Cookbook Cookery: What Good Cooks Know

At the beginning of January, we started a new feature that has been a lot of fun. It is called “Cookbook Cookery”.

What is Cookbook Cookery?

Every month, I choose a new cookbook to focus on over the next 4 weeks
Each Tuesday, I cook one or more recipes from the chosen cookbook
I do not test the recipes prior to streaming. They are all new to me and I do this so that we can test the ease of the recipe
At the end of the 4 weeks, I decide whether I would recommend the cookbook

I decided to focus 4 weeks on one cookbook because I think it takes more than one recipe to decide if a cookbook is worth having on the bookshelf.

I still love having actual cookbooks on the shelf – as opposed to digital copies. Thumbing through them is my favourite way to decide what to make. But, cookbooks can be quite expensive. Cookbook Cookery allows me and my followers to dive deeper into each cookbook and then decide if it is worth purchasing.

February’s Focus Cookbook

What Good Cooks Know

The book I chose for February was America’s Test Kitchen’s What Good Cooks Know. I chose this book for a few reasons:

It is filled with a lot of reference information (1/2 the book) that answers many questions that often come up in the kitchen.
The recipes include a lot of extra images that help with key steps.
Every recipe has a lovely image showing what the finished dish should look like.

Here is What We Made

Blueberry Cobbler with Biscuits
Lemon Fish with Brown Rice pilaf
Chocolate Cheesecake Brownies
Cornbread
Black Beans with Rice
Butterflied Chicken
Seared Steak with Red Wine Sauce
Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

My Thoughts

I was really happy with this cookbook. The recipes are easy to follow and the additional images and tips are extremely helpful.

Highlights

The things that made this cookbook stand out for me:

There are a lot of very helpful images.
Along with the extra images, they include more information that tells you Why you are doing a particular step. This is a fantastic addition.
It gives options for substitutions.
The first half of the book gives a lot of information about specific cooking techniques and products.

Criticisms

One thing I am confused about is the fact that they provide both weight and volumetric measurements for most things, except butter. I am a big fan of using a scale, especially for measuring butter. I am not sure why they opted not to include weight measurements for this critical ingredient.