The Kitchen Detective: A Culinary Sleuth Solves Common Cooking Mysteries with 125 Foolproof Recipes

Christopher Kimball

ISBN 10: 0936184701 / ISBN 13: 9780936184708

Published by Cook's Illustrated, 2003

About this Item

A culinary sleuth solves common cooking mysteries with 150 foolproof recipes - thoroughly tested solutions that explain why recipes work and don't work. Christopher Kimball, America's premier culinary sleuth and the founder and editor of Cook's Illustrated magazine is the author of a popular newspaper column entitled 'The Kitchen Detective'. The Kitchen Detective is an attempt to get under the skin of popular recipes to understand how and why they work (or don't work) and how to make them reasonably foolproof. It is also full of opinions and odd facts. Did you know that your oven, that miracle of modern engineering, is remarkably imprecise? Do you think searing meat seals in its juices? Well it doesn't. This is a book for anyone who is tired of being told what to do in the kitchen without being told why.

Seller Inventory # CIN0936184701VG

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Kitchen Detective: A Culinary Sleuth Solves Common Cooking Mysteries with 125 Foolproof Recipes
• Publisher: Cook's Illustrated
• Publication Date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0936184701
• ISBN 13: 9780936184708
• Binding: Hardback
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

Provides 150 recipes for soups, stews, vegetables, salads, main dishes, and desserts along with information on cooking techniques and recipe variations.

Reviews

Kimball, founder and editor of Cook's Illustrated Magazine, supplies his usual informative and detailed findings to help home cooks solve cooking dilemmas associated with many popular dishes. Following the style used by the Cook's Illustrated team, and defining what he considers the necessary essence of the finished dish, he takes readers on a journey of discovery through the methods, variations and experiments to the resulting finished recipe. While such detailed accounts may not be for everyone, they provide an interesting insight to the whys of the finished dish. Along the way Kimball covers the techniques needed to cook well, from searing, as with Quick and Easy Steak au Poivre, to high-roasting, which is used to great effect in the Beet and Goat Cheese Salad with Raspberry Vinegar, to measuring flour for baking. Interspersed are panels of fascinating hints, forthright opinions and tidbits culled from his extensive knowledge on, for example, the equivalents of salt or the use of just a sprig of thyme, whereby he likens employing one sprig to "adding a can of coke to a swimming pool." Running the gamut from starters to dessert, the selection of recipes chosen reflects Kimball's eclectic tastes to provide a very personal collection that will appeal to those who like to know the why as well as the what.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.