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the Science of Good Cooking Master 50 Simple Concepts to Enjoy a Lifetime of Success in the Kitchen Cooks Illustrated Cookbooks

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Copyright © 2012 by the Editors at America’s Test Kitchen


America’s Test Kitchen

17 Station Street, Brookline, MA 02445

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The science of good cooking : master 50 simple concepts to enjoy a lifetime of success in the kitchen/ the editors at America’s Test Kitchen and Guy Crosby ; illustrations by Michael Newhouse and John Burgoyne.

p. cm.

Includes index.

Kindle ISBN: 978-1-936493-45-6

1. Cooking. 2. Food. I. Crosby, Guy. II. America’s Test Kitchen (Firm)

TX651.S375 2012



Hardcover: $40 US

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Distributed by America’s Test Kitchen

17 Station Street, Brookline, MA 02445



PROJECT EDITOR: Molly Birnbaum




ASSOCIATE ART DIRECTORS: Erica Lee, Matthew Warnick

DESIGNERS: Taylor Argenzio, Sarah Horwitch Dailey



PHOTOGRAPHY: Daniel J. Van Ackere







COPY EDITOR: Cheryl Redmond


SCIENCE PROOFREADER: Joanne Curran-Celentano, PhD

INDEXER: Elizabeth Parson


Preface By Christopher Kimball

Welcome to America’s Test Kitchen

Navigating This E-book


The Science of Measuring

The Science of Time and Temperature

The Science of Heat and Cold

The Science of the Senses

The Science of Tools and Ingredi; ents

Recipe Table of Contents

CONCEPT 1: Gentle Heat Prevents Overcooking

CONCEPT 2: High Heat Develops Flavor

CONCEPT 3: Resting Meat Maximizes Juiciness

CONCEPT 4: Hot Food Keeps Cooking

CONCEPT 5: Some Proteins Are Best Cooked Twice

CONCEPT 6: Slow Heating Makes Meat Tender

CONCEPT 7: Cook Tough Cuts Beyond Well-Done

CONCEPT 8: Tough Cuts Like a Covered Pot

CONCEPT 9: A Covered Pot Doesn’t Need Liquid

CONCEPT 10: Bones Add Flavor, Fat, and Juiciness

CONCEPT 11: Brining Maximizes Juiciness in Lean Meats

CONCEPT 12: Salt Makes Meat Juicy and Skin Crisp

CONCEPT 13: Salty Marinades Work Best

CONCEPT 14: Grind Meat at Home for Tender Burgers

CONCEPT 15: A Panade Keeps Ground Meat Tender

CONCEPT 16: Create Layers for a Breading That Sticks

CONCEPT 17: Good Frying Is All About Oil Temperature

CONCEPT 18: Fat Makes Eggs Tender

CONCEPT 19: Gentle Heat Guarantees Smooth Custards

CONCEPT 20: Starch Keeps Eggs from Curdling

CONCEPT 21: Whipped Egg Whites Need Stabilizers

CONCEPT 22: Starch Helps Cheese Melt Nicely

CONCEPT 23: Salting Vegetables Removes Liquid

CONCEPT 24: Green Vegetables Like It Hot—Then Cold

CONCEPT 25: All Potatoes Are Not Created Equal

CONCEPT 26: Potato Starches Can Be Controlled

CONCEPT 27: Precooking Makes Vegetables Firmer

CONCEPT 28: Don’t Soak Beans—Brine ’Em

CONCEPT 29: Baking Soda Makes Beans and Grains Soft

CONCEPT 30: Rinsing (Not Soaking) Makes Rice Fluffy

CONCEPT 31: Slicing Changes Garlic and Onion Flavor

CONCEPT 32: Chile Heat Resides in Pith and Seeds

CONCEPT 33: Bloom Spices to Boost Their Flavor

CONCEPT 34: Not All Herbs Are for Cooking

CONCEPT 35: Glutamates, Nucleotides Add Meaty Flavor

CONCEPT 36: Emulsifiers Make Smooth Sauces

CONCEPT 37: Speed Evaporation When Cooking Wine

CONCEPT 38: More Water Makes Chewier Bread

CONCEPT 39: Rest Dough to Trim Kneading Time

CONCEPT 40: Time Builds Flavor in Bread

CONCEPT 41: Gentle Folding Stops Tough Quick Breads

CONCEPT 42: Two Leaveners Are Often Better than One

CONCEPT 43: Layers of Butter Make Flaky Pastry

CONCEPT 44: Vodka Makes Pie Dough Easy

CONCEPT 45: Less Protein Makes Tender Cakes, Cookies

CONCEPT 46: Creaming Butter Helps Cakes Rise

CONCEPT 47: Reverse Cream for Delicate Cakes

CONCEPT 48: Sugar Changes Texture (and Sweetness)

CONCEPT 49: Sugar and Time Make Fruit Juicier

CONCEPT 50: Cocoa Powder Delivers Big Flavor

Equipping Your Kitchen

Cookware Materials

What About Nonstick Pans?

Knife Basics

Emergency Ingredient Substitutions

Food Safety

Conversions and Equivalents

Further Reading



Despite the saying about the cat, curiosity is what sets humans apart from other mammals. A hundred years ago, most cooks were working with a limited repertoire of recipes and ingredients, and they had plenty of first-hand experience to make those recipes work. Now we stand at the beginning of a new century, many of us keenly interested in the culinary arts, but without the years of practical experience that it takes to become a great cook.

What’s the solution to this modern quandary? The answer reminds me a bit of my favorite physicist, Lawrence Krauss, who spends his time pondering the mysteries of the universe. In order to understand the cosmos and our place in it, he says, one has to ask how and why. Once the questions have been asked, we can conceive of experiments to prove or disprove our theorems.

All of that sounds rather familiar to everyone who works at America’s Test Kitchen. We start every day by asking questions. Do bones add flavor to meat during cooking? What causes ice cream to turn icy in the freezer? Then we construct kitchen experiments to answer those questions in a manner that helps us, as home cooks, to produce more foolproof recipes, and better food.

To test our theory about the benefits of adding small pieces of frozen butter to eggs, we put 2-pound fishing weights on top of omelets. (The more tender omelet could not hold the weight.) To gauge the benefits of letting cooked meat rest, we sliced one roast as soon as it came out of the oven and measured 10 tablespoons of lost liquid; when we waited just 10 minutes to slice a second roast, the liquid lost was reduced to just 4 tablespoons. And does mixing method really matter when making brownies? We tested stirring gently (with some streaks of flour remaining), then stirred a second batch until all streaks were incorporated, and then finished with a third batch that was well mixed in a standing mixer. The brownies made with the lightest touch were perfect; the others were unpleasantly tough.

All of this is fun and interesting, but our real goal is to make you a better home cook. Understanding the difference between amylose and amylopectin (two types of starches) is of little use to cooks unless this information can be used to produce better mashed potatoes. (It can and does.) And understanding how heat is transferred from the outside of a roast to the inside is useful since it explains why a low oven is best when cooking large pieces of meat. (The outside won’t overcook by the time the inside is done.)

This reminds me, of course, of the story of the Vermont storekeeper who was asked if he would have a particularly popular item back in stock before long.

“Nope,” the old-timer replied.

“Why not?” the customer wanted to know.

“Moves too darn fast!”

That inexplicable logic is often like the science of cooking. At first it doesn’t seem to make much sense but then, after a bit of thought, things come into focus. When you understand the language of science, cooking becomes clearer and you naturally make better choices in the kitchen. The next time you make pie dough, you might naturally replace half of the water with vodka. (It makes a more pliable dough that bakes up flaky.) Or you will know to brine beans or macerate sliced fruit.

Please enjoy this book. You will find the answers to most of your cooking questions, especially when it comes to “why”—the most important question of all.

Christopher Kimball

Founder and Publisher

America’s Test Kitchen





You can watch us work (in our actual test kitchen) by tuning in to America’s Test Kitchen (AmericasTestKitchen.com) or Cook’s Country from America’s Test Kitchen (CooksCountryTV.com) on public television, or by subscribing to Cook’s Illustrated magazine (CooksIllustrated.com) or Cook’s Country magazine (CooksCountry.com), which are each published every other month. We welcome you into our kitchen, where you can stand by our side as we test our way to the best recipes in America.






What separates success from failure in the kitchen? It’s the ability to think on your feet, to make adjustments as you cook. And, despite what you might think, a lifetime of experience isn’t a prerequisite for being a good cook (although it does help).

Knowledge, however, is essential. The successful home cook understands the fundamental principles of good cooking and is able to apply them on the fly, almost without thinking.

But what are these principles and how do you learn them? At America’s Test Kitchen we have spent 20 years investigating how cooking works—and why recipes sometimes don’t. We’ve learned that without solid technique, good cooking is impossible.

Sure, there’s artistry involved (the combination of ingredients, the presentation of the dish), but good cooking starts with good science. You must understand the basics—like the fact that gentle heat preserves moisture in meat, or salty marinades produce more tender meat than acidic marinades—before you get to the art.

So how do you learn these core cooking principles—and the simple science upon which they are based? Lots of practice is one way. The observant cook will absorb and accumulate lifelong lessons in the kitchen and come to rely, probably unconsciously, on these principles at work.

But there’s another way. Why not make a conscious effort to master these principles? Understanding the science that leads to success or failure in the kitchen is much simpler than you think. Trust us.

The Science of Good Cooking covers the 50 fundamental concepts that we think every good cook should know. We explain the science in simple, practical terms, so you really understand how these principles work and how you can apply them as you cook. Think of this book as an owner’s manual for your kitchen.

We suggest you start by reading the following pages devoted to basic kitchen science before diving into the rest of the book. Make sure to consult the information about equipment, ingredients, and food safety in the Appendix, too.

One final word of advice: Be inquisitive in the kitchen. Think about what you’re doing and why. That is the most important lesson science can teach anyone who wants to become a better cook.



The science of cooking has come a long way in the past century, in part because measuring has become much more standardized and accurate. Until about 100 years ago, most recipes didn’t call for specific measures. Even when they did, this information was only moderately helpful because home cooks did not own standardized measuring cups.

