We rather enjoy cooking. I like to turn on some music, then chop, prep, and saute until I zone out and burn myself with molten sugar. It's fun to do rather gross things like dice up the tiny bodies of delicious, salty anchovies, and discover things like salt pork and dark sesame oil. One of my favorite sources for recipes is anything from America's Test Kitchen. We get Cook's Illustrated magazine bimonthly, and I have several cookbooks published by them, including 30 Minute Meals and a fantastic slow-cooker book. The recipes are often detailed, seemingly complicated, and heavy on technique. We have never been disappointed by a recipe (yet). As weeknights tend to be far too busy to create complicated meals, we decided to pick recipes on the weekend that we've been wanting to try, and catalog our efforts.
Why I really love these recipes is because of the science behind the cooking. All cooking is chemistry, but America's Test Kitchen takes it to a new level. They will take 5 different types of potato and determine which one will hold up in a stew the best. They will take unusual ingredients to solve a common cooking dilemma, cook something 10 different times, temperatures, and techniques to achieve the most optimal result. The story behind each recipe is critical to proper execution of the dish, and it is the recounting of the experiments and testing that appeal to my scientific brain. I have many a post-it note in my cookbooks and magazines, and several recipes already achieved, so stay tuned for future adventures in cooking-meets-chemistry. Should be exciting!
No comments:
Post a Comment