamer or by hand, she expels the juice into her fat separator. The top of the separator effectively strains out pulp and seeds, and the spout is handy for pouring the juice. Music Stand Turned Cookbook Stand When Wayne J. Andrews of Wellsville, N.Y., is cooking from a recipe in a cookbook, he pulls out a music stand…

Chao nian gao leads a double life. During Lunar New Year, also known as Spring Festival in China, the beloved Shanghainese stir-fry of sliced nian gao (rice cakes), protein (often pork), and vegetables glossed with an umami-rich sauce is regal fare, sharing banquet table space with other auspicious dishes—such as ingot-shaped dumplings, longevity noodles, and majestic whole fish—and bringing growth and good fortune with every bite. “Nian gao symbolizes getting better every year, whether it’s in your job, or your school, or your life,” said Susanna Yu, the San Francisco–based author of the blog Smelly Lunchbox. The rest of the year, it’s a busy cook’s fallback meal. The oval-shaped slabs, made from a rice-based dough, are utterly neutral, store well in the fridge or freezer, cook through in minutes, and…

You could say sweet potatoes are made for mashing. With more natural moisture and less starch than white potatoes, they become smooth and creamy without much help from fat or dairy. There’s just one issue: Because their looser structure allows them to soak up liquid more easily, sweet potatoes get waterlogged as they boil, which dilutes their flavor and requires the cook to add flavor back with extra ingredients. But adulterating the natural flavors of a sweet potato seems a shame when the tubers have the ability to develop remarkable complexity. Consider the transformation of a sweet potato as it roasts: As the potato’s pectin breaks down in the oven, the free moisture can escape as steam. The flavor concentrates as the water evaporates, and you’re left with a creamy,…

“The first word that comes to my mind when I think of Icelandic food is ‘scarcity,’” Iceland Review writer Erik Vilhjálms said when I asked him to describe the island nation’s cuisine. I was meeting with Vilhjálms to discuss Iceland’s fiskisúpa, a cozy soup of flaky white fish suspended in a creamy broth. The first time I tasted it, I was taken by the way the preparation coaxes heartiness and complexity from little more than fish, cream, and some aromatics. This, Vilhjálms says, is the Icelandic cook’s calling card: the ability to make do when resources are few. For much of the country’s isolated history, those resources were primarily dairy and marine proteins. “If we’re talking about historical Icelandic food, it’s not just that fish was an important part of it,”…

Burr coffee grinders are the gold standard in the coffee industry. Their pepper mill–like, grooved burrs spin to transform whole beans into smaller particles. Burr grinders can repeatedly produce evenly ground coffee, ensuring consistency in your cup of joe. Another advantage is that they are customizable. With settings from fine to coarse, burr grinders allow coffee hobbyists to easily switch from coarse grinds for cold-brew coffee to superfine grinds for an espresso. To find the best burr grinder, we ground 110 pounds of light, medium, and dark roast coffee beans to various finenesses. Generally, a single batch of coffee grounds can be categorized into three sizes: medium pieces, larger “boulders,” and smaller “fines.” The higher percentage of the medium pieces, the better. Fines can release bitterness, while boulders take longer…

Turn Your Stainless-Steel Skillet Nonstick with Cooking Spray Many of us keep a cooking oil spray that contains lecithin—such as PAM—around for coating bakeware, and some even use it to minimize fat when sautéing. And when used in the right way, we found that it can even make your traditional stainless skillet function like nonstick when cooking delicate foods such as eggs. We tested spraying PAM liberally over the bottom and sides of stainless-steel skillets and then frying eggs, searing chicken breasts, and cooking pancakes over medium heat (with a few stints over higher heat). The spray worked like a dream to keep the food from sticking: Eggs slid around freely, chicken breasts released easily, and we were able to cook four batches of pancakes without reapplying the spray. In…

My favorite antidote to blustery winter weather is pasta—homemade pasta, if possible, and if it’s creamy and cheesy, even better. That’s why I was drawn to nidi di rondine, a baked pasta dish from the tiny, mountainous republic of San Marino. To make it, Sammarinese cooks spread thin sheets of fresh pasta with besciamella (Italy’s béchamel sauce) and top them with Alpine-style cheese; thin, savory slices of prosciutto cotto; and sometimes mushrooms before rolling them up in a spiral (it’s from this distinct shape that the dish takes its name: “nidi di rondine” translates to “swallows’ nests”). They slice the rolls, stand the pieces on their ends in a pan of more besciamella, and bake. In the oven, the cheese melts, and the meatiness of the ham (and earthiness of…

Sugar is sweet, but it’s more than just a sweetener. It balances savory and bitter flavors, adds structure to baked goods, and promotes browning in everything from pie crusts to steaks. In the United States, Domino is by far the most well-known brand on the market. It’s what we stock in the test kitchen and what most people buy to bake with at home if they’re not buying a store brand. With such a commodity ingredient, dominated by a single brand, does it even matter what you buy? Terms such as “raw,” “organic,” “pure,” and “cane” are common on sugar packaging, but what do they mean? We’re here to break it all down and investigate. Some Sugar History Sugarcane is one the world’s main sources of granulated sugar. It’s a…

Per Italian cooking legend Marcella Hazan, radicchio is “the most magnificent vegetable.” The many varieties of this fall and winter chicory are leafy, bitter, and beautiful. Most ubiquitous is ROSSO DI CHIOGGIA—in the Northern Italian town that gives this type its name, some cooks blanch and chop the leaves and bake them into a sweet cake called torta diradicchio. The Veneto region’s VARIEGATO DI LUSIA is a ball-shaped variety like di Chioggia, but with butteryellow leaves flecked with red. Petite heads of ROSA DEL VENETO start off as entirely green but develop brilliant pink hearts when colder temperatures set in. Tall, thin heads of the VIRTUS type boast moderate bitterness that serves as an excellent foil to sweet, aged balsamic vinegar; salty anchovies; or creamy Gorgonzola. Like many types…