In colonial America, a recipe that called for 2 cups of flour assumed the cook would have a cup she used for measuring, but there was no guarantee that the cup used in Thomas Jefferson’s kitchen held the same amount of flour as the cup used in George Washington’s kitchen. It wasn’t until the late 19th century that companies started to manufacture the type of standardized measuring cups and spoons we now take for granted.

So how did cooks get along without standardized measures? You might imagine that cooking before the advent of standardized measures was unreliable, but it wasn’t. That’s because the skill level of the home cook was quite high and the range of recipes prepared was quite narrow. Cooking was a specialized task, much like needlepoint or carpentry. It wasn’t something you learned by reading a book. You learned from watching someone else (usually your mother). In addition, cooking was highly repetitive. You mastered a small set of recipes that relied on local ingredients and local traditions, and you made those same recipes over and over and over.

The publication of The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, written in 1896 by Fannie Merritt Farmer (yes, that Fannie Farmer), marked a watershed moment in American cooking. Recipes in this best-selling book called for standardized measurements and future recipe writers followed suit. In the introduction, Fannie Farmer exhorted her readers to purchase true measuring cups: “Correct measurements are absolutely necessary to insure the best results. Good judgment, with experience, has taught some to measure by sight; but the majority need definite guides.”

Fannie Farmer was a true believer in the power of science to improve home cooking. What she didn’t see coming was the decline in experience that would make measurement by sight all but impossible for 99 percent of home cooks today. In addition, the explosion of recipe choices has meant that even experienced cooks find themselves preparing new recipes all the time. We source ingredients and recipes from around the world. For this model to work, accurate measurement is essential. How else would the modern American cook be able to make dishes as diverse as curries, stir-fries, tamales, and tiramisù?


It’s easy to understand that measuring matters, but many modern cooks don’t comprehend that how they measure is just as important as the act of measuring itself. What’s the point of measuring if you don’t measure correctly?

Now, you might be thinking that it can’t be that hard to measure, especially if you’re using standardized measuring cups. But we ran the following experiment in the test kitchen to prove otherwise. We asked 18 cooks, all professionally trained, to measure 1 cup of flour using the same standardized measuring cup. We then weighed the flour they measured to see how much flour was in their “1 cup.” Because of variations in measuring techniques, the weights of flour they obtained varied by 13 percent.

What makes this especially surprising is the fact that everyone in our test kitchen uses the same method for measuring flour. We dip the measuring cup into a container of flour and then sweep off the excess with a butter knife or icing spatula. (This method is known as the dip-and-sweep method.) If you measure flour by spooning the flour into a measuring cup, a technique that aerates the flour as you go, you might end up with 20 to 25 percent less flour.

So why would 18 cooks all using the same method for measuring flour get different results? We realized that how each person dips the cup into the flour affects the amount of flour that fits within. A forceful dip packs more flour into the cup than a gentle one.


Recipes written for home cooks rely on volume (teaspoons, tablespoons, cups) for measurement. Recipes written for professionals generally list ingredients by weight. That’s because weight involves no chance for operator error. Assuming the scale has been properly calibrated, 8 ounces of flour is 8 ounces of flour no matter how the flour is handled.

For this reason, we generally supply weights for key ingredients when we write our recipes. We always specify the weight of meat because the cooking time for a 12-ounce pork chop is different from the cooking time for an 8-ounce pork chop. Likewise, we list weights for fruits and vegetables when they are used in large quantity. Calling for 2 pounds of russet potatoes in a mashed potato recipe is much more accurate than calling for four russet potatoes, which can weigh as little as 7 ounces each (1¾ pounds total) or as much as 10 ounces each (2½ pounds total).

Weight is especially important when baking, which is why our recipes include both volume and weight measures for key baking ingredients, as does the chart below.


Ingredient: 1 cup all-purpose flour

Ounces: 5

Grams: 142

Ingredient: 1 cup cake flour

Ounces: 4

Grams: 113

Ingredient: 1 cup whole-wheat flour

Ounces: 5½

Grams: 156

Ingredient: 1 cup granulated (white) sugar

Ounces: 7

Grams: 198

Ingredient: 1 cup packed brown sugar (light or dark)

Ounces: 7

Grams: 198

Ingredient: 1 cup confectioners sugar

Ounces: 4

Grams: 113

Ingredient: 1 cup cocoa powder

Ounces: 3

Grams: 85

Ingredient: 8 tablespoons butter (1 stick, or ½ cup)

Ounces: 4

Grams: 113


Though the recipes in this book were developed using standard United States measures, we know that cooks outside the United States use metric measures. The charts here offer equivalents for U.S. and metric measures.

Cooks using our recipes outside of the United States should also be aware that key ingredients are not always the same. Flour milled in the United Kingdom and elsewhere will feel and taste different from flour milled in the United States.

We recommend that all cooks, especially those using ingredients purchased outside of the United States, rely on their instincts when making our recipes. Refer to the visual cues provided. If the bread dough hasn’t “come together in a ball,” as described, you may need to add more flour—even if the recipe doesn’t tell you so. You be the judge.


Even though weight is a more accurate way to measure than volume, we know that most cooks will rely on measuring cups and spoons, not scales, when cooking. That’s fine, but there are ways to increase your accuracy when using volume measures.

First and foremost, you should own and use three sets of measuring tools—dry measuring cups, liquid measuring cups, and measuring spoons. Here’s what you need to know about each type of tool.

DRY MEASURING CUPS are generally made of metal or plastic and have long handles and flat tops that make it easy to sweep off excess flour or sugar. We recommend that you buy a set that includes 2⁄3- and ¾-cup measures as well as the standard ¼-, 1⁄3-, ½-, and 1-cup measures. Measure all dry ingredients (flour, sugar, chopped vegetables, herbs, etc.) in these cups. Don’t measure liquid ingredients in these cups; you won’t completely fill the cup (to prevent spills) or you will fill the cup and then spill some of the liquid as you work. Either way, the end result is a recipe with too little liquid.

LIQUID MEASURING CUPS are generally made of glass or plastic and are clear with markings on the side. All liquid measuring cups have handles and pour spouts. Because you’re not filling the cup to the brim, liquids won’t spill as you work.

Still not convinced you need both dry and liquid measuring cups? We ran another experiment to convince skeptics in the kitchen—and you. In addition to asking 18 cooks in our kitchen to measure 1 cup of flour with a dry measuring cup (where we found results varied by 13 percent), we asked the same cooks to measure 1 cup of flour in a liquid measuring cup and found the variation in the weight of the flour actually contained in the liquid measuring cup jumped to 26 percent. That’s because there’s no way to level off the flour in a liquid measuring cup.

Likewise, we asked these cooks to measure 1 cup of water (which should weigh 8.35 ounces) in both dry and liquid measuring cups. The measurements in the liquid measuring cups varied by 10 percent, based on different interpretations of when the water had reached the 1-cup marking. (To fill a liquid measuring cup we recommend placing it on the counter, bending down so that the cup’s markings are at eye level, and then pouring liquid until the meniscus reaches the desired marking.) The measurements of water in the dry measuring cups varied much more—a whopping 23 percent.

The moral of the story: Measuring by weight is more accurate than measuring by volume, but if you use the right type of volume measure you can reduce the error rate.

In addition to dry measuring cups and liquid measuring cups, you need measuring spoons. (For more information about our top-rated measuring tools, click here.)

MEASURING SPOONS have handles and flat tops like dry measuring cups, so you can sweep off excess salt, spices, and other dry ingredients. These spoons are also used to measure small amounts of liquid. (You can’t measure a tablespoon of soy sauce in a liquid measuring cup.) Yes, the liquid might spill, but there’s really no other choice; work carefully and make sure to fill measuring spoons to the rim. We like oval rather than round spoons because they are easier to dip into narrow spice jars. You should own several sets of measuring spoons with a full complement of sizes—usually 1 tablespoon, 1 teaspoon, ½ teaspoon, ¼ teaspoon, and 1⁄8 teaspoon.

And memorize this now: 1 tablespoon equals 3 teaspoons. Forget this fact and you will invariably make mistakes when trying to scale recipes up or down. It also helps to remember that 4 tablespoons equal ¼ cup.


Here’s how to measure dry and liquid ingredients.

DIP AND SWEEP Dip the dry measuring cup into the container of flour (or sugar or cocoa) and sweep away the excess with a straight-edged object like the back of a butter knife or a small icing spatula.

GET DOWN Set the liquid measuring cup on a level surface and bend down to read the marking at eye level. Add the liquid until the bottom of the curved surface of the liquid, called the meniscus—not the edges of the meniscus, which can cling and ride up the walls of the measuring cup—is level with the desired measurement marking.



Time is a useful measure when cooking, but many cooks make the mistake of giving it too much weight. All of our recipes include times as well as sensory cues to tell when a step in a recipe is complete. The times are guidelines meant to help you plan meals (will the roast take one hour or two hours?); they are not precise measures. Always rely on your five senses to determine if a step or recipe is completed. Does the food look like the description given? If a recipe says cook “until firm,” then touch the food. Likewise, if a recipe says cook “until fragrant,” then rely on that cue, rather than time, to determine when this step is complete.

So why is time such an unreliable measure? Variations in equipment and variations in ingredients. Heat output in grills and cooktops varies greatly. In addition, the weight and diameter of your cookware will affect cooking time.

Even your oven isn’t as reliable as you think. How do we know this? We have more than two dozen ovens in our test kitchen and we keep an oven thermometer in each oven to tell us if they are properly calibrated. That is, are they reaching and holding the temperature set on the dial? With heavy use, we find that our ovens generally slip out of calibration in just a few months, so we get them serviced. The process will happen more slowly at home, but the odds are pretty good that your oven is not at 350 degrees Fahrenheit (to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius, see the table here), even though that’s what the dial says.

To prove the point, we gave 15 cooks in our test kitchen our top-rated oven thermometer and asked them to test their home ovens. After setting their ovens to 350 degrees and allowing a 30-minute preheating period, participants recorded the actual temperatures in the ovens. We found that the actual temperatures ranged from 300 to 390 degrees. A cake recipe designed to work in a 350-degree oven will behave much differently in a 300-degree oven or a 390-degree oven. Obviously, the cooking time will be affected, but how the cake rises and colors will also be impacted. So what should you do with this information?

