I have been waiting for this book to come out and it exceeds my expectations! "The Food Lab" by Lopez-Alt is a dense collection of science based tips, explanations, techniques, and recipes for the home cook. This is a must have reference and cookbook for home cooking enthusiasts.
I really like the way this book has been laid out:
- The introduction is a modest overview of the author and his background followed by some really helpful information on equipment (such as an explanation on techniques for holding knives, how heat transfers through metal for consideration in what type of pan to use, essential equipment to have in your kitchen, and how to store and organize your fridge and pantry).
- Recipes in subsequent chapters are divided by meal type. Technique tips and explanations are dispersed through the recipes in every chapter.
* The breakfast chapter is lengthy and starts with explaining eggs - their composition and properties related to how they change when they cook, whether brown eggs are healthier than white eggs, how to hard or soft boil an egg,... and much more.There is a great range of recipes including numerous egg dishes, bacon, pancakes, biscuits, and hot chocolate.
* Soups and Stews has an in depth explanation of stock followed by recipes including black bean soup, tomato soup with grilled cheese, chicken, and dumplings, chili, and French onion soup.
* Meat recipes characterized by how to "Fast Cook" in 30 minutes or less for a variety of steak, pork chops, chicken, and fish recipes.
* Cooked Vegetables has a great range of side dishes such as Brussels sprouts, Mexican street corn salad, roasted cauliflower, mashed potatoes, glazed carrots, and quite a few more recipes.
* The Ground Meat chapter explains not only how to grind your own meat, but how to season it as well as recipes for making and cooking sausage, meat loaf, and burgers.
* There is a Roasts chapter for poultry, lamb, and pork. There is a ton of great instructions and tips in this chapter that could be used for making a Thanksgiving meal (with recipes of course as well).
* The Pasta chapter covers details around boiling pasta and how he tested different techniques to determine the best way to cook pasta. Recipes in this chapter include mac 'n' cheese, risotto, linguine with clams, lasagna, and spaghetti.
* The Salad chapter emphasizes picking the right types of greens, the complimenting salad dressing tastes, and accompanying textures to add to make a perfect salad. This chapter has recipes such as tomato and mozzarella salad, iceberg wedge, beet and goat cheese salad, potato salads, and coleslaw.
* The final Frying chapter covers types of oil to fry with and different types of vessels to fry in. Recipes included here are French fries, chicken, fish, and onion rings.
- The front and back book covers insides have conversion tables to be opened or flipped to quickly as a reference.
This book is over 900 pages and has a ton of photos both for techniques and presentations. The author's tone is filled with humor and is not pretentious. The explanations are really clear and educational.
I will be updating this review further as I make recipes within the cookbook. I recommend this book to all experience levels of cooks as well as science-minded people.
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