The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science

by J. Kenji López-Alt

Book Overview

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 L?pez-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.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393081087
• ISBN13: 9780393081084
• Release Date: September 2015
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 960 Pages
• Weight: 6.27 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.8" x 8.8" x 10.8"

Customer Reviews

Love, love, love!!

I cook things just to replicate the experiments that Kenji writes about. As someone that loves to improvise in the kitchen, this book as added many tools and ideas to make my cooking more fun, so much yummier, and added a lot of confidence. Buy for yourself, as a present to any cook you know, and I bet you’ll be writing a review and recommending it to everyone else as well.

The Food Lab is a great cookbook that explains the science behind cooking

Great recipes that are guaranteed to work. Best pulled pork ever. I highly recommend for cooks that want to know why a recipe works and why it doesn't.