The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science

Description

The New York Times bestselling winner of the 2016 James Beard Award for General Cooking and the IACP Cookbook of the Year Award.

A grand tour of the science of cooking explored through popular American dishes, illustrated in full color.

Ever wondered how to pan-fry a steak with a charred crust and an interior that’s perfectly medium-rare from edge to edge when you cut into it? How to make homemade mac ‘n’ cheese that is as satisfyingly gooey and velvety-smooth as the blue box stuff, but far tastier? How to roast a succulent, moist turkey (forget about brining!)―and use a foolproof method that works every time?

As Serious Eats’s culinary nerd-in-residence, J. Kenji López-Alt has pondered all these questions and more. In The Food Lab, Kenji focuses on the science behind beloved American dishes, delving into the interactions between heat, energy, and molecules that create great food. Kenji shows that often, conventional methods don’t work that well, and home cooks can achieve far better results using new―but simple―techniques. In hundreds of easy-to-make recipes with over 1,000 full-color images, you will find out how to make foolproof Hollandaise sauce in just two minutes, how to transform one simple tomato sauce into a half dozen dishes, how to make the crispiest, creamiest potato casserole ever conceived, and much more.

Over 1000 color photographs

Review

“The one book you must have, no matter what you’re planning to cook or where your skill level falls.” (Cree Lefavour – New York Times Book Review)

“You need The Food Lab, as J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s magnum opus is 2015’s most indispensable cookbook.” (Kevin Pang – The Chicago Tribune)

“I love The Food Lab.” (Yotam Ottolenghi – BBC Good Food Magazine)

“The ultimate book for science nerds who cook.” (Joanna Pearlstein – Wired)

“Loaded with fascinating information…. López-Alt gives you enough science for the explanations to make sense, but everything is still firmly rooted in practical home cooking.” (Russ Parsons – Los Angeles Times)

“Five years in the making, [The Food Lab is] a culmination of the wunderkind’s unlikely ascent into a cultish figure―and the face of a new kind of home cooking.” (Tara Duggan – San Francisco Chronicle)

“An authoritative, instant-classic reference book that’s also an engaging read.” (Rebekah Denn – Seattle Times)

“[Kenji] approaches recipe development with monomaniacal zeal, then shares the delicious results with the infectious enthusiasm of the coolest teacher you had in high school.” (Eric Vellend – The Globe and Mail)

“The Food Lab is a keeper.” (Chris Kimball – Wall Street Journal)

About the Author

J. Kenji López-Alt is the managing culinary director of SeriousEats.com, author of the James Beard Award–nominated column The Food Lab, and a columnist for Cooking Light. He lives in San Mateo with his wife Adriana.