Cookbook of the Week: Tyler Florence's 'Inside the Test Kitchen'
Yahoo Food’s Cookbook of the Week: Inside the Test Kitchen: 120 New Recipes, Perfected (Clarkson Potter)
The Team: Tyler Florence—the chef, Food Network TV personality, and prolific cookbook author—wrote and photographed this book, developing the recipes alongwith his Test Kitchen staff. Laura Palese designed it to look like a Moleskine notebook, making it fresh and approachable.
The Test Kitchen: What is Tyler Florence’s Test Kitchen? It’s a space in Mill Valley, California, that the chef uses to brainstorm dishes and create recipes, tasting and tweaking them along with a staff of his corporate cooks.
The Cuisine: A selection of classic American dishes and comfort foods that deserve either refreshers or perfections. Examples: mashed potatoes made with potatoes cooked in cream instead of water (to hold onto the “potato flavor” normally thrown out with the boiling water); lasagna made with noodle layers cooked directly in tomato sauce (eliminating the extra boiled-water step and capitalizing on flavor).
Who Should Buy It: The home cook who wants to put a crowd-pleasing dinner on the table. The kitchen geek who wants scientific proof that the cheese she’s putting in her mac and cheese has the highest possible stretch factor.
Who Shouldn’t: Those who need their cookbook images propped and pristine. Shot behind the scenes by Florence himself, these aren’t pro photos, but they do act as good guides to how you should cook his recipes.
Must-Make Recipes: One-Pan Lasagna, Stretchy Mac and Cheese, Extra Potato-y Mashed Potatoes, Loaded Iceberg Wedge Salad.
Noteworthy: Florence reached out to his Twitter followers to determine what recipes he should include in the book: “What do you want to learn how to cook?” he asked with the hashtag #tftestkitchen. “You are not a quiet group!” he wrote in the introduction to Inside the Test Kitchen. “You inspired me while asking for everything, from homemade bacon pancakes to French onion soup. In truth, this book was born on social media.” So who knows? Follow Florence and maybe you’llend up in his next book.
More Cookbooks of the Week:
Gabrielle Hamilton’s ‘Prune’
Ina Garten, Make It Ahead
Brown Sugar Kitchen
