https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087/ref=nodl_

Sharing- The Food Lab by J. Kenji López-Alt is on sale for $20.92 on Amazon.

Hope this is an okay post. If not my bad!!

I have borrowed the Food Lab by J. Kenji López-Alt  from my library and found it to be a helpful reference, and have been waiting to buy it. It's marked down at the lowest price I've seen on Amazon right now at $20.92. It's officially joining my personal library.

Thought I'd share on here in case anyone else has been thinking about buying or is considering gifting.

Also the author has a youtube channel that is helpful for us beginners too.

Hope this helps someone expand their cookbook library.

The Food Lab by J. Kenji López-Alt 

The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393081087/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_api_fabt1_QslTFb0SH9VX8

ATTENTION FOODIES

If you have a person in your life who likes to cook and you need an Xmas gift for them, The Food Lab is wicked cheap right now on Amazon. u/Tiglathpilesar and I both have that book and it was over $60 bucks when we bought it. It’s now $30. It is a doorstop heavy book (get the hardback) with gorgeous pictures and fascinating information on how to cook practically anything that isn’t related to baking.

Kenji is a very well known person in the online food scene.

No. You do not need excessive heat to cook in a wok. Even Asians in Asian countries don't think about wok hei at home. It's for going out to eat at restaurants. To require wok hei at home is a concept that "Americans" have made to be a must that is completely untrue.

Westerners think wok cooking is only for "stir-frying" which is a term made up in 1945 because they were trying to translate a term that actually meant to sauté. This branded the work as uni-tasker for Americans. Meanwhile, the wok is believed to have first been invented in China, over 2000 years ago during the Han dynasty. French cuisine came into being around the 17th-18th century, so you're looking at 300-350 years at best.

"Stir-fry" is the last thing Asians think about a wok. In a wok, you're actually sautéing with higher heat, meaning it takes less oil and less time to cook your ingredients.

What American's don't realize is that woks are far more versatile and exceedingly more efficient than most western pots and pans. There's a reason woks are often the most used cooking vessel in an eastern household. Woks can fry, steam, boil, brown, braise, roast, dry-roast, dry fry, sauté, flash fry, blanch, poach, warm, slow cook, smoke, deglaze for a sauce—what can it not do? Most of which you need less oil, less water, and less time, simply as a result of the design of the wok.

You can make just about anything you can think of, you just need to know the principles of wok cooking because it's extremely FAST and efficient. Sautéing in a wok should be complete within five minutes. Once you start sautéing in a wok, there's no time to to stop and cut an ingredient, to find something out of the pantry, to measure.

Everything needs to be ready to go, you must understand timing and how to manage the rhythm of the ingredients, liquids vs. solids, proteins, aromatics, textures, heat management and spatial management. Pre-cooking certain elements, removing them so they don't overcook, returning them later for the final dish, etc. It forces one to raise their mise en place to the highest of levels.

The versatility of the wok is so under-appreciated in America that it's going to be Kenji's next book. Kenji wrote highly respected, award winning cookbook: The Food Lab.

Wok cooking takes you through every method of cooking you can imagine. It moves heat management from knobs to the management of ingredients. Heat is centralized in the bottom center and cools on the sides, which allows for managing different sections of food based on it's location in the wok. Wok cooking is an art that elevates one's skill and technique to the highest of levels when mastered.

I'll rep J Kenji Lopez-Alt's book here The Food Lab as there's tons of basics in there. You can look up an ingredient in the index and for most things you'll find information about it.

There's also another book I started with a while ago Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything.

EDIT: Salt Fat Acid Heat got a lot of popularity and with it some haters but I think it's actually a wonderful beginners book as well, you will learn a great foundation from that book that is separate from technique (it has that too), but also theory of flavor.

The Food Lab was a great book for getting started in cooking.

Kenji Lopez-Alt's The Food Lab

Deal link: Amazon

>I'm also a huge Kenji stan, and his book The Food Lab has been a game-changer in every sense of the word.

Just got my copy last Friday. It's on sale for $21 https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087

The Food Lab, (now on sale for about $20)[https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=the+food+lab&qid=1604793324&sprefix=the+f&sr=8-3]now on sale at Amazon for $20.92].

Just check it out, absolutely incredible book.

I prefer one of J. Kenji Lopez Alt's "umami bombs" as described in The Food Lab (great book, btw), using anchovy paste, soy sauce, and Marmite. Using the 3 makes sure you get a definite umami hit without one of the umami ingredients overpowering anything.

The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science - J. Kenji López-Alt

Thermapen is a great idea; in a related cooking vein this book is very highly regarded and uses science to explain and improve cooking https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087

Kenji's book is :fire: too!

https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087

Hey i just want to reply to prompt you to review the answers to my comments. The guy who responded is the the top food-science guy in america; he writes a food column for the NY Times and wrote the best cookbook of the last 10 years.

