The Best Kitchen Quick Tips: 534 Tricks, Techniques, and Shortcuts for the Curious Cook

But what is a quick tip? For the editors of Cook's Illustrated it's an easier way of performing a kitchen task that either saves time or money or improves the quality of the outcome. The tip may call for an odd appliance such as a hair dryer (for smoothing chocolate frosting) or a surprising ingredient such as miniature marshmallows (placed on the ends of toothpicks to hold plastic wrap above an iced cake). You will find practical tricks for peeling tomatoes, chopping garlic, knowing when your steamer is out of water (add marbles to the bottom of the pot) and toasting pine nuts (use a popcorn popper). Arranged alphabetically it takes you through softening Almond Paste to drying Wine Glasses on chopsticks.

Founded in 1980, Cook's Illustrated has emerged as 'America's Test Kitchen', renowned for its near obsessive dedication to finding the best methods of home cooking. The editors of Cook's Illustrated are also the authors of the range of best-selling cookbooks and they present America's Test Kitchen cooking show on public broadcast TV. The show features editors, test cooks, equipment testers and food tasters and has its own web site www americastestkitchen.com