Review: Tyler Florence Inside the Test Kitchen

I may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post. This costs you absolutely no extra money (of course), it simply allows me to maintain the lifestyle my cats are accustomed to!

Imagine having a front row seat as Tyler Florence tests and perfects recipes for some of your favorite foods. You watch (and listen) as he finds ways to make a great recipe a perfect recipe.  His knowledge, experience, and expertise… all for you and you, alone.There’s a book for that.

Inside the Test Kitchen: 120 New Recipes, Perfected is the next best thing to the scenario above. I guess you could make it even with the scenario because, after all, you get to keep the book and use it anytime you choose to.

Before I get to the recipes, I just want to say a few things about the unique beauty of this cookbook. It’s a hardback beauty that’s filled with wonderful pictures. The approach of the book, appropriately enough, reminds you of an expensive college textbook in a way. I say appropriately enough because this IS an education.

It’s like Recipes 101… taught by Professor Florence… in the comfort of your own home.

How can you beat that?!

A few of the recipes included in Inside the Test Kitchen are:

• Risotto
• Caesar Salad with Anchovy-Parmesan Potato Croutons
• Creamy Carolina Grits
• Extra Light Cornbread (light as in NOT dense)
• Polenta Gnocchi
• Modern Burger Buns
• Crispy Smoked Pork Shoulder or St. Louis Ribs
• House-Smoked Bacon
• Three Minute Blender Hollandaise
• Marge’s Potato Salad
• Spinach-Ricotta Tortellini
• Five-In-One Mix (Muffins, Pancakes, Waffles, Cakes, and Cookies)
• Super Fast Roast Turkey
• Super Crisp Roast Chicken
• Modern Grilled Cheese
• And so many more – 120 recipes in all!

Having tons of great recipes and pictures is where Inside the Test Kitchen: 120 New Recipes, Perfected parts ways with most cookbooks, though.  The thing that sets this one apart is the details. Not only do you have “behind the scenes” access to Tyler Florence making and perfecting the recipes, you have priceless tips that’ll serve you for the rest of your culinary life! Pages are filled with his notations, as though he has hand-written tips and ideas for you personally.

I don’t want to give anything away – in fairness to the author or the reader – so I’ll just give a few teasers…

1. Learn the importance to more flavor absorption when making potato salad.
2. Learn a technique for making mashed potatoes that doesn’t involve boiling the potatoes in water.
3. How to make gluten free gnocchi.
4. How to make the most delicious deviled eggs you ever tasted.. or served.
5. Learn how to make 12 perfectly poached eggs at once.
6. Plus countless other tips you’ll use forever. And ever.

Although I love the entire cookbook – front to cover – and look forward to trying each of the many recipes, I may be the most excited about the Mashed Potatoes recipe (and unique technique), Perfect Steamed “Boiled” Eggs, Grits, the Gluten Free Gnocchi, and the Three Minute Hollandaise Sauce.  Three minutes! For sauce that’s creamy and delicious whether it’s on asparagus or poached eggs.

Three minutes. In a blender. Game changer.

Whether you’re new to cooking or have been doing it for more years than you could count with BOTH hands and BOTH feet, you’ll love

. It’d make a wonderful (can you say perfect?) gift for any cook or foodie.

It’s just a very unique, friendly, fun-to-read, and information-filled book.  It’d actually make a wonderful basis for a Food Network or Cooking Channel series – Tyler Florence deconstructing and perfecting favorite recipes.

I’d never miss an episode!

Click through any of the links for more information about this wonderful cookbook. You’ll be as excited about it as I am.

 About the Author: Tyler Florence is a Food Network star, author of twelve books, product designer, and the chef-owner of Wayfare Tavern in San Francisco and El Paseo in Mill Valley, California. He also produces wines under his California Crush label, and will open the Tyler Florence Test Kitchen, a culinary laboratory, think tank, and event space, in late 2014. He lives in California with his family.

From the Back Cover:

Have you ever wondered which cheese, exactly, will make the stretchiest, cheesiest mac and cheese? Or if you can make Hollandaise sauce without fear, a double boiler, or even a whisk? Or if, instead of having to choose between onion rings or French fries, you can make onion rings crusted with French fries? Tyler Florence has. These are the kinds of questions he obsesses over when he thinks about how to make cooking both easier and more exciting.

For years, while shuttling between his restaurants and TV shoots, Tyler’s kept a notebook of ideas to push his own recipes out of their comfort zone. Now, for the first time in his career, he’s established a culinary lab where he can dive deep into the hows, whys, and why-nots of his cooking. He brings you Inside the Test Kitchen to see his experiments, the wins and the fails, and of course, the delicious, foolproof, and surprising recipes that come out of it.

Go from tricks to make basics brilliant—like saucing Double-Creamed Spinach with pureed spinach, or using boiling-hot brine to make a Super-Crisp Roast Chicken— to simpler ways to make the classics, like a nearly no-stir Time Saver Risotto and a Three-Minute Hollandaise, to pure reinvention, like Fronion Rings and almost-instant Modern Burger Buns.

Through these 120 recipes, Tyler invites you to question culinary sacred cows, push your skills to the next level, and make food more delicious than they would have thought possible.

See more:  Inside the Test Kitchen: 120 New Recipes, Perfected

Note: I received this book from the Blogging for Books program in exchange for this review. The opinions are entirely my own.