What We’re Reading: Inside the Test Kitchen by Tyler Florence

There are some recipes you can never improve, like your grandmother’s famous meatballs. But there are others that we’ve made the same way time and time again, without knowing if we’re really using the best method. Now, with his new book Inside the Test Kitchen, Chef Tyler Florence is doing the hard work for us.

 

Inside the Test Kitchen features Tyler’s creative new twists on old-fashioned comfort foods — think macaroni and cheese or beyond-basic burgers. Along with the recipes, he shares the trials he held to create each dish in his Test Kitchen in Mill Valley, California, where he and his team brainstormed, cooked and tasted their way through the book. The result is a step-by-step guide to making the foods you love at home. And you may also find you’re more inspired to question what you know, take a risk, and make something new — if you do, you’ll take your cooking skills to a whole new level.

 

Here’s a sneak peek of recipes from Inside the Test Kitchen, out this month!

 

Meatloaf with Tomato Relish Eggs can make meatloaf dense, but using soaked bread in the mix keeps the loaf moist and irresistible. For this recipe, inspired by his dad, Tyler makes a tomato relish and mixes half of it into the meat for a meatloaf packed with tomatoes, pepper, garlic and herbs. Using the pan drippings in the sauce is his way of making sure not to lose any of the meatloaf goodness.

Stretchy Mac and Cheese Tyler’s goal when developing this recipe was to create a cheesy, stretchy macaroni and cheese that also didn’t need to be baked for a long time. He decided to use Muenster, since it won the cheese stretch test in his kitchen. But after testing multiple versions, he learned that to make a really stretchy, cheesy mac and cheese, you want to fold cubes of cheese into the pasta—instead of grating the cheese into the sauce—then flash broil it just to melt the cheese and crisp the bread crumbs. The result is a supremely satisfying mac and cheese.

Infallible Chocolate Soufflés Soufflés seem like a huge deal to make and they often get a bad rap: you do a ton of work, but you don’t know if the soufflé will rise in the oven, or, once it’s done baking, if it will fall before you get it to the table. This method takes away that fear. Using xantham gum, which is available at most health food stores and larger grocery stores, helps the eggs stay foamy, which results in a light and airy soufflé that won’t fall.

Caesar Salad with Anchovy-Parmesan Potato Croutons What makes a Caesar salad special? For Tyler, it’s about striking the perfect balance between fresh romaine and flavorful dressing, with croutons for crunch. In this recipe he substitutes crispy potatoes for the croutons—and he flavored them with two of the best parts of a Caesar salad, the Parmesan and anchovy. The potatoes absorb the dressing terrifically and bring a welcome change to this classic salad.

Extra Potato-y Mashed Potatoes When making mashed potatoes, typically you cook them in water, then pour that water down the drain — which means all the potato flavor in the water is thrown away. Tyler figured, why not cook the potatoes directly in the cream that would be added later on? He loves the great potato flavor that results.

Super-Fast Roast Turkey Tyler says if you stuff your Thanksgiving turkey, by the time the stuffing is hot in the center the breast meat is totally overcooked. To solve this problem, he pipes the stuffing between the skin and the breast. That way, you still get flavorful stuffing while protecting the breast. He also spatchcocks his turkey, or removes the backbone, which increases the bird’s surface area and allows the turkey to cook much faster. Even better, spatchcocking results in a juicy and tender bird without the need to brine it.