First, do not assume your oven is accurate, which means that you should begin checking foods well before the time suggested in recipes. Second, buy an oven thermometer (see here for our recommendation). A $6 investment could dramatically improve the quality of the food that comes out of your oven. Third, if your oven runs very hot or very cool (let’s say it’s off by 50 degrees), you might want to spend the money to have it calibrated by a professional.

It’s important to note that some variation in oven temperature is expected. An oven does not simply heat up to the temperature set on the dial and then stay there. The heating elements are either on at full power or off—with no middle ground—in most ovens. To maintain the desired temperature, the heating element cycles within a manufacturer-determined tolerance, heating up and cooling down to temperatures just above and below the desired temperature. We’ve found that the temperature in the dead-center location of an electric oven preheated to 350 degrees cycled from a low of 335 degrees to a high of 361 degrees. We analyzed a gas oven and found the temperature ranged from 343 to 359 degrees.

The takeaway is simple: Don’t make assumptions about your oven based on a single reading, and don’t worry if any single temperature reading is 10 degrees too high or too low—that’s normal. However, if your oven is always hot or always cold, and that deviation is 25 degrees or more, you have a problem.


Fifteen test cooks set their home ovens to 350 degrees. Actual temperatures in these ovens ranged from 300 to 390 degrees.


While variations in equipment will affect cooking time, they are hard to track. How can you know if your skillet heats up faster than the ones we use in the test kitchen? Luckily, the other big variable in cooking time is easier to track.

The initial temperature of ingredients is a key factor in many recipes—and one that many cooks don’t think about. Here’s an extreme example of how temperature can affect cooking time.

If you start with two big steaks and grill one straight out of the refrigerator and let the other warm up on the counter, their cooking times will differ greatly. We actually ran this experiment with two 2-pound bottom round steaks, each 1½ inches thick. One steak was taken straight from the refrigerator to be cooked; it was 40 degrees when it went onto the grill and took 22 minutes to reach the desired internal temperature of 120 degrees. The second steak was wrapped in plastic and warmed in a bucket of water for one hour, until it was 70 degrees. When this steak was grilled, it took just 13 minutes to reach the same desired internal temperature of 120 degrees. The point of this exercise: Cold food cooks more slowly than room-temperature food. So when a recipe calls for a “chilled” or “room-temperature” ingredient, pay heed to these instructions.

In addition to affecting cooking time, the temperature of an ingredient will affect the quality of the finished recipe. If your butter is not well chilled, pie dough will turn out tough and leathery rather than tender and flaky. Eggs are much easier to separate when cold because the white is thicker when chilled. Here are some general assumptions and rules you should follow regarding the temperature of ingredients.

ROOM TEMPERATURE is generally considered to be about 70 degrees.

CHILLED (as in refrigerated) is generally considered to be 35 to 40 degrees. If the temperature inside your refrigerator is higher than 40 degrees, food is spoiling. If the temperature is 32 degrees or lower, food is freezing.

FROZEN is generally considered to be 0 to 10 degrees. The temperature inside your freezer should be 0 degrees.

FLOURS AND GRAINS are assumed to be at room temperature. If you store whole-grain flours and cornmeal in the freezer to prevent rancidity (which is a good idea if you won’t use up these flours and grains within a few months), bring them to room temperature before baking with them. Cold flour will inhibit rise and yield dense baked goods. To quickly bring flour and grains to room temperature, spread them in a thin layer on a baking sheet and let sit for 30 minutes.

EGGS are assumed to be chilled unless otherwise noted. To bring eggs quickly to room temperature, place them (still in their shells) in a bowl of warm water for five minutes.

BUTTER is chilled unless otherwise noted. Softened butter should be between 60 and 68 degrees—click here for more details. Do not attempt to soften butter in the microwave—you will end up melting some of it. Instead, set the butter on the counter, letting it slowly warm up. (This will take about an hour.) To speed up the process, unwrap the butter and cut it into chunks. Butter that has been melted and cooled should be still fluid and just warm to the touch, ideally 85 to 90 degrees.

MEAT, CHICKEN, AND FISH are chilled unless otherwise noted. Note that at temperatures above 40 degrees, bacteria will start to grow in all perishable foods, especially meat, chicken, and fish. (Click here for more on food safety.)

In order to track temperature, we strongly recommend that you invest in an instant-read thermometer (click here for our recommendation). After good knives and cookware, a reliable thermometer might just be the most useful tool in any home kitchen.


An instant-read thermometer is useful only if it’s accurate. You should check the thermometer’s accuracy when you buy it and then again periodically. Here’s how:

MAKE AN ICY SLUSH Put a mixture of ice and cold tap water in a drinking glass or bowl; allow this mixture to sit for two minutes so the temperature will stabilize. Put the probe in the slush, being careful not to touch the sides or bottom of the glass or bowl. If the temperature is not 32 degrees, then calibrate the thermometer by pressing the “calibrate” button to 32 degrees. If you have a dial-face thermometer, turn the dial to 32 degrees (the method differs from model to model; you may need to use pliers to turn a small knob on the back).


In addition to knowing the temperature of ingredients before cooking, we rely on temperature to determine when many foods are done cooking. Don’t cut into food in order to determine if it’s done. We prefer to use an instant-read thermometer. It is a much more foolproof way to tell if the holiday turkey is cooked through.


Since the temperature of meat will continue to rise as it rests, an effect called carryover cooking, meat should be removed from the oven, grill, or pan when it’s 5 to 10 degrees below the desired serving temperature. (For more on this phenomenon, click here.) Carryover cooking doesn’t apply to poultry and fish (they don’t retain heat as well as the dense muscle structure in meat), so they should be cooked to the desired serving temperatures. The following temperatures should be used to determine when to stop the cooking process.



Medium-Rare: 120 to 125 degrees (125 to 130 degrees after resting)


Medium-Well: 140 to 145 degrees (145 to 150 degrees after resting)

Well-Done: 150 to 155 degrees (155 to 160 degrees after resting)


Medium: 140 to 145 degrees (145 to 150 degrees after resting)



White Meat: 160 degrees

Dark Meat: 175 degrees


Rare: 110 degrees (for tuna only)

Medium-Rare: 125 degrees (for tuna or salmon)

Medium: 140 (for white-fleshed fish)


We rely on the measurement of temperature to tell when many other foods are done cooking, not just meat and poultry. Here’s a partial list.

Oil, for frying: 325 to 375 degrees

Sugar, for caramel: 350 degrees

Yeast bread, rustic and lean: 200 to 210 degrees

Yeast bread, sweet and rich: 190 to 200 degrees

Custard, for ice cream: 180 degrees

Custard, for crème anglaise or lemon curd: 170 to 180 degrees

Custard, baked (such as crème brûlée or crème caramel): 170 to 175 degrees

Cheesecake: 150 degrees

Water, for bread baking: 105 to 115 (sometimes)


A thermometer must not only be properly calibrated but you must know how to use it. Here are a few tips for using a thermometer:

Slide the probe deep into the center of the food, making sure that the tip does not exit the food.

Avoid bones, cavities (in a turkey or chicken), and pan surfaces, all of which will throw off the reading.

When taking the temperature of steaks, chops, and other relatively thin foods, use tongs to lift the food out of the pan (or off the grill) and slide the probe in through the side of the food.

Take more than one reading, especially in large roasts and birds. We recommend measuring the temperature on either side of the breastbone and in both thighs on birds because one side of the bird can cook faster than the other, depending on how the bird was positioned in the oven.

Don’t forget about carryover cooking (see concept 4) when determining if meat is properly cooked.



So how exactly does cooking work? What’s happening when food is placed over a hot fire—or the modern equivalents? First, a brief history of cooking.

The discovery of fire is among the most important events in human evolution. Fire not only protected humans against predators but it allowed our ancestors to cook their food. Why is this important? Before fire, our humanoid ancestors, like many other animals, spent most of the day grinding tough plant foods, through prolonged chewing, until they were small enough to swallow. (This is still how nonhuman primates spend their day.) In the thoroughly delightful Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human (2009), Harvard primatologist Richard Wrangham links man’s discovery of fire (which he believes was roughly 1.8 million years ago) with a dramatic increase in the size of the human brain. Cooking made it easier to digest high-quality proteins, especially meat, therefore the link between the advent of fire and human brain development. Cooking also made food tender, so eating was no longer an all-day activity. This “extra” time could now be used to hunt, to explore, and to build—simply put, to become human.

While it’s easy to understand how cooking makes us human, few of us understand what’s actually happening to food when it is heated. Heat is a form of energy. The term is used to describe the speed of molecules in a substance such as air or water. The higher the temperature, the faster the molecules are moving and the more energy, or heat, the molecules contain.

In order for this heat to be transferred from one substance to another, fast-moving molecules bump into slower-moving ones, causing them to pick up speed. The gaseous molecules in a fire, the metal atoms in a hot skillet, or the air molecules in a hot oven are bumping into the slow-moving molecules in the food (especially water molecules) and causing them to speed up.

A wide range of changes occurs once the molecules in food speed up. The food can change color, both by gases driven from hot food and through heat-induced chemical reactions. Water trapped between molecules can be freed and the food can lose moisture. Cell walls that give raw foods their integrity can break down, making foods more tender. The exact changes will depend on the food itself, the heat level, the type of heat, and the length of exposure to heat. One last thing: Heat makes many foods taste much better, but it can also spoil the taste of food when oils oxidize and bitter substances are released.

There are several types of heating that can occur when food is cooked. The most common—conduction, convection, and radiant heating—are described in detail in concept 1. Most cooking methods, such as roasting, grilling, or frying, are really a combination of heating modes. For instance, a roast that is placed in a metal pan in the oven is being cooked by conduction (heat transferred from molecule to molecule within the food) as well as by convection (heat transferred by the hot air in the oven to the pan and then from the pan to the food) and radiant heat (the heat emitted by the heating element in the oven and absorbed by the food).


Cookbook authors use a number of terms when referring to the specific way the food should be heated. It’s helpful to understand these terms as you read through this (or any) cookbook.

