The Best American Classics

by Cook's Illustrated, John Burgoyne (Illustrator)

A Best Recipe Series Classic available in paperback for the first time! Over the years, some classic American recipes have fallen into disrepair, barely recognizable shadows of their former selves. If you wanted a recipe for cornbread, fried chicken, hermit cookies, or green bean casserole that tastes at least as good as you remember, where would you find it? The Best American Classics has them all. This award-winning cookbook features favorite regional dishes such as Chicago Deep-Dish Pizza and New Orleans Red Beans and Rice as well as timeless and beloved family fair such as Chicken Pot Pie, Corned Beef and Cabbage, and Stuffed Peppers. The Best American Classics celebrates the diversity and breadth of our cuisine with foolproof recipes that will stand the test of time.

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking

421 pages, Paperback

First published August 30, 2006

Reviews

[Kendra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Things have been a little busy around here and I haven't had time to really delve deeply into recreating all of the fantabulous offerings found within this book. But I did try the bacon. (We are so classy.) I have always favored the pan-frying method myself, while my mother always preferred the microwave. The book proposed trying it in the oven. We tried it. We liked it. Not really life changing. We don't eat THAT much bacon. But it is still good information.

[Mishqueen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay, I know what my friends are thinking...this is a cookbook and you don't "really" cook! However, I was intrigued by these people's obsession with perfection and fool-proofing (since I can't seem to achieve either). I happened to see the America's Test Kitchen show on PBS one night, and looked them up to see if they had any books in the library. And they did!

There were various books that I checked out from the same group, but this one only has the regular recipes that you see everywhere. However, they claim to be the perfect version of each item (like the perfect Dirty Rice, etc.). At first I thought, why should I agree with you as to what is perfect? Then after reading their explanations, I think I just might agree with them about what is ideal. They also only included normal ingredients and tried to cut down cooking times.

I ended up reading the cookbook like a novel. They have detailed explanations of why they chose the ingredients, methods and quantities they did, which I found fascinating. So I think some of my cooking problems have been tips and methods that I'm ignorant about (like, never melt the butter in cookies). Do I dare confess that I learned a bit about cooking just by reading a cookbook? Yeah, maybe.

I'm seriously considering a purchase of this cookbook, since they almost have me convinced that I won't screw up these recipes...keep in mind, this review was written without actually trying any of the recipes.

;-)

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did enjoy the breakdown of experiments to find the "perfect" recipe as presented in this book. That said, I tried several and didn't like them a tremendous amount, but the breakdown of how they came to their decisions on what made that recipe tops helped me adjust the recipe to my liking. Does that make sense?

[Catherine Woodman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not my favorite of the series, but it is very good, especially if your cookook collection doesn't cover this area