Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work [Hardcover]

Even though my expectations for this book were extremely high, I can honestly say it's leagues better than I could have imagined. For anyone with even basic cooking technique, from home cook to professional, there truly is enough to reinvigorate and elevate your creativity in the kitchen for a long time.

The book is organized broadly into two parts, firstly for the home cook and lastly professionals. The techniques in the second part are not necessarily more difficult, but simply address newer food products and applications such as "meat glue", liquid nitrogen and carbon dioxide which most home cooks would not likely have on hand. However, Aki and Alex make them so familiar and understandable in their explanations that I'm left to believe that some will be as common to us as baking powder and gelatin someday.

The home cook section covers such topics as how to perfectly cook eggs, make no knead bread, fresh pasta, pickling and preserving, making vinegar from scratch, fruits and vegetables, ice cream, making fresh cheeses and a ton more! What I liked most is that unlike most cookbooks which just give you the "how to", Aki and Alex explain in simple detail why each step is taken in the recipe so these topics are truly demystified once and for all and you are left feeling like you've grown to be a more confident cook and not just followed someone's instructions.

I've only had the book a few days and I've already "cryo-blanched" some Kale to great effect (this is simply using a foodsaver vacuum sealer to vacuum seal raw kale leaves, freeze them and rethaw them so the process tenderizes the vegetable without cooking and destroying the nutrients.) I couldn't believe how easy it was.

Another great technique is their explanation of "pre-hydrating starches", which again in practice is