Method: Sauté

Definition: To cook foods in a thin film of hot oil in a skillet set on a hot burner.

Details: Sautéing works best for flat, relatively thin foods, such as steaks, chops, and cutlets, as well as small items, such as chopped vegetables, shrimp, or scallops.

Method: Roast

Definition: To cook foods in a pan in a hot oven.

Details: Roasting works with a wide range of foods, from large cuts of meat and whole birds to sliced potatoes.

Method: Fry

Definition: To cook in a significant quantity of hot oil in a skillet or pot set on a hot burner.

Details: Food can be partially submerged in oil (shallow-frying or pan-frying) or completely submerged in oil (deep-frying). Deep-frying requires the use of a large pot and 1 to 2 quarts of oil. Shallow-frying generally employs a skillet and a modest amount of oil (about 1 cup). Many of the foods that are best for sautéing can also be fried; many fried foods are breaded or battered.

Method: Boil

Definition: To cook foods in boiling liquid in a pot set on a hot burner.

Details: At sea level, water boils at 212 degrees. The boiling point drops 2 degrees for every 500-foot increase in elevation. No matter the temperature, when a liquid boils, large bubbles energetically break the surface of the liquid at a rapid and constant pace. This cooking method is best with pasta, grains, and vegetables.

Method: Simmer

Definition: To cook foods in liquid that is just below the boiling point in a pot set on a hot burner.

Details: Depending on the desired intensity, the temperature of the liquid is generally between 180 and 205 degrees. When a liquid simmers, small bubbles gently break the surface of the liquid at a variable and infrequent rate. Many grains, including rice, are best simmered. Simmering is invaluable for stocks, soups, and sauces.

Method: Poach

Definition: To cook foods in liquid that is well below the boiling point in a covered pot set on the stovetop.

Details: Poaching is related to simmering; the temperature of the liquid is lower (no bubbles are breaking the surface) and the pot is generally covered to create a constant, gentle cooking environment. It's best used for delicate fish and fruits.

Method: Steam

Definition: To cook foods that are suspended, generally in a basket, over simmering liquid in a covered pot set on a hot burner.

Details: Steaming is an especially gentle cooking method. Unlike other moist-heat cooking methods, steaming does not wash away flavor. Steaming is an excellent choice for vegetables, fish, and delicate foods like dumplings.

Method: Braise

Definition: To cook foods by first sautéing them and then adding liquid, covering the pan, and simmering.

Details: Braising is ideal for tough cuts that require prolonged cooking to become tender, such as pot roast.

Method: Stew

Definition: This is a subset of braising (food is sautéed, then simmered).

Details: Stewing is generally reserved for recipes that involve small chunks of food, not entire roasts.

Method: Grill

Definition: To cook foods on a grate set over a fire.

Details: Although the term “grilling” is often used to describe the preparation of any food cooked over a fire, we generally reserve it for foods that cook quickly, such as steaks, cutlets, chops, vegetables, and seafood.

Method: Grill-Roast

Definition: To cook foods on a grate set over a modest fire confined to a portion of the grill in a closed environment.

Details: When the lid is placed on the grill, the cooking method resembles roasting, especially if the food is not positioned directly over the fire and thus won’t brown too quickly. Best for thick, large cuts that require substantial cooking over moderate heat, such as a whole chicken or roast.

Method: Barbecue

Definition: To cook foods on a grate set over a small, smoky fire confined to a portion of the grill in a closed environment.

Details: When barbecuing, the setup is the same as with grill-roasting but the fire is smaller and wood is used to create smoky flavor in the food. Best for tough cuts that require prolonged cooking to become tender, such as brisket or ribs.


Just as heat can change food, exposing food to cold temperatures can have a range of effects. Many naturally occurring processes stop in the cold. For instance, storage below 40 degrees can inhibit the activity of certain enzymes in peaches that normally break down pectin in its cell walls during the ripening process. If these enzymes are deactivated before the fruit is ripe, the pectin remains intact and the peaches will have a mealy texture. (To understand the practical effects of this process, click here.)

Of course, cold temperatures can be beneficial when storing other foods. Dairy products and meat will spoil much faster at temperatures above 40 degrees. (Note that the typical home refrigerator should be about 35 degrees.) These foods naturally contain bacteria, and at temperatures below 40 degrees the activity of these bacteria is suppressed. However, let these warm up a bit and they enter the danger zone, 40 to 140 degrees. Most bacteria will multiply at these temperatures, and that can cause spoilage of the food, or lead to food-borne illnesses if the food is consumed. Note that cooking often stops the activity of bacteria. (For more on this subject, see “Food Safety Basics.”)


The moisture in food begins to freeze at temperatures below 32 degrees, and whether that moisture is in fruit, ice cream, or meat, it will form ice crystals. These crystals rupture cell walls and internal cell organelles in fresh foods, like fruits or vegetables, which release enzymes from their locked compartments. When thawed, these enzymes cause produce to develop off-flavors and turn brown and soggy.

In vegetables, these enzymes can be deactivated by blanching, or briefly boiling the foods. That’s why the frozen broccoli you purchase at the supermarket is bright green (it has been cooked by the manufacturer). If you’ve tried to freeze fresh raw broccoli and then cook it, you know that it tastes sulfurous and has a mushy texture and off color.

Fruit cannot withstand precooking so manufacturers generally add sugar to reduce crystal size and thus limit the damage that these crystals can cause. Another trick used by manufacturers is to add ascorbic acid, which deactivates the enzymes that cause browning.

When freezing meat and other protein, the biggest issue is moisture loss. The ice crystals damage the cell structure and, as a result, frozen meat loses more moisture when cooked than meat that was never frozen. In addition, freezing causes moisture loss due to surface dehydration. To quantify this moisture loss, we cooked three 7-ounce samples of 85 percent lean ground beef—one fresh, one frozen and thawed once, and one frozen and thawed twice—over medium-high heat in a small skillet. We drained the cooked meat and measured the amount of liquid released, then repeated the tests with more batches of meat.

On average, the fresh ground meat lost ¾ teaspoon of liquid compared to 2 teaspoons for the once-frozen meat and 1 tablespoon for the twice-frozen meat. To put this in context, a burger made with 7 ounces of fresh ground meat will have an extra 1¼ teaspoons of juice compared to the same burger made with frozen meat. That’s the difference between a juicy, tender burger and a dry, mealy one.

Another downside of freezing has to do with how your freezer works. Ideally, home freezers are set to 0 degrees and they maintain a constant temperature. However, that’s not the case, especially if your freezer is opened and closed frequently. The reality is that foods are constantly warming up and then cooling down, which just accelerates the damage from ice crystals. Food that is encrusted in a layer of ice crystals, what is commonly called freezer burn, has suffered the ravages of constant freezing, thawing, and refreezing.


One last note about freezing: So why are ice cubes rock hard but ice cream is soft and scoopable, even though both are stored in the same freezer? Sugar (or any substance that dissolves in water) affects the freezing point of water. The more sugar added, the lower the freezing point. For more on this phenomenon, click here.



Cooking truly relies on the five senses: sight, smell, touch, taste, and sound. Does the chicken look properly browned? Does the cake feel firm to the touch? Is the consistency of the sauce smooth or lumpy? Does the garlic smell fragrant? Does the dish taste properly seasoned?

The sense of taste is worth some additional thought before we start cooking.

In grade school we learned that we experience four primary taste sensations: salty, sweet, bitter, and sour. (Bitter refers to the flavor sensation caused by foods like kale or eggplant, while sour refers to the flavor sensation caused by acidic foods such as limes or vinegar.)

In recent years, scientists have agreed that there is a fifth taste called umami. The “umami” taste is best described as “meaty” or “savory” and is produced by a common amino acid known as glutamate (also known as glutamic acid). Glutamate is present in relatively high amounts as free glutamate in certain fruits (like tomatoes), vegetables, and cheeses (especially Parmesan), and as part of most proteins, including meat and other dairy products. In mushrooms, the glutamate content is high enough to lend that familiar meaty flavor. Umami also works to make food more palatable in general. (Click here for a chart of glutamate levels in a variety of foods.)

The flavor enhancer monosodium glutamate (MSG), which is produced by growing a special type of bacteria on sugar or molasses and corn, captures the power of glutamates. In our kitchen tests, we have found that MSG bumps up the flavor of food. When we added MSG in the form of the supermarket product Accent to our beef and vegetable soup, tasters raved about the “rich,” “ultra-beefy” results. (For more on glutamates, and MSG, see concept 35.)


The cells in our mouth that respond to taste are located in clusters of cells called tastebuds. Scientists used to believe that tastebuds were concentrated in specific regions of the tongue. In actuality, buds for the various tastes are evenly distributed all over the tongue as well as the mouth. But different individuals do taste things differently. This is due to a genetically predetermined effect that is directly related to the number of tastebuds each of us has.

Scientist Linda Bartoshuk, now with the Center for Taste and Smell at the University of Florida, found that one person can have up to 10 times as many tastebuds as another. This has obvious implications for taste—things seem sweeter, spicier, and more bitter to these “supertasters” than to regular or below-average tasters. Though more intense, the taste for a supertaster is not 10 times more intense because of mitigating factors—aroma, mouthfeel, and certain other aspects of a food that interfere with taste—but the difference can be up to three times as much.

So the next time you share a dish with a friend and she finds it much saltier or spicier than you do, don’t worry. You don’t have a lousy palate. Your friend probably just has more tastebuds.

While we can’t do much about how our palates are hard-wired, every cook can adjust how we perceive flavors in a given dish by considering the balance among the five main tastes. For instance, researchers investigating methods for making bitter medications more palatable have discovered that salt can mask bitter flavors. According to one research group, for example, sodium ions can reduce the perceived bitterness of acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, by more than 50 percent.

To see if salt might have the same effect on bitter-tasting foods, we performed a blind taste test of several, including coffee and eggplant, to which we either added salt or left as is. With the addition of ¼ teaspoon of salt per pint, the perceived bitterness of the coffee was cut in half. Salt also reduced the perceived bitterness of eggplant.

