Book of the Week: The Food Lab

15 Jan 2016

the_food_lab This week I read The Food Lab by J. Kenji López-Alt, the Managing Culinary Director of Serious Eats. I know the author from two articles: The Science of the Best Chocolate Cookies and The Food Lab’s Definitive Guide to Prime Rib. The cookie article inspired me to look into cookie ingredient substitution and read Flour. The author goes into the why of cooking with recipes and the experiments he did to prove it. This book is more accessible than the textbook On Food and Cooking. Science

Only by understanding the underlying principles involved in cookery can you free yourself from both recipes and blindly accepted conventional wisdom.

J. Kenji López-Alt graduated from MIT, so he has the scientific method ingrained in him. It is not about blindly following recipes, but finding out why things happen. By understanding why, you can get closer to true deliciousness. The beginning of the book is a serious of lists for the equipment and ingredients you need to start cooking. After going through these lists, I can only conclude that cooking is expensive. What you save by not eating out, you will spend on equipment. Maybe I’ll justify it as the equipment I need to conduct scientific experiments, which I dispose in my stomach. The Eight Pots And Pans Every Kitchen Needs

  1. 12-Inch Tri-Ply Straight-Sided Lidded Sauté Pan - workhouse
  2. 10-Inch Cast Iron Skillet - heat retention for steaks
  3. 10-Inch Tri-Ply Nonstick Skillet - eggs
  4. 3-Quart Saucier - slopped sides for easy stirring
  5. 14-Inch Carbon Steel Wok - deep frying, smoking and steaming
  6. 6- to 8-Quart Enameled Cast-Iron Dutch Oven - slow cooking
  7. 3- to 4-Gallon Stockpot - soup stock
  8. Something to Roast In - turkey

The 6½ Knives Every Kitchen Needs

  1. 8- to 10-Inch Chef’s Knife or a 6- to 8-Inch Santoku Knife - 95% of cutting
  2. 3- to 4-Inch Sheep’s Foot Paring Knife - peeling precision
  3. 10- to 12-Inch Serrated Bread Knife - bread
  4. 6-Inch Boning Knife - flexible blade to remove bones
  5. Good Heavy Cleaver - big heavy cleaver from Chinatown to hack the shit of things
  6. Y-Shaped Vegetable Peeler - vegetables
  7. 10-Inch Honing Steel - keep blades cutting well by straightening the edge

Essential Small Tools

  1. Instant-Read Thermometer - quick and accurate
  2. Digital Kitchen Scale - for repeatability
  3. Digital Timer/Stopwatch - so you don’t forget
  4. Immersion Blender - blend inside the container
  5. Food Processor - chops, purees, grinds, emulsifies and kneads
  6. Stand Mixer, with Meat Grinder Attachment - baking and meat
  7. Powerful Blender - smooth
  8. Rice Cooker - pick something up from Chinatown so you don’t mess up the rice.

Essential Kitchen Hand Tools and Gadgets

  1. Utensil Holder - makes utensils readily available
  2. Bench Scrapper - bread and transferring
  3. Saltcellar and Pepper Mill - freshly cracked
  4. Prep Bowls of All Sizes - stores stuff
  5. Wooden Spoons - your Italian grandma
  6. Slotted Flexible Metal Spatula - flip
  7. Tongs - pick up and turn
  8. Microplane Zester Grater - lemon and cheese
  9. Whisks - foam
  10. Salad Spinner - quick dry
  11. Stiff Spatula - sturdy
  12. Japanese-Style Mandoline - slices
  13. Spider - skim
  14. Small Offset Spatula - plating
  15. Fine-Mesh Strainer - drain
  16. Chopsticks - gentle picker upper
  17. Wine Key - get drunk tonight
  18. Citrus Juicer - dual use
  19. Cake Tester - is it done
  20. Lots of Squeeze Bottles - easy dispensing

Essential Pantry Ingredients The author gives a list of things to have in your pantry, so you can whip up anything. If you look inside a poor graduate student’s fridge, they’ll probably be leftover take out boxes and some form of refreshment. Don’t be a poor graduate student anymore. It seems like a laundry list of ingredients. It is hard to have so many things if you’re the only person eating it. My suggestion is to buy what you need, when you need it. Cold Pantry

Baking Pantry

Grains and Legumes

Canned Goods

Spices and Salts

Oils, Vinegars, and Other Liquids

Purchase The Food Lab from Amazon.com or check it out from your local library.