If you like reading check out j kenji López-alts cookbook the food lab .

He’s a bit of a nerd so there’s lots of technique and exposition on said technique.

Check out www.seriouseats.com to get a feel for his writing style. The book is obviously much more comprehensive but it costs money.

Well if you like the science of cooking I recommend this the food lab I really enjoy the approach this book takes to cooking.

link

The Food Lab

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393081087/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_OsSNFbXHKEF2J?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

The Food Lab, it is a great book at teaching and explaining many cooking techniques and the authors helps run a blog called serious eats that is a good recourse too!

https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087

I cannot recommend The Food Lab by Kenji Lopez-Alt enough. He breaks down the science of why we cook things certain ways. I've never had one of his recipes fail. Awesome cookbook.

Sounds a bit like The Food Lab by J Kenji Lopez-Alt or something by Alton Brown

I'm 17 as well, I've been cooking for most of my life, here are some sources I feel are easily digestible. Try out the book The Food Lab by J. Kenji López-Alt. It's full of recipes that range from easy to hard and really dig into the details for why you do certain things while cooking. You can buy it used for around 25 bucks. I also like the videos by Binging With Babish, they are pretty good and varied recipes that are fun to make or can serve as inspiration for your own cooking. One last tip, don't be afraid to experiment, try this procedure, find a recipe you like, make it exactly as the recipe says the first time, and the second time change one or two things to see how it changes the final result. This method is surprisingly good at giving you a feel for how to use different ingredients while cooking. Feel free to message me if you have any questions.

J. Kenji Lopez-Alt's book, The Food Lab, gives an awesome breakdown of the science behind why smash burgers don't dry out when done properly (unfortunately it's omitted from his Serious Eats smash burger article ). The basic gist is that you want to do it sooner than later after your patties hit that super-hot pan.

• Salt Fat Acid Heat
• The Food Lab
• The Science of Good Cooking

Having not yet read them myself, I can still recommend the books Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat and The Food Lab for building your understanding of how to build a recipe. Those two books are on my own future-reading stack, and are very highly regarded by people looking to improve their cooking game.

Work on your knife skills. Be good at using the one tool you will pick up almost every time you walk into a kitchen.

Instead of picking a single interesting recipe, pick a popular dish (say, Jamaican jerk chicken) and find a ton of recipes. See what the recipes have in common, and where they differ. Read about the culture that created the dish, what ingredients they used, and how they used what they had. Different people cook in different ways. Give fish and rice to a Japanese chef, you'll likely get sushi. Give the same to an English chef, you'll probably get stew.

You're in college. Write your own research project.

For teaching/technique I like 3 America’s test kitchen books:

The America's Test Kitchen Cooking School Cookbook: Everything You Need to Know to Become a Great Cook https://www.amazon.com/dp/1936493527/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glc_fabc_migZFbKFAH9QR

100 Techniques: Master a Lifetime of Cooking Skills, from Basic to Bucket List (ATK 100 Series) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1945256931/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glc_fabc_FigZFbPKRG90Z

100 Recipes: The Absolute Best Ways To Make The True Essentials (ATK 100 Series) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1940352010/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glc_fabc_kjgZFbVEN3Y39

Also Food lab which is written by a former ATK rep:

The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393081087/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glc_fabc_ZjgZFbEGG046Q

All books have a science based focused and help focus on why you are doing what you are doing. I have the cooking school and have purchased 4 other books for wedding gifts.

For baking, anything by Rose Levy Berenbaum is great. She literally has all bases covered, baking Bible, bread and pastry Bible, bread Bible, etc. Baking Bible had a little bit of everything and that covers quite a few bases.

Hope this helps!

My mom asked me for Christmas ideas, and I gave her that as well as Bravetart! I've always loved cooking and science, but my anxiety gets the best of me more often than not, so integrating the two's been a slow-ish process. Thank you for the encouragement; I hope that you enjoy the holidays! <3

So I'm not going with molecular gastronomy. These are actual science of cooking books that go over why recipes work and how to adapt them once you know that. All of them I recommend heavily, but modernist is $$$. You're forewarned

https://modernistcuisine.com/books/modernist-cuisine/

Really good, but really pricy.

This is a more basic one, but that I can't recommend enough (really well written and filled with light dad jokes here and there that makes it actually fun to read for what equates to a textbook):

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393081087/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_6ESvFbXKKWXMP

And then the OG of food science books:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0684800012/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_hISvFb5EMRWEK

I cannot recommend Serious Eats and The Food Lab by Kenji Lopez-Alt enough.

https://www.seriouseats.com/the-food-lab. Lots of videos and tutorials there. There's also a very comprehensive cookbook called The Food Lab.