The tradition of salting eggplant, then, appears to serve two functions. The first, as we have found in kitchen tests, is that salt removes water and reduces the amount of oil eggplant will absorb. The second, as we discovered in the above tests, is that salt can mask bitterness. Indeed, when we had tasters sample previously salted and unsalted batches of sautéed eggplant, most claimed to detect a bitter background flavor in the unsalted batch that they didn’t taste in the salted batch.

Likewise, we have noticed that very spicy dishes can seem less spicy when sugar is added. When developing a recipe for Thai-style chicken with basil we noticed that adding sugar to the recipe significantly toned down the heat of the chiles. It turns out that this phenomenon is the result of complex interactions in the brain that regulate our perception of flavor, pitting pain against pleasure. Compounds in chiles (mainly capsaicin) stimulate nerves (called trigeminals) surrounding the tastebuds to signal discomfort to the brain, in a process known as chemesthesis. Sugar, on the other hand, stimulates the tastebuds to signal pleasure. These signals are so enjoyable, scientists believe they overshadow the “pain” caused by chiles. Sugar also draws heat from the mouth when it dissolves in saliva, producing a mild cooling sensation.

So what does this mean, in practical terms? If you’ve added too much salt, sugar, or spice to a dish, the damage is usually done. In mild cases, however, the overpowering ingredient can sometimes be masked by the addition of another from the opposite end of the flavor spectrum. (Forget the potato trick listed in many cookbooks; adding potatoes to a salty soup does nothing to counter the salt—it just adds more bulk.)

In addition to fixing mistakes based on how the science of taste works, we often rely on the following seasoning strategies to make food taste better. (Remember to account for the reduction of liquids when seasoning a dish—a perfectly seasoned stew will likely taste too salty after several hours of simmering. Your best bet is to season with a light hand during the cooking process and then adjust the seasoning just before serving.)

SEASON WITH AN ACID In addition to grabbing the saltshaker to boost flavor in soups, stews, and sauces, try a drop of lemon juice or vinegar. Like salt, acid competes with bitter flavor compounds, reducing our perception of them as they “brighten” other flavors. Just a dash—1⁄8 teaspoon—can go a long way.

USE COARSE SALT WHEN SEASONING MEAT Use kosher salt—rather than table salt—when seasoning meat. Its larger grains distribute more easily and cling well to the meat’s surface.

PEP UP—OR TONE DOWN—YOUR PEPPER When exactly you apply black pepper to meat—before or after searing—will affect the strength of its bite. If you want assertive pepper flavor, season meat after searing; keeping the pepper away from heat will preserve its volatile compounds. Alternatively, seasoning before cooking will tame pepper’s punch.

SEASON COLD FOODS AGGRESSIVELY Chilling foods dulls their flavors, so it’s important to compensate by seasoning generously—but judiciously. To keep from overdoing it, season with a normal amount of salt before chilling and then taste and add more salt as desired just before serving.

ADD HERBS AT THE RIGHT TIME Add hearty herbs like thyme, rosemary, oregano, sage, and marjoram to dishes early in the cooking process; this way, you give them time to release maximum flavor while ensuring that their texture will be less intrusive. Save delicate herbs like parsley, cilantro, tarragon, chives, and basil for the end, lest they lose their fresh flavor and bright color. (see concept 34 for more details on using herbs.)

ADD A LITTLE UMAMI Common pantry staples like soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and anchovies contain high levels of glutamates that can give a savory umami boost to a dish. Try mixing a teaspoon or two of soy sauce into chili or adding a couple of finely minced anchovies to a chicken braise. (See concept 35 for more information on cooking with glutamate-rich ingredients.)


In addition to balancing the five tastes, good cooks will focus on aroma. Our tastebuds have a harder time detecting flavors in cold foods. That’s why chilled soup must be aggressively seasoned. But cold soups also have almost no aroma, which is another reason that they require a heavier hand when seasoning. The aroma that wafts up to your nose from a piping-hot bowl of soup affects your perception of the flavor. Take away that aroma and the food does not seem as flavorful.

After all, aroma is an essential tool when it comes to perceiving flavor, as well as a cue for hunger and an important way to recognize when food goes bad. Without it, it’s surprisingly difficult to tell the difference between strawberry and vanilla ice cream or pasta alla carbonara and pasta alla vodka without looking first.

While aroma and taste relate most directly to the enjoyment of food, don’t neglect the other three senses. Food that looks attractive will probably taste better—or at least it will seem to taste better. To illustrate this principle, Frédéric Brochet, a researcher at the University of Bordeaux, asked a panel of wine experts to evaluate one white wine and one red wine. The experts relied on the adjectives you would expect to create two very different flavor profiles for each wine. Too bad the samples were both the same white wine, with one sample dyed red by the addition of a tasteless substance.

In the test kitchen, we’ve demonstrated this principle over and over in taste tests. Ask tasters to sample two chocolate puddings made with different brands of chocolate and they gush over the deeper, richer flavor of the darker (i.e., “more chocolaty-looking”) sample. But taste the same puddings blindfolded and the results are much more mixed. We really do eat with our eyes.

Texture might be even more important than appearance. Soggy fried chicken or a dry, chewy steak isn’t nearly as enjoyable as crisp fried chicken or a juicy, tender steak. Many of the concepts in this book are designed to create the optimal texture in the food being cooked.

Sound is probably the least important of the five senses to the eater, but the cook does have occasion to rely on sound. For example, you expect vegetables to sizzle when added to a hot pan, and if you don’t hear this sound you know the pan is too cold.


The explanation is twofold: First, scientists have discovered that our ability to taste is heightened by microscopic proteins in our tastebuds that are extremely temperature-sensitive. These proteins, known as TRPM5 channels, perform far better at warm temperatures than at cooler ones. In fact, studies have shown that when food cooled to 59 degrees and below is consumed, the channels barely open, minimizing flavor perception. However, when food is heated to 98.5 degrees, the channels open up and TRPM5 sensitivity increases more than 100 times, making food taste markedly more flavorful.

Second, much of our perception of flavor comes from aroma, which we inhale as microscopic molecules diffuse from food. The hotter the food, the more energetic these molecules are, and the more likely they are to travel from the table to our nose.

The lessons? Dishes meant to be served hot should be reheated, and dishes served chilled (like gazpacho or potato salad) must be aggressively seasoned to make up for the flavor-dulling effects of cold temperatures.



Changes in temperature can alter the flavor, texture, and appearance of foods, but they are not the only ways to “cook.” Physical force is another way to transform foods. This includes everything from the force of a knife slicing through an onion to the power of a food processor blade pureeing ingredients into pesto.

We know that knives can change the appearance of foods, making them smaller, thinner, even more attractive. But as the knife blade cuts through food, it damages cell structure (much like cooking or freezing) and that can affect color, texture, and flavor as well.


Here’s why: The intense flavor and acrid odor of onions are caused by substances called thiosulfinates, created when enzymes known as alliinases contained in the onion’s cells interact with an amino acid called isoalliin that is also present in the vegetable. These reactions take place only when the onion’s cells are ruptured and release the strong-smelling compounds. Cutting with the grain ruptures fewer cells than cutting against the grain, leading to the release of fewer alliinases and the creation of fewer thiosulfinates. (See concept 31 for more information on using your knife to change the flavor of onions and garlic.)

Cutting can also affect cooked foods. You can see the muscle fibers on some steaks, especially flank steak. Those long striations that run from end to end are actually muscle fibers. If you slice a grilled flank across the grain (that is, from side to side rather than end to end), you are in effect making these long muscle fibers much shorter and thus easier to chew.


Professional cooks use a variety of terms to describe ways that foods can be cut. Here are the terms we use in this book.

Cut: Chiffonade

Description: To cut into very thin strips. Usually applies to fresh herbs, especially basil.

Cut: Chop


Fine: To cut into 1⁄8- to ¼-inch pieces.

Medium: To cut into ¼- to ½-inch pieces.

Coarse: To cut into ½- to ¾-inch pieces.

Cut: Cut


Crosswise: To cut across the food, perpendicular to its length

Lengthwise: To cut with the length of the food, from end to end.

On the bias: To cut across the food with the knife held at a 45-degree angle to the food. Used for long, slender items such as asparagus and carrots.

Cut: Dice

Description: To cut into uniform cubes with straight, even sides.

Cut: Julienne

Description: To cut into matchstick-size pieces, usually 2 inches long and 1⁄8 inch thick.

Cut: Mince

Description: To cut into 1⁄8-inch or smaller pieces.

Cut: Slice

Description: To cut into flat pieces.

Thin: To cut into flat pieces 1⁄8 inch thick or less.


Knives are not the only tools used to physically manipulate and change food. Your kitchen is filled with a wide range of tools that mix, combine, whisk, stir, grind, puree, blend, knead, and whip. These tools can perform a variety of tasks. In some cases, the cook supplies the energy, with his or her arm; in other cases electricity powers the tool. A few examples:

A balloon whisk incorporates air into chilled heavy cream, turning a small amount of liquid into a mound of billowy foam.

A spice grinder transforms whole spices into a fine powder, releasing flavorful oils in the process.

A meat pounder turns a thick chicken breast into a thin cutlet that will cook much more quickly.

All of these examples show how a tool can change a single ingredient. But many tools are meant to combine several ingredients. The simplest example is a wooden spoon used to turn water, flour, and yeast into a dough. The point here is foods can change without being heated (or chilled). As you read through this book, you will learn how the particular mixing method can affect the outcome in many recipes.


The exact tools used to heat, chill, chop, mix, or otherwise manipulate food will affect the final outcome. The Appendix in this book has much more information about equipment, but here are a few important things to keep in mind.

Cookware is made from a variety of metals, each with its own pros and cons. The ability of the metal to withstand and conduct heat will determine how well you can brown food, how easily food will burn, and how evenly the heat is distributed. Weight matters too. Buy a lightweight stainless steel pan and your stew meat will stick to the pot. Ease of cleaning varies, too.

In general, we reserve nonstick pans for delicate foods, such as fish and eggs, which are prone to sticking. We find that nonstick pans don’t brown food as well as conventional pans. Also, there often are no browned bits left in the pan once something like a steak or chicken cutlet has been cooked, and thus nothing for the cook to use in building a pan sauce. Don’t use a nonstick pan unless the recipe specifically calls for one.

