Timing Is Everything: The Complete Timing Guide to Cooking

by Jack Piccolo

Cooking shouldn't be a research project, forcing you to read through recipes to find answers to the simplest of How long? Now, Timing Is Everything , the ultimate guide to timing and storage, provides easy answers at a glance.  

Author Jack Piccolo has assembled chart after chart offering invaluable, at-your-fingertips cooking times for grains, fruits and vegetables, meat, poultry, fish, sausage, even nuts! Taking into consideration size, weight, and thickness, each food's cooking time is listed alongside brief, easy-to-follow instructions on each particular cooking method. In an instant, you can find, for example, how long to broil a piece of salmon, toast pine nuts, or boil fettuccine (fresh or dried). In addition, general directions on cooking methods--from baking to deep-frying to stir-frying--and sections on storing and freezing foods are included for quick reference.

Separate chapters on microwaving, pressure cooking, and storing foods supply important information in the same easy chart format. Who hasn't wondered about defrosting and reheating in the microwave, or relying on frozen meats and vegetables? By definitively answering these questions, Timing Is Everything takes the guesswork out of cooking so home cooks can be more confident in the kitchen and concentrate on making the most out of their ingredients and preparing a delicious meal.  

Never overcook another steak, serve pasta that is too al dente, or worry about food safety again. Once you get your hands on this book, you'll be amazed you ever cooked without it.  

Genres: Cookbooks, Food, Cooking

448 pages, Paperback

First published March 7, 2000

Reviews

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this up at goodwill for 50 cents in almost mint condition. This is the perfect reference for when you don't want to scroll through 3-5 recipes to figure out how long something needs to cook. I often want to try a new food or new way to cook something but hesitate because of the effort I'd have to put in. This book takes out that effort. Piccolo covers a large breadth of foods, including how to cook them and how they can be stored. He does not cover seasoning or pairing foods.

The organization and formatting really pushes this book over into five stars. I can hold it in one hand, it's organized intuitively by food, and the formatting makes it easy to flip through the book because of tinted runners on the edge of the page (what's the term for that??) listing each category of food. There is also an imperial to metric conversion chart.

I would recommend this to anyone who cooks new foods at some frequency or people who can't quite remember at what temperature and how long they usually cook a food. This could also be helpful for people trying to master the art of a dinner party where everything finishes on time. This is a physical reference of what I wish was already in my brain.

[kirk · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I only had four reference books in my kitchen, they'd be:

1. The Food Substitutions Bible
2. The Flavor Bible
3. Some kind of exhaustive field guide to the grocery store which I
haven't yet identified.

and

4. Timing Is Everything: The Complete Timing Guide to Cooking. It tells you
how long it takes to cook everything, along with other various ways to
know if a food is properly cooked. It also tells you how long you can
store food. Very simple. Very thorough. Very perfect.

[Audrey Hare · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent resource for recipeless cookers. Tells you how and how long to cook almost anything. Also sections on food storage. Should I throw out that broccoli?