The Cook's Bible: The Best of American Home Cooking - Hardcover

Kimball, Christopher

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0316493716 ISBN 13: 9780316493710

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company, 1996

Synopsis

The Cook's Bible takes the mystery out of preparing a great meal. What's the ideal ratio of oil to vinegar in a vinaigrette? Kimball gives you the answer: 4 1/2 to 1. What's the secret to perfect roast chicken? A 375(degree) oven and a 170(degree) internal temperature for the thigh. How about the toughest kitchen challenge of all, piecrust? Kimball makes it easy with the right ingredients (including Crisco and butter) and illustrated step-by-step instructions. For these and the rest of America's best-loved dishes - vegetable soup, poached salmon, roast beef, barbecued ribs, homemade pizza, waffles, chocolate chip cookies, and many others - Kimball has tested and retested to deliver the definitive recipes. In addition to these master recipes, Kimball also serves up a generous helping of appealing variations - nearly 450 recipes in all. Throughout, Kimball elucidates kitchen procedures - butterflying a chicken, for instance, or dicing an onion - with more than 250 beautifully rendered step-by-step illustrations. And he also provides lucid guidance on what kitchen equipment you need and what you can live without - a microwave oven is optional, but good knives are essential - including brand names, model numbers, and prices. From recipes to techniques to equipment, here is a one-volume master class in American home cookery, a cooking school in print for beginners and experienced cooks alike.

About this title

About the Author:

Chris Kimball founded Cook's Magazine in 1980; it has grown to a paid circulation of 1,000,000. He hosts America's Test Kitchen and Cook's Country, which are the top-rated cooking shows on public television, reaching 2 million viewers per week in over 94% of American households. Kimball is a regular contributor to both the Today Show and the CBS Early Show. He has been written up in most major newspapers, many national magazines, including The New Yorker and Time, and regularly contributes to NPR's Morning Edition, including doing a regular Thanksgiving segment. He will also host a public radio show on cooking starting in the fall of 2010.

From Publishers Weekly:

What Gideon is to the hotel room, Kimball will soon be to the kitchen: inspirational, informative and probably ubiquitous. In this compendium of facts and firm opinions, the founding editor of Cook's Illustrated magazine details the research that informs his positions on the best pots, thermometers and knives and the value of pasta machines, microwaves and ice-cream makers. This evaluative approach extends to the 400 intensively tested recipes that advocate preferred methods for cooking rice, grains, fish, meat, poultry, sweets and more. Kimball dispels many widely held misconceptions as he asserts that an overnight soaking of dried beans is "vastly preferable" to a quick-soak and that a tightly trussed bird will roast unevenly. It took 33 tries in Kimball's count before he achieved the perfect pie crust; following his progress is like solving a delicious mystery. Some bread bakers may question the author's praise for rapid-rise yeast and his declaration that saltless bread is "inedible" (thereby dismissing a tradition of Tuscan bread-making), but these are quibbles about a highly personal book that tells not only how to prepare specific foods but why. For many, Kimball, who comes across as a purist's Martha Stewart, will be the ultimate source for such kitchen basics as the best method for roasting beef (a speedy 400 degrees for tenderloin; a more leisurely bout at 250 for tough bottom round). Kimball's experiments demonstrate that even experienced cooks don't know all the answers, although everyone will know more after reading this impressive compilation. 200 halftone illustrations not seen by PW. 40,000 first printing; BOMC/Good Cook selection; author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0316493716
• ISBN 13: 9780316493710
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 464