Perhaps just as important as cookware material is the pan shape and size. Crowd four chicken breasts into a 10-inch pan and they will steam; space them out in a 12-inch pan and they will brown. Skillets should be measured from lip to lip to determine their size. Pots are generally measured by volume (2 quarts, 4 quarts, etc.). Use specified equipment in the specified size when following any recipe.

This admonishment applies to bakeware as well as cookware. If a recipe calls for 9-inch cake pans, don’t use 8-inch pans. We’ve found this simple change will prolong the baking time (the batter is in a deeper layer in the smaller pans) and this can cause the bottom of the cake layers to burn by the time the middle is sufficiently baked. Even something as simple as the presence or absence of rims on the edges of a baking sheet can affect the outcome of a recipe. (See “Cookie Sheet Bake-Off.”)







The right equipment is key to good cooking, but so are the right ingredients. Even seemingly small ingredient changes can have a big effect on the final outcome. For instance, replace table salt with kosher salt and you have effectively reduced the salt level by half. That’s because the coarse crystals of kosher salt “fluff up” when measured and you get far less salt in a teaspoon.

Bigger changes—such as replacing butter with shortening when making pie dough—have even larger effects. In this case, because butter is roughly 80 percent fat and 16 to 18 percent water it behaves differently in pie dough than vegetable shortening, which contains no water and is 100 percent fat. The chemistry of the fat crystals is different too, so the end product has a different texture—to say nothing of a different flavor.

So here’s our best advice about substituting ingredients: Don’t do it! Once you start changing the ingredients in a recipe, it’s very hard to predict the outcome. This is especially true in baking recipes, where you can’t judge the effect of the change until the dish is finished. In savory recipes, you can often taste as you go, and thus replacing parsley with another herb is a safer bet than replacing the cream with milk in a custard recipe.

Now, of course, we know there are times when substitutions are unavoidable; if you are already cooking, for instance, and realize you don’t have an ingredient on hand. Refer to the Emergency Ingredient Substitutions chart for a list of common substitutions that we have tested and can recommend in a pinch.

In addition, the “101” pages throughout the book will give you in-depth information on key ingredients. Refer to these pages for shopping, storage, and usage tips.


FISH 101

MEAT 101


SALT 101



EGGS 101






Gentle Heat Prevents Overcooking

The discovery of fire—and, as a result, the invention of cooking—was a key step in human evolution. Heat kills germs that, if consumed, could cause illness. It makes food easier to chew and thus more palatable. It even changes some nutritional profiles, allowing our bodies to more readily absorb key vitamins and nutrients. But it’s not all good. Too much heat can rob food of moisture, leaving it leathery, rubbery, and dry—especially large cuts of meat (such as prime rib, turkey, or ham) or delicate foods (like eggs or shrimp). Why? Let’s start by understanding how heat works.


Heat is a form of energy. The term is used to describe the speed of molecules in a substance such as air or water. The higher the temperature, the faster the molecules are moving and the more energy, or heat, the molecules contain. In order for this heat to be transferred from one item to another, fast-moving molecules bump into slower-moving ones, which then pick up speed. Therefore, heat always flows from a hot item—or region within a food—to a cold one.

There are several types of heating that occur in cooking. Conduction is the transfer of heat from a hotter to a colder region within a food—in effect, the movement of molecules inside a single substance. For example, the cold center of a roast beef becomes warmer as molecules in its exterior sections begin to pick up speed. Since water molecules are much smaller than fat or protein molecules, they are capable of moving quite fast and conduct much of the heat.

Convection is the transfer of heat from a hot liquid (like boiling water or frying oil), or a hot gas (like the air in an oven), to a food. In each case, heat is generated by an external source, such as a stovetop burner or the heating element in an oven. In most cooking applications, both conduction and convection are at work. There is one more important type of heating, however: Radiant heating is the transfer of heat by high-energy waves emitted from a remote object. One of the best examples is the sun on the surface of the earth. In cooking, radiant heating takes place most commonly in grilling, broiling, and even microwaving. Here, the waves of energy interact directly with the molecules in food, causing them to accelerate in speed and, therefore, become hotter.

Whether cooked by conduction, convection, or radiant heat, the outside of food always cooks faster than the inside. And if the temperature is too high, the outer layers may become overcooked by the time conduction moves the heat toward the center of the food. That’s because the external moisture will evaporate (remember: heat puts small water molecules into motion), leaving the surface area vulnerable to becoming very dry. A greater difference in temperature between the food’s edge and its center means that this will happen faster. Conversely, a smaller temperature difference within the food will help the exterior retain more moisture and produce more uniform cooking.


CONDUCTION moves heat from the surface of the food to the center.

CONVECTION moves heat from the water or air to the food.

RADIANT HEAT travels by high-energy waves and interacts directly with the exterior of the food, which heats the inside by conduction.


To demonstrate the effects of convection and conduction, we roasted two three-rib standing beef rib roasts. One was placed in a 450-degree oven, the other in a 250-degree oven. Prior to roasting, we trimmed the majority of visible fat from both roasts and weighed them. We set up probes to record temperatures within the meat at three places—the center, ¼ inch below the surface, and midway between these points. Both roasts were cooked until the center probe registered 125 degrees for medium-rare (this took just over two hours in the 450-degree oven and about three hours in the 250-degree oven). Both roasts were allowed to rest for 45 minutes, reweighed, sliced, and then sampled by tasters. We repeated the experiment two more times and the results below are the averages of the three tests.


Let’s start with the taste-test results. The roast cooked in the 250-degree oven was noticeably juicier than the roast cooked in the 450-degree oven. Yes, the crust on the roast cooked in the hot oven was browner and crisper, but the majority of the meat was very dry and chalky—only the dead center of this roast boasted the tender, juicy texture we wanted. The exterior of the roast cooked at 250 degrees lacked a substantial crust, but the meat was moist and tender from the center all the way to the edge.

Weighing each roast before and after confirmed our tasters’ impressions. The roast in the 250-degree oven lost 9.4 percent of its original weight. The roast cooked at 450 degrees shed 24.2 percent of its original weight, almost three times more than the slow-roasted beef. Put another way: The slow-roasted beef lost only 9 ounces of moisture during the roasting process while the high-temperature roasted beef lost 25 ounces. Since we had trimmed both roasts of exterior fat, these numbers represented moisture lost from the meat itself—no wonder the slow-roasted beef tasted so much juicier.

So if both roasts were cooked to the same internal temperature, why was the high-temperature roasted prime rib so much drier? The answer lies in the relationship between convection and conduction, and their effect on moisture. In both ovens, hot air conveyed energy to the surface of the roasts, at which point the energy was absorbed and transferred, through conduction, to the center. In the 450-degree oven, the outer portions of the roast absorbed far more energy than did the outer layers of meat roasted in the cooler oven. More energy meant faster-moving water molecules and a greater amount of evaporation.

Moisture loss is proportional to meat temperature. The temperature probe inserted ¼ inch below the surface in the high-temperature roasted beef registered 189 degrees, indicating that almost all of the moisture had evaporated out of this part of the roast. The midpoint between the exterior and center of the roast registered 160 degrees—still seriously well-done, dry meat. In contrast, the temperature probes inserted in the same places in the roast cooked in the 250-degree oven never climbed above 146 degrees—indicating that the outer layers of this sample were losing much less moisture.


For large roasts, where exterior meat can easily overcook and dry out before the center reaches the target temperature, low heat is the way to go. But sometimes moisture retention has a downside, such as a pale exterior. You may need to compensate with another cooking method (see concept 5).


Roasted at 450°

1. Temperature at ¼” below surface: 189°

2. Temperature at midpoint: 160°

3. Temperature at center: 125°

Weight before roasting: 6.34 lbs

Weight after roasting: 4.8 lbs

Moisture loss: 24.2%

Roasted at 250°

1. Temperature at ¼” below surface: 146°

2. Temperature at midpoint: 135°

3. Temperature at center: 125°

Weight before roasting: 5.98 lbs

Weight after roasting: 5.42 lbs

Moisture loss: 9.38%



Big roasts (like prime rib, turkey, and ham) are especially prone to drying out when cooked in a hot oven. The bigger the roast, the bigger the heat differential between the center of the meat and the exterior. Also, turkey and ham are fairly lean, which just compounds the problem—there’s very little fat to help moisten the dry meat. And turkey has the additional problem that the legs need to reach a higher internal temperature than the breast in order to break down their connective tissue and make them palatable. Keeping the oven temperature low reduces the heat differential and helps promote even cooking in these large cuts of meat. But, in each case, other strategies are used in conjunction with low oven temperature to ensure juicy, flavorful results.



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A whole rib roast (aka prime rib) consists of ribs 6 through 12. Butchers tend to cut the roast in two. We prefer the cut further back on the cow, which is closest to the loin and less fatty. This cut is referred to as the first cut, the loin end, or sometimes the small end because the meat and ribs get larger as they move up toward the shoulder. When ordering a three-rib roast, ask for the first three ribs from the loin end—ribs 10 through 12.


(7-pound) first-cut beef rib roast, 3 ribs, set at room temperature for 3 hours, trimmed and tied with kitchen twine at both ends, twine running parallel to bone


tablespoon vegetable oil

Salt and pepper

1. Adjust oven rack to lowest position and heat oven to 200 degrees. Pat roast dry with paper towels. Heat oil in large roasting pan over 2 burners set at medium-high heat. Place roast in pan and cook on all sides until nicely browned and about ½ cup fat has rendered, 6 to 8 minutes.

2. Remove roast from pan. Discard fat in pan. Set wire rack in pan, then set roast on rack. Season with salt and pepper.

3. Place roast in oven and roast until meat registers 125 degrees (for medium-rare), about 3½ hours (or about 30 minutes per pound). Remove roast from oven and tent with aluminum foil. Let rest for 20 minutes.

4. Remove twine and set roast on carving board, rib bones at 90-degree angle to board. Slice along bones to sever meat from bones. Set roast cut side down and carve meat across grain into ¾-inch-thick slices. Serve immediately.


