"...mind-bogglingly detailed and rewarding." The Observer Food Monthly
Ever wondered how to pan-fry a steak with a charred crust and an interior that's perfectly medium-rare from edge to edge when you cut into it? How to make homemade mac 'n' cheese that is as satisfyingly gooey and velvety-smooth as the blue box stuff, but far tastier? How to roast a succulent, moist turkey (forget about brining!)-and use a foolproof method that works every time? As Serious Eats's culinary nerd-in-residence, J. Kenji Lopez-Alt has pondered all these questions and more. In The Food Lab, Kenji focuses on the science behind beloved American dishes, delving into the interactions between heat, energy, and molecules that create great food. Kenji shows that often, conventional methods don't work that well, and home cooks can achieve far better results using new-but simple-techniques. In hundreds of easy-to-make recipes with over 1,000 full-color images, you will find out how to make foolproof Hollandaise sauce in just two minutes, how to transform one simple tomato sauce into a half dozen dishes, how to make the crispiest, creamiest potato casserole ever conceived, and much more.
Don't miss selected images from the book - scroll down!
"For avid home cooks who came of age in the digital era, there may be few voices more authoritative than that of J. Kenji López-Alt, the nerd king of Internet cooking...He is reliable, personable and unpretentious. He is also a gifted explainer, making difficult concepts easy to grasp for those of us with a lifelong lack of aptitude for the sciences." --The New York Times
"Lopez-Alt's application of scientific rigour to home cooking is actually a lot of fun. Any book that devotes 13 pages to achieving the perfect chip is all right by us."
--The 25 best food books of 2015, The Observer Food Monthly
"López-Alt shows that conventional methods do not always work well and explains how home cooks can achieve better results using new techniques. A bestseller in America."
--The Irish Sunday Times
"...a must-read for home cooks...Buy this book for your favourite food nerd and you'll get precious little conversation out of them on Christmas Day. It questions the techniques we use day-to-day, examining the science as well as providing recipes and a fair bit of humour. It's peppered with useful facts, too...My Christmas cooking has changed forever."
--The Telegraph
"...take your time. You'll learn a lot."
The 10 best cookbooks of 2015, The Washington Post
"...it is the only book you need to become a seriously good cook."
--Chemistry World
"He's [J. Kenji López-Alt] got science on his side (and a degree from MIT) and has spent countless man-hours thinking about and reverse-engineering what, exactly, makes delicious food work. (We highly recommend picking up his 1,000 page, James Beard award-winning cookbook..."
--GQ Magazine
"It will make you question just about everything you know about cooking as well as give you new ways of doing old things to make them better... a hefty tome that is well worth its price."
--Foodepedia
