Product Description

The Cook’s Illustrated Guide to Grilling and Barbecue is a comprehensive nuts and bolts volume that thoroughly examines outdoor cooking—starting with the basics. The 12-page introduction to grilling, “Outdoor Cooking 101,” walks you step-by-step through the essentials of grilling, grill-roasting, and barbecuing using both charcoal and gas grills.

And since outdoor cooking requires just the right tools and equipment, the editors of Cook's Illustrated share the results of their product tests in an extensive buyers guide, “Equipment and Tools for Outdoor Cooking,” where charcoal grills, gas grills, grill brushes, tongs, instant-read thermometers, and more are rated. At a glance, you will know which brands we recommend (and why) and which to avoid.

Armed with the right equipment and instructions, you’ll be ready to tackle just about any recipe from a simple and perfectly cooked burger to succulent pulled pork and restaurant-perfect grilled tuna. You’ll find more than 450 recipes for all your favorites—steak tips, ribs, and barbecued chicken as well as some that will expand your repertoire—from Thai-Grilled Chicken and Skirt Steak Tacos to Grilled Corn with Spicy Chili Butter and Bruschetta with Fresh Herbs.

The Cook’s Illustrated Guide to Grilling and Barbecue also contains more than 300 step-by-step illustrations that walk you through the basics of food preparation, such as how to cut beef for kebabs, trim beef tenderloin, and grill-roast a turkey.

Whether you’re a novice outdoor cook or aspiring grillmaster, this encyclopedic examination of one of America’s favorite pastimes will be your guide to foolproof grilling and barbecuing.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #96878 in Books
• Published on: 2005-05-05
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .3 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 432 pages

Books in Canada
Christopher Kimball, founder and editor of Cook’s Illustrated Magazine, has a simple philosophy about cooking. Essentially, it comes down to precision. Like any science, recipes should be exact when it comes to ingredients, quantities, cooking times and temperatures, cook ware and other instruments, and the preparation of ingredients before the use of oven or pot. I mention this knowing full well that many proud cooks reading this review will scoff at the notion of such precision. Shouldn’t the preparation of food leave room for experimentation, culinary talent, or simply personal preference? Depends on the market. I for one fear guesswork in the kitchen. The more instructions and pictures showing me precisely how to execute everything within a recipe, the more confident I feel that I’ll be able to pull it off. It seems that I’m not the only one who thinks this way. The original Best Recipe, published in 1999, was an “instant success.” “We have sold almost 400,000 copies since then,” Kimball writes in the Introduction to this new book, which offers 500 new recipes and 800 hand-drawn illustrations. Personally, I’m reassured by the editors’ stated mission “to test recipes over and over again until we understand how and why they work and until we arrive at the 'best' version." I appreciate that “[they] make the mistakes, so [I] don’t have to.”
True to their word, just about all of the recipes in the book are accompanied by a great deal of text that explains what is right or wrong about the traditional or most common method of preparing a dish. This is followed by a detailed account of how the Test Kitchen’s cooks arrived at their ‘best’ recipe; the pros and cons of various approaches is described so that a knowledgeable cook will know what not to attempt if she still believes that a different avenue could lead to better results. The following portion, one fifth of a preamble to a recipe for “Shrimp Bisque” is typical:

“The fundamental challenge in making a shrimp bisque is extracting flavor from the shrimp and shells. The recipes we tested did this in a couple of ways. Some recipes we tried pureed the shrimp meat into the base and left there; others simmered the shrimp in the base until spent and then strained them out. The bisques made with pureed shrimp were grainy with shrimp curds; the ones in which the shrimp were strained out achieved the velvety texture properly associated with a bisque. . . .”

It’s impossible to discuss 1,000 recipes. Suffice it to say, the book has a marvelous international range of French, Italian, Oriental, Middle East, and Mexican dishes as well as many North American favorites, and covers everything from appetizers (my favorite section) to a great variety of desserts. I liked the illustrations throughout the book which depict everything from types of roast (in the Pot Roast section, Beef chapter) to ways of cutting and deboning fish before and after cooking (Fish and Shellfish chapter).
The instructions and illustrations in the Guide to Grilling and Barbecue are based on the same principle of determining the ‘best’ recipe and technique. “Outdoor Cooking 101” explains everything to do with charcoal grilling and gas grilling (even suggesting the best, most reasonably priced grills). There are 450 recipes and numerous accompanying images. One section addresses “how to buy beef steaks for the grill.” It includes pictures of 14 types of steaks and rates their tenderness, flavour, and cost. Many other types of illustrations follow: for example, we’re shown how to pare away outer layers of fat on a rack of lamb, bone a leg of lamb, butterfly chicken, remove pinbones from a side of salmon and then barbecue it without leaving chunks stuck to the grill. All this might seem basic to some, but in fact there are enough tips to enlighten even the expert. Not so basic are some of the wonderful recipes: Greek, Indian, Turkish, Caribbean recipes for marinates, salsas, kebabs, various parts and cuts of beef, lamb, and poultry (duck, turkey, and quail included), as well as shellfish, vegetables, side dishes, rubs and sauces. This book is a treat for the summer.
Olga Stein (Books in Canada)

From Publishers Weekly
This hefty volume features a didactic tone that corresponds to the mission of the magazine of the same name, bringing scientific scrutiny and rigorous testing to home cooking with extremely detailed recipes and illustrations. With chapters on major ingredients and accompaniments—beef, pizza, vegetables, rubs, etc.—the book illustrates such tasks as recreating Texas-Style Barbecued Beef Ribs at home (hint: don't use bony scraps), grilling a whole turkey (small turkeys work best) and preparing lobsters for grilling (split them in half lengthwise). The editors distinguish between grilling (which uses fast, direct heat) and BBQ (slow, indirect heat); weigh in on the virtues and shortcomings of gas and charcoal grilling; and address other puzzling grill-related issues. They warn readers that grilling and barbecuing are fraught with potential problems, and the book, while well researched, tends toward the negative (e.g., "If you slice meat straight from the grill, say goodbye to its juicy flavor.... There's nothing you can do now, but next time take this precaution"). Yet this approach is ideal for those who are nervous about outdoor cooking and want to know what to expect. For fans of Alton Brown–style minutiae, this is a prime resource. (June)
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About the Author

Cook's Illustrated, Home of America's Test Kitchen producesthe very popular America's Test Kitchen Public Television series that is seen inboth the US and Canada by over 1 million viewers. Additionally, it is associatedwith Cooks Illustrated Magazine, a leading and highly respected foodpublication that is available throughout Canada.

Cook's Illustrated and America's Test Kitchen titles includingThe New Best Recipe - revised and expanded from the classic, The BestRecipe, which has sold over 350,000 copies, companions to the America's TestKitchen Public Television series, and many other bestselling and award-winningcookbooks such as Baking Illustrated, Cover and Bake and TheBest Kitchen Quick Tips.