Prime rib is one of the largest cuts of meat the home cook will prepare. As the test kitchen experiment demonstrated, the difference between high-temperature roasting and low-temperature roasting is dramatic, with the roast shedding three times as much moisture when roasted at 450 degrees versus 250 degrees. (Here, we roast at an even lower temperature.) Unless you like tough, dry prime rib, low-temperature roasting is essential.

BROWN IT FIRST Low-temperature roasting will ensure a juicy roast but it does little for the exterior. That’s why we start our recipe by browning the roast on the stovetop. If you have a heavy-duty roasting pan, you can brown the roast right in the roasting pan. This step will also render a fair amount of exterior fat.

ELEVATE ROAST To ensure even heating, we move the browned roast to a rack. This trick also ensures that the roast is elevated above any additional fat that is rendered during the long cooking time.

LET IT REST You’ve worked hard to retain all those juices, so don’t be impatient and slice into the roast too soon. The meat needs time for the muscle fibers to relax. If you cut into the roast too soon, the muscle fibers won’t be able to hold on to those juices, which will flood onto the carving board. (For more information on resting meat, see concept 3.)



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Instead of drumsticks and thighs, you may use two (1½- to 2-pound) whole leg quarters. The recipe will also work with turkey breast alone; in step 2, reduce the butter to 1½ tablespoons, the salt to 1½ teaspoons, and the pepper to 1 teaspoon. If you are roasting kosher or self-basting turkey parts, season the turkey with only 1½ teaspoons salt.



onions, chopped


celery ribs, chopped


carrots, peeled and chopped


sprigs fresh thyme


garlic cloves, peeled and halved


cup low-sodium chicken broth




pounds turkey drumsticks and thighs, trimmed


tablespoons unsalted butter, melted


tablespoon salt


teaspoons pepper



cups low-sodium chicken broth


tablespoons unsalted butter


tablespoons all-purpose flour


bay leaves

Salt and pepper


2. Pat turkey pieces dry with paper towels. Brush turkey pieces on all sides with melted butter and season with salt and pepper. Place breast skin side down and drumsticks and thighs skin side up on rack on vegetable-filled baking sheet, leaving at least ¼ inch between pieces.

3. Roast turkey pieces for 1 hour. Using 2 large wads of paper towels, turn turkey breast skin side up. Continue roasting until breast registers 160 degrees and thighs register 175 degrees, 1 to 2 hours longer. Remove baking sheet from oven and transfer rack with turkey to second baking sheet. Allow pieces to rest for at least 30 minutes or up to 1½ hours.

4. FOR THE GRAVY: Strain vegetables and liquid from baking sheet through fine-mesh strainer set in 4-cup liquid measuring cup, pressing on solids to extract as much liquid as possible; discard solids. Add chicken broth to measuring cup (you should have about 3 cups liquid).

5. Melt butter in medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Add flour and cook, stirring constantly, until flour is dark golden brown and fragrant, about 5 minutes. Slowly whisk in broth mixture and bay leaves and gradually bring to boil. Reduce to simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until gravy is thick and measures 2 cups, 15 to 20 minutes. Discard bay leaves. Off heat, season gravy with salt and pepper to taste. Cover to keep warm.

6. TO SERVE: Heat oven to 500 degrees. Place baking sheet with turkey in oven. Roast until skin is golden brown and crisp, about 15 minutes. Transfer turkey to carving board and let rest, uncovered, for 20 minutes. Carve and serve with gravy.


Roasting a whole bird is a race to keep the white meat from drying out while the dark meat cooks through. A low oven temperature minimizes the temperature differential between the outer layers of the breast meat (just under the skin) and the center of the breast meat. However, this doesn’t really solve the problem that dark meat is best cooked to an internal temperature of 175 degrees (in order to break down connective tissue and render excess fat), while lean white meat is best cooked to an internal temperature of 160 degrees (the temperature at which any pathogens have been killed and moisture loss has been minimized). Our solution: Forget about the whole bird and roast two leg quarters (separated into thighs and drumsticks) along with a whole turkey breast. The smaller dark-meat parts will reach 175 degrees at the same time the larger breast piece reaches 160 degrees.

ELEVATE THE BIRD Placing the parts on a rack set inside a baking sheet promotes better air and heat circulation and ensures even cooking. Vegetables and herbs can be placed in the baking sheet and used to jump-start the gravy-making process.

FLIP THE BREAST Even with the breast on a rack, the meat can cook unevenly. The solution is simple: Start the breast skin side down and then flip it skin side up partway through the roasting process.

CRISP THE SKIN Forget about using high heat at the end of the roasting time to crisp up the skin—you end up just overcooking the outer layers of meat. Once the slow-roasted turkey comes up to temperature, we let it rest for at least 30 minutes (or up to 1½ hours) before returning the pieces to a 500-degree oven for 15 minutes. Letting the pieces rest lowers their internal temperature to about 130 degrees, so the meat won’t dry out when it’s put back in the hot oven to crisp the skin. Also, this method gives you time to use the pan drippings to create a rich gravy.



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You can bypass the 90-minute soaking time, but the heating time will increase to 18 to 20 minutes per pound for a cold ham. If there is a tear or hole in the ham’s inner covering, wrap it in several layers of plastic wrap before soaking it in hot water. Instead of using the plastic oven bag, the ham may be placed cut side down in the roasting pan and covered tightly with foil, but you will need to add 3 to 4 minutes per pound to the heating time. If using an oven bag, be sure to cut slits in the bag so it does not burst.




large plastic oven bag


recipe glaze (recipes follow)



3. Bake ham until center registers 100 degrees, 1 to 1½ hours (about 10 minutes per pound).

4. Remove ham from oven and increase oven temperature to 350 degrees. Cut open oven bag and roll back sides to expose ham. Brush ham with one-third of glaze and return to oven until glaze becomes sticky, about 10 minutes (if glaze is too thick to brush, return to heat to loosen).

5. Remove ham from oven, transfer to carving board, and brush entire ham with another third of glaze. Let ham rest, loosely tented with aluminum foil, for 15 minutes. While ham rests, heat remaining third of glaze with 4 to 6 tablespoons of ham juices until it forms thick but fluid sauce. Carve and serve ham, passing sauce at table.



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cup maple syrup


cup orange marmalade


tablespoons unsalted butter


tablespoon Dijon mustard


teaspoon pepper


teaspoon ground cinnamon

Combine all ingredients in small saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until mixture is thick, syrupy, and reduced to 1 cup, 5 to 10 minutes; set aside.



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cup ruby port


cup packed dark brown sugar


cup cherry preserves


teaspoon pepper



When you purchase a ham at the supermarket it’s fully cooked and technically ready to eat. What you’re doing at home is “warming” the ham, not cooking it. The goal is to minimize the amount of time the ham spends in the oven (that is, unless you like leathery ham) and to get the center of this thick cut to heat up as quickly as possible. Using a low oven temperature (250 degrees) reduces the heat differential between the exterior and interior of the meat, but slow roasting isn’t enough to ensure a juicy ham. The tricks outlined below help to cut the cooking time and moisture loss in half.

CHOOSE THE RIGHT HAM Bone-in hams with natural juices are the least processed of all the options at the supermarket. Boneless hams may seem like a good choice, but they contain several muscles that have been pressed together to look like ham and all that manipulation compromises the muscle structure, making them less able to hold on to natural juices. And while “water-added” ham might sound juicier, these hams taste awful and shed all that extra water in the oven. We do like the convenience of a spiral-cut ham, which makes serving a cinch.

GIVE THAT HAM A WARM BATH For serving, you need to warm the ham to 110 to 120 degrees—a process that takes a long time if you start with an ice-cold roast (35 to 40 degrees straight from the refrigerator). Instead, we found that soaking the wrapped ham in warm water for 90 minutes raises its internal temperature to 60 degrees and cuts total roasting time by an hour. Less time in the oven means less moisture loss.

BAKE IN AN OVEN BAG Roasting the ham in a plastic oven bag traps heat and further reduces cooking time. If you don’t have an oven bag (we do recommending making a trip to the supermarket to get one), you can achieve a similar (if slightly less effective) result by wrapping the ham in foil before it goes into the oven.

LET IT REST Once the ham comes out of the oven, let it rest on the counter for at least 15 minutes. Two things are happening. The heat is continuing to move toward the center of the meat via conduction and the temperature in the center is creeping up to 110 or 120 degrees. Also, the resting period allows the muscle fibers to relax and retain more juices when the ham is carved. (For more on this phenomenon, see concept 3.)



Water is a much more efficient conductor of heat than air and is capable of cooking food very quickly. But because the action happens so fast, the risk of overcooking is quite high. The goal in boiling an egg is to get the proteins to coagulate (see concept 18) and turn from liquid to solid. However, the white starts to coagulate between 140 and 150 degrees, while the yolk doesn’t start this process until the temperature reaches between 150 and 160. Since the heat takes longer to reach the yolk, the basic physics makes this process pretty tricky.

Boiling shrimp to make shrimp salad involves a similar process—the heat is shrinking the proteins, making them firmer and more palatable, but there’s an added challenge: Ideally, the shrimp is also being flavored as it cooks.

In both cases, the solution turns out to be low-and-slow cooking. High heat increases the risk of overcooking because the window between perfection and overdone is so small, and because the outer layers (the egg whites or the outer parts of the shrimp) are cooking so much faster than the inner layers (the yolks or the middle of the shrimp). Lower the temperature of the water and you increase the window of time between perfectly cooked and overcooked, and you also reduce the temperature differential between the white and yolk, or between the exterior and interior of the shrimp.



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Because these eggs are not boiled, this recipe is nearly foolproof. Just set the timer and you can be assured that the yolks will be set but not tinged with green. This recipe can be adjusted to make fewer or more hard-cooked eggs; just make sure to use a pan large enough to hold the eggs in a single layer. Very fresh eggs are the best choice for this recipe if you plan to make deviled eggs. As an egg ages, the cordlike strands that center the yolk weaken. If this happens, the yolk can end up close to the outer wall of the hard-cooked egg, making it likely you will tear the white when removing the yolk. Of course, this is not a concern in recipes like egg salad that call for dicing the hard-cooked eggs.


large eggs

1. Place eggs in medium saucepan in single layer and cover with 1 inch of water. Bring to boil over high heat. Remove pan from heat, cover, and let sit for 10 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, fill large bowl with 1 quart cold water and 1 tray of ice cubes. Pour off water from saucepan and gently shake pan back and forth to crack egg shells. Transfer eggs to ice-water bath with slotted spoon and let sit for 5 minutes. Peel and use as desired.



