Keys to Good Cooking: A Guide to Making the Best of Foods and Recipes

The answers to many kitchen conundrums in one easy-to-use volume, from the author of the acclaimed culinary bible "On Food and Cooking. "
From our foremost expert on the science of cooking, Harold McGee, "Keys to Good Cooking" is a concise and authoritative guide designed to help home cooks navigate the ever-expanding universe of ingredients, recipes, food safety, and appliances, and arrive at the promised land of a satisfying dish.
A work of astounding scholarship and originality, "Keys to Good Cooking" directly addresses the cook at work in the kitchen and in need of quick and reliable guidance. Cookbooks past and present frequently contradict one another about the best ways to prepare foods, and many contain erroneous information and advice.
"Keys to Good Cooking" distills the modern scientific understanding of cooking and translates it into immediately useful information. Looking at ingredients from the mundane to the exotic, McGee takes you from market to table, teaching, for example, how to spot the most delectable asparagus (choose thick spears); how to best prepare the vegetable (peel, don't snap, the fibrous ends; broiling is one effective cooking method for asparagus and other flat-lying vegetables); and how to present it (coat with butter or oil after cooking to avoid a wrinkled surface). This book will be a requisite countertop resource for all home chefs, as McGee's insights on kitchen safety in particular-"reboil refrigerated meat or fish stocks every few days. (They're so perishable that they can spoil even in the refrigerator.); Don't put ice cubes or frozen gel packs on a burn. (Extreme cold can cause additional skin damage")-will save even the most knowledgeable home chefs from culinary disaster.
A companion volume to recipe books, a touchstone that helps cooks spot flawed recipes and make the best of them, "Keys to Good Cooking" will be of use to cooks of all kinds: to beginners who want to learn the basics, to weekend cooks who want a quick refresher in the basics, and to accomplished cooks who want to rethink a dish from the bottom up. With "Keys to Good Cooking" McGee has created an essential guide for food lovers everywhere. (Check Catalog)

The Sunset Cookbook: Over 1,000 Fresh, Flavorful Recipes for the Way You Cook Today

The Sunset Cookbook is the first masterwork collection of recipes selected from the extensive archives of Sunset magazine. With over 1,000 recipes from the more than 110 years of the magazine's history, this book represents the best of American cooking, both its traditional cookery and its culinary inventiveness. Fueled by local ingredients, the creativity of its cooks, and diverse ethnic influences, from Native American to Mexican to Polynesian to Asian, American cooking has come into its own, and Sunset has been there from the beginning.The Sunset Cookbook covers everything from appetizers to preserves and pickles as well as Sunset's unique approach to fresh eating, which can be found in dishes like vegetarian main courses-such as stews, salads, pastas, stir-fries, and casseroles. Included are more than 100 recipes for the grill, like Grilled Oysters with Chipotle Glaze, Hoppin' Wine-Smoked Turkey, and classic Santa Maria Barbecue, made with beef tri-tip; recipes based on fresh local ingredients such as Pan-fried Trout with Smoked Salmon, Baby Artichoke Antipasto, Soy Mustard-Glazed Buffalo; and favorite dishes that found their start in the West such as Cedar-Planked Salmon, Baja Fish Tacos, and Baked Chiles Rellenos, just to name a few. Long-awaited by Sunset readers and packed with signature recipes, The Sunset Cookbook is sure to take its place among the classics and appeal to the new generation of home cooks across the country who have grown up on fresh flavors that are the hallmark of new American cooking. (Check Catalog)

Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day: Fast and Easy Recipes for World-Class Breads

"Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day" distills the renowned baking instructor' s professional techniques down to the basics, delivering artisan bread recipes that anyone with flour and a fridge can make and bake with ease.
Reinhart begins with the simplest French bread, then moves on to familiar classics such as ciabatta, pizza dough, and soft sandwich loaves, and concludes with fresh specialty items like pretzels, crackers, croissants, and bagels. Each recipe is broken into "Do Ahead" and "On Baking Day" sections, making every step--from preparation through pulling pans from the oven-a breeze, whether you bought your loaf pan yesterday or decades ago. These doughs are engineered to work flawlessly for busy home bakers: most require only a straightforward mixing and overnight fermentation. The result is reliably superior flavor and texture on par with loaves from world-class artisan bakeries-and all with little hands-on time.
America's favorite baking instructor and innovator Peter Reinhart offers new time-saving techniques accompanied by full-color, step-by-step photos throughout so that in no time you'll be producing fresh batches of: Sourdough Baguettes - 50% and 100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Loaves - Soft and Crusty Cheese Bread - English Muffins - Cinnamon Buns - Panettone - Hoagie Rolls - Chocolate Cinnamon Babka - Fruit-Filled Thumbprint Rolls - Danish - Best-Ever Biscuits
Best of all, these high-caliber doughs improve with a longer stay in the fridge, so you can mix once, then portion, proof, and bake whenever you feel like enjoying a piping hot treat. (Check Catalog)

Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-In-Your-Mouth Cookies

Medrich presents a compendium of exciting and enticing cookie recipes that reflects every aspect of our widening culinary landscape. Whole-grain flours as well as wheat-free alternatives are becoming more and more prevalent, and people are more often exposed and open to exotic spices and unique flavor combinations. Nibby buckwheat butter cookies, golden kamut shortbread, honey hemp bars, and whole wheat biscotti showcase whole-grain flours, while wheat-free versions of rugelach, toffee bars, butter cookies, and caramel cheesecake bars (just to scratch the surface) aim to please an increasing number of gluten-intolerant dessert lovers. There's a good chunk of dairy-free cookies as well as lower-fat versions (two Weight Watchers points, to be exact). Comfortingly, there are also homey recipes for classic peanut butter cookies, cakey brownies, and rocky road bars. Flavor combos are intriguing, as in the wheat-free grapefruit and basil butter cookies, aniseed and almond shortbread, and nutty cocoa cookie bark with Parmesan and sea salt. The recipes are organized by texture, hence the title, but there's also a section grouping cookies into categories like those containing whole grains, those that keep at least two weeks, ridiculously quick and easy cookies, and cookies to make with kids. This book has redesigned and reframed the often-overlooked cookie and is a boon to the modern, conscious baker. (Check Catalog)