They go through the basic science of cooking, so you learn WHY you do certain things. When you understand the principle, you can remember it and apply it more widely. Those skills keep building on each other and over time made me a much more confident cook. It becomes intuitive when you know how & why ingredients and techniques work, as opposed to just working through recipes. You're gaining fundamentals. Alton Brown is also good at this sort of instructive approach.

No worries, start with Serious Eats the site: https://www.seriouseats.com/

If you like science based cooking, akin to Harold McGee, Kenji has a great book as well:

https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087

• Kenji FTW!!!! -- https://www.seriouseats.com/the-food-lab - the book - https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087

I've only seen a texture like this once in my experience, and it was a niche situation. I substituted rice flour when cooking for someone who is gluten intolerant. It was in a cheesecake crust, in a water bath. And the seel must have not been right on my springform pan. The texture of the crust ended up like boiled rice.

As for books. Here's some really good sciency cookbooks.

• On food and cooking

https://www.amazon.com/Food-Cooking-Science-Lore-Kitchen/dp/0684800012

• Anything from cooks illustrated, but here's a couple good ones. They also have a magazine that's amazing.

https://www.amazon.com/Science-Good-Cooking-Illustrated-Cookbooks-ebook/dp/B009POEWK6/ref=mp_s_a_1_8?dchild=1&keywords=cooks+illustrated&qid=1590354872&sr=8-8

https://www.amazon.com/Cooks-Illustrated-Cookbook-Recipes-Magazine-ebook/dp/B005S0ADOU/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=cooks+illustrated&qid=1590354872&sr=8-3

• And, the food lab

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0393081087/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1590355090&sr=8-2

• Also, you can look up anything by Kenji Lopez, Alton brown, serious eats, cooks illustrated. You can find stuff from all of these all over the place, YouTube, websites, books. Hope this gives you a good start, good luck! 😊

Formatting to make it easier on the eyes:

• Salt Fat Acid Heat
• Nigel Slater’s Kitchen Diaries
• My Kitchen Year by Ruth Reichl
• The Food Lab
• Slow by Gizzi Erskine

Cooking is my creative outlet. Making a meal that is nutritionally balanced, tasty, pretty to look at, has the right texture, easy on the wallet, and able to finish all parts at the same time to serve to others at the right temperature is a skill that needs a lot of practice. Plus then you get tasty food.

I've been getting back into bread making these past weeks. Totally different set of skills. Sourdough is an easy and versatile place to start.

Food blogs are sometimes nice but often wrong and I don't want to read someone's life story for a recipe. I'd recommend actual cookbooks.

For the beginner - How to cook everything , by Mark Bittman

For people trying to hone in on technique - The food Lab by J kenzi López alt

Or

The science of good cooking, by Cook's Illustrated

For bread baking, it can literally consume your life with timing. I like Artisan Bread in 5 mins a day as it does a lot of long slow rises in the fridge so it isn't as time sensitive. They also have a healthy version of the book that uses more whole wheat and different flours.

There are a million sourdough cookbooks and I don't have a recommendation for just one yet.

"Respected and influential" is hard to use as a metric in recommending cookbooks. The annual Beard awards are a good guide to what is timely and interesting. Time alone tells which will stand the test of time, of course. My current favorite newish book for encouraging creativity and innovation is The Food Lab. Ruhlman's Ratio is intentionally non-innovative, but compiles the guidelines that let you innovate with a pretty good guarantee that you will succeed. Salt Fat Acid Heat is hot right now, and was worth the money to read, browse and consider, but does not have the makings of a classic to me; I feel much the same way about Dorie Greenspan's Everyday Dorie which is regularly flogged on cooking shows.

I have about 15 shelf feet of cookbooks, covering dish centric "bibles" to encyclopedias of currently popular American cuisine for each decade of American cuisine going back about 150 years, to cuisine centered international cookbooks of varying cultural sensitivity. I would not part with most of them easily, but have a self imposed rule that I will add no more shelf feet of cook books, so every so often I have to cull 3 or 4 inches to add something.

Can you elaborate in what sort of cookbooks you want to add - or food you want to cook?

America's Test Kitchen has a three week trial for their Online Cooking School. I've been meaning to sign up for it, but I haven't, so take it with a grain of salt... but generally anything Cooks Illustrated / America's Test Kitchen related hasn't let me down, yet.

I saw /u/ayelenwrites mention Basics with Babish, which I second, as it's both educational and entertaining. I recommend Kitchen Care and Introduction/Tools. Subreddit is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/bingingwithbabish/

Last recommendation, if you're a nerd and want to know the 'why' in cooking and doing things is reading anything that Kenji Lopez writes. Check out his website and his book, if you feel so inclined. Happy cooking!