The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science

by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, Mike Chamberlain (Narrated by)

Overview

In The Food Lab, J. Kenji Lopez-Alt focuses on the science behind beloved American dishes, delving into the interactions between heat, energy, and molecules that create great food. Kenji shows that often, conventional methods don't work that well, and home cooks can achieve far better results using new-but simple-techniques.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781494539870
Publisher:	Tantor Media, Inc.
Publication date:	10/22/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	802,920
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 5.30(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

J. Kenji Lopez-Alt is the Chief Culinary Advisor of Serious Eats, Chef/Partner at Wursthall, and the author of the James Beard Award-nominated column "The Food Lab." His book The Food Lab won the James Beard Award for general cooking and was named Book of the Year by the International Association of Culinary Professionals.

Mike Chamberlain is an actor and voice-over performer, as well as an AudioFile Earphones Award-winning audiobook narrator. Along with animation and video game characters, Mike performs narration and voices promos for television. He lives with his wife and daughter in Southern California.

Editorial Reviews

…the one book you must have, no matter what you're planning to cook or where your skill level falls, is J. Kenji López-Alt's The Food Lab…Don't let the word "lab" in the title scare you. As López-Alt says, "What you won't find in this book are fancy-pants recipes calling for exotic ingredients or difficult techniques or chemicals or even much special equipment beyond, say, a food processor or a beer cooler"…If you want one book to explain temperature, food safety, labeling, chemical reactions and the science of browning, rising, marinating and emulsifying, this is your book.

The New York Times Book Review - Cree LeFavour

★ 07/20/2015
The managing culinary director of the Serious Eats website, editor, and author of the James Beard Award–nominated column that informs this massive investigation into the best methods for preparing a litany of foods, Lopez-Alt takes a deep dive into classic recipes and their best preparation methods. Lopez-Alt’s experience as test cook and editor at Cook’s Illustrated magazine clearly comes in handy, as he recounts the many steps he took in order to determine the best way to pan-sear a steak, whip up a quick tomato soup, scramble an egg or make the best French fries. Though he’s hardly the first to tackle the topic of a more scientific approach to cooking—the ghosts of Cook’s Illustrated, Harold McGee, and Alton Brown loom large— for the most part he deftly manages to hold the reader’s interest and educate without devolving into arcane ingredients or overly complicated instructions. Yes, there are sous-vide cheeseburgers, and his four-step process for cooking steak fries will test many a relationship, but helpful tips on pan-searing a steak (frequent flipping is fine, and might even be the best way), taking the armwork out of risotto, and whipping up a flavor-rich homemade chicken stock in under an hour are genuinely informative and sure to help home cooks of all skill levels. Lopez-Alt’s writing style is friendly and informative; he’s genuinely interested in his material, and that enthusiasm shines through. Given the book’s breadth and depth, this is a remarkable piece of work that stands up to its culinary comrades, and is a terrific starting point for home cooks interested in perfecting their techniques. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"Loaded with fascinating information…López-Alt gives you enough science for the explanations to make sense, but everything is still firmly rooted in practical home cooking."

Los Angeles Times - Russ Parsons

"A beautiful behemoth. . . . The Food Lab’s vision of “better home cooking through science”—and, I would add, through the internet—is a convincing one."

New Republic

"The ultimate book for science nerds who cook."

Wired

"[The Food Lab] promises tried-and-tested accuracy, groundbreaking technique and inarguable results. All that, plus humor."

Washington Post

"An authoritative, instant-classic reference book that’s also an engaging read."

Seattle Times

"Five years in the making, [The Food Lab is] a culmination of the wunderkind’s unlikely ascent into a cultish figure—and the face of a new kind of home cooking."

San Francisco Chronicle

"You need The Food Lab, as J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s magnum opus is 2015’s most indispensable cookbook."

The Chicago Tribune

"The Food Lab is The Joy of Cooking for the modern cook, and it has something to teach even the most experienced chefs."

USA Today

"The Food Lab is a keeper."

Wall Street Journal - Chris Kimball

★ 06/15/2015
Working in professional restaurant and test kitchens, MIT grad and chef López-Alt (managing culinary director, SeriousEats.com) learned to question "expert" cooking advice. In the vein of his James Beard Award-nominated column "The Food Lab" and previous writings for Cook's Illustrated magazine, his massive debut debunks false kitchen wisdom through rigorous scientific inquiry. Hugely informative yet not quite a textbook, this title uses humorous prose and more than 1,000 color images to relay the results of tireless experimenting with cooking temperatures, techniques, and tools. After trying López-Alt's perfected recipes for omelets (diner-style and Western), potatoes (fried, mashed, and hashed), meat loaves, and other popular foods, readers will undoubtedly emerge better cooks, with an arsenal of unconventional techniques that really work (e.g., salting eggs 15 minutes in advance of cooking for improved texture). VERDICT This indispensable kitchen manual, which suggests visualizing heat capacity as a coop full of Red Bull-energized chickens, makes food science accessible.

Library Journal