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hard-cooked eggs


cup mayonnaise


tablespoons minced red onion


tablespoon minced fresh parsley


celery rib, chopped fine


teaspoons Dijon mustard


teaspoons lemon juice


teaspoon salt


Cut peeled eggs into medium dice. Mix diced eggs with other ingredients in medium bowl, including pepper to taste. Serve. (Egg salad can be refrigerated in airtight container for 1 day.)



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To center the yolks, turn the carton of eggs on its side in the refrigerator the day before you plan to cook the eggs. For a nicer presentation, use a pastry bag fitted with a large star tip to pipe the filling into the egg whites.


hard-cooked eggs


tablespoons mayonnaise


tablespoon sour cream


teaspoon distilled white vinegar


teaspoon spicy brown mustard (such as Gulden’s)


teaspoon sugar


teaspoon salt


teaspoon pepper

1. Slice peeled eggs in half lengthwise. Transfer yolks to fine-mesh sieve and use rubber spatula to press them through sieve into bowl. Add remaining ingredients, mashing mixture against sides of bowl until smooth.

2. Transfer mixture to zipper-lock plastic bag. Force mixture into 1 corner of bag and twist top of bag to keep filling in corner. Using scissors, snip about ½ inch off corner of bag.

3. Arrange whites on serving platter and squeeze bag to pipe filling into whites, mounding filling about ½ inch above whites. Serve immediately. (Unfilled whites and yolk mixture can be wrapped in plastic wrap and refrigerated separately for 2 days before assembling.)


Hard-boiling an egg seems simple enough—you barely need a recipe. But because there’s no way to watch the proteins cook under the brittle shell of an uncracked egg, the process is a crapshoot. You can’t poke the egg with an instant-read thermometer. The classic method—cooking the eggs in a pot of boiling water for a precise period of time—doesn’t account for variations in heat output of stoves or conductivity of pans or the different sizes of eggs. The difference between an undercooked egg (with a dark orange yolk that’s soft in spots) and an overcooked egg (with a smelly green ring around the bright yellow yolk) can be just a few minutes.

TURN OFF THE HEAT Our solution to the boiled egg dilemma is to slow down the cooking process and rely on the residual heat in a covered pot of hot water to do the job safely and evenly. A pot of boiling water (at 212 degrees) contains a lot of heat that will be transferred to the eggs. Thus, an egg that’s perfect after 10 minutes of boiling might be overcooked after 11 or 12 minutes. To avoid this problem, we start the eggs in cold water, gently raising their temperature as the water in the pot comes to a boil. Once the water boils, we remove the pot from the heat and throw on the cover. The eggs continue to cook as the temperature of the water drops. By the time the eggs are perfectly cooked (this takes 10 minutes with this method), the temperature of the water has dropped considerably and the water is transferring much less heat to the eggs, thus reducing the risk of overcooking.

SHOCK TO STOP THE COOKING PROCESS Once the eggs have been cooked off the heat for 10 minutes, we find it best to rapidly lower the temperature inside the egg, and thus prevent the sulfur smell and green ring. (The green ring is caused by excessive or prolonged heat; the iron in the yolk is reacting with the sulfur compounds in the white.) We accomplish this by transferring the eggs from the pot of hot water to a bowl of ice water. Shocking the eggs as soon as 10 minutes have elapsed ensures that the cooking process is halted.

CRACK BEFORE SHOCKING A perfectly cooked egg isn’t good if you can’t easily remove the shell. We find that draining off the cooking water, then sliding the eggs around the empty pan does a nice job of cracking the shells. When the cracked eggs are transferred to the ice-water bath, the water gets under the shells and helps loosen them further. (For more on this process, click here.) In addition, all those cracks make it easier for the ice-water bath to perform its primary function—that is, to quickly lower the internal temperature of the egg.



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tablespoons lemon juice (2 lemons), spent halves reserved


sprigs fresh parsley plus 1 teaspoon minced


sprigs fresh tarragon plus 1 teaspoon minced


teaspoon whole black peppercorns


tablespoon sugar

Salt and pepper


cup mayonnaise


small shallot, minced


small celery rib, minced

1. Combine shrimp, ¼ cup lemon juice, reserved lemon halves, parsley sprigs, tarragon sprigs, whole peppercorns, sugar, and 1 teaspoon salt with 2 cups cold water in medium saucepan. Place saucepan over medium heat and cook shrimp, stirring several times, until pink, firm to touch, and centers are no longer translucent, 8 to 10 minutes (water should be just bubbling around edge of pan and register 165 degrees). Remove pan from heat, cover, and let shrimp sit in broth for 2 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, fill medium bowl with ice water. Drain shrimp into colander; discard lemon halves, herbs, and spices. Immediately transfer shrimp to ice water to stop cooking and chill thoroughly, about 3 minutes. Remove shrimp from ice water and pat dry with paper towels.

3. Whisk together mayonnaise, shallot, celery, remaining 1 tablespoon lemon juice, minced parsley, and minced tarragon in medium bowl. Cut shrimp in half lengthwise and then cut each half into thirds; add shrimp to mayonnaise mixture and toss to combine. Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve. (Shrimp salad can be refrigerated overnight.)


Omit tarragon sprigs from cooking liquid. Replace celery, minced parsley, and minced tarragon with 1⁄3 cup thinly sliced jarred roasted red peppers, 2 teaspoons rinsed capers, and 3 tablespoons chopped fresh basil.


Omit tarragon sprigs from cooking liquid. Replace celery, minced parsley, and minced tarragon with 4 halved and thinly sliced radishes; 1 large orange, peeled and cut into ½-inch pieces; ½ ripe avocado, cut into ½-inch pieces; and 2 teaspoons minced fresh mint.


Substitute lime juice (3 limes; and save spent halves) for lemon juice and omit tarragon sprigs from cooking liquid. Replace celery, minced parsley, and minced tarragon with ½ cup cooked corn kernels, 2 tablespoons minced canned chipotle chile in adobo sauce, and 1 tablespoon minced fresh cilantro.


Omit tarragon sprigs from cooking liquid. Replace shallot, minced parsley, and minced tarragon with 2 thinly sliced scallions, 2 tablespoons chopped pickled ginger, 1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds, and 2 teaspoons wasabi powder.


Maybe it’s a good thing that most shrimp salads are drowning in a sea of gloppy mayonnaise. The dressing might be bland, but at least it helps camouflage the sorry state of the rubbery, flavorless boiled shrimp. Fixing the dressing was easy (more potent ingredients, less mayonnaise), but getting the shrimp perfectly cooked (and adding some flavor in the process) required a bit more work.

START SHRIMP IN COLD WATER Classic recipes call for boiling water, white wine, lemon juice, herbs, and spices to create a court-bouillon to which the shrimp are then added. But despite all this work, the shrimp don’t pick up much flavor. We take the same ingredients (cutting way back on the water and eliminating the wine, which overpowers the other flavors) and add the shrimp at the outset. The science here is simple. When the shrimp are added to boiling liquid, their proteins shrink and become firm. You can see this as the shrimp turn from translucent to opaque. In boiling water, this process happens almost instantly. Once the proteins have shrunk, there’s less room for flavor molecules to be absorbed. When the shrimp are put in the broth at the beginning, they heat gently along with the broth and have more time to pick up flavor.

WARM, DON’T BOIL The proteins in shrimp start to shrink and toughen when the internal temperature reaches 120 degrees. We find bringing the internal temperature of shrimp to 140 degrees makes them pleasantly chewy but not tough. If you cook shrimp in boiling liquid (212 degrees), you pretty much guarantee that their internal temperature will rise above 140 degrees and the shrimp will turn rubbery. To prevent shrimp from overcooking, we heat the liquid to a simmer (no more than 165 degrees).

TAKE OFF HEAT, THEN SHOCK Once the cooking liquid reaches 165 degrees, we remove the pan from the heat, cover it, and let the shrimp finish cooking via conduction. This technique gives the shrimp about two minutes more of flavoring time, for a total of 10 to 12 minutes—far more than the two to three minutes shrimp spend cooking if directly added to boiling liquid. One last step—once the shrimp are done, we quickly transfer them to a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking process. Once chilled, the shrimp are ready to be dressed and served.



When buying shrimp, go for frozen, unpeeled, and untreated.

Even the most basic market now sells several kinds of shrimp. We cooked more than 100 pounds to find out just what to look for (and avoid) at the supermarket.

FRESH OR FROZEN? Because nearly all shrimp are frozen at sea, you have no way of knowing when those “fresh” shrimp in the fish case were thawed (unless you are on very personal terms with your fishmonger). We found that the flavor and texture of thawed shrimp deteriorate after a few days, so you’re better off buying frozen.

PEELED OR UNPEELED? If you think you can dodge some work by buying frozen shrimp that have been peeled, think again. Someone had to thaw those shrimp in order to remove their peel, and they can get pretty banged up when they are refrozen.

CHECK THE INGREDIENTS Finally, check the ingredient list. Frozen shrimp are often treated or enhanced with additives such as sodium metabisulfate, STPP (sodium tripolyphosphate), or salt to prevent darkening (which occurs as the shrimp ages) or to counter “drip loss,” the industry term referring to the amount of water in the shrimp that is lost as it thaws. We have found that treated shrimp have a strange translucency and an unpleasant texture and suggest that you avoid them. Look for bags of frozen shrimp that list “shrimp” as the only ingredient.


High Heat Develops Flavor

Gentle heat cooks food while minimizing moisture loss, but juiciness is not the only consideration when choosing a technique. High heat not only cooks a cut of meat but changes the flavor, too. (Think steak tartare versus a grilled steak.) Much of this change is related to the complex chemical interactions known as the Maill