Keys to Good Cooking
A Guide to Making the Best of Foods and Recipes
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- $29.99
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- $29.99
Publisher Description
There’s no shortage of recipes available today and Keys to Good Cooking will help you make the most of them by telling you what works, and why. Written by award-winner Harold McGee, this book acts as a companion to your recipe books, providing answers to all your kitchen questions – why should I fry-off beef before making a casserole? How do I prevent my sauce from separating? How can I be sure my eggs are fresh? Easy-to-use and authoritative, Keys to Good Cooking is a guide to the techniques, ingredients and gadgets with which you turn recipes into delicious meals. Praise for Harold McGee On Food and Cooking : “One of the greatest cookery books ever written.” Heston Blumenthal “A goldmine of information about every ingredient and cooking process, answering all the questions you will ever have about food. Without a single ‘recipe’ in it, I think it’s one of the most important food books ever written.” Jamie Oliver “One of the most important books ever written about food, and one of the most enjoyable... McGee has become a godfather figure for all right-thinking chefs and food-writers” Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
No matter how creative the chef, every great dish relies on proven science, and this compendium of well-researched data is a textbook for proper food preparation. Curious Cook columnist for the New York Times and author (On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen), McGee will banish any romantic notions about cooking with his fast-draw expertise. Keys is a companion guide designed to be used in conjunction with cookbooks. With chapters devoted to Kitchen Tools, Heat and Heating Appliances, and Cooking Methods, McGee's 101 approach takes nothing for granted, but will surprise readers with lesser known insights, such as that salted water reduces the loss of flavorful and nutritious substances during boiling and that foil should not be used to wrap acidic foods or nonaluminum metal pans. McGee breaks down methods with basic tips in pan-frying, for instance, warming meats to room temperature and drying food surfaces ahead are important factors for success that are often left out of recipes. Descriptions of foods from common fruits to cultured dairy products and seed legumes are detailed but not trivially so, with McGee summarizing the safe handling, purchase and storage, preparation, and basic characteristics. With an eminently pragmatic approach to cooking and a user-friendly pr cis of a lifetime's devotion to the kitchen, this is an invaluable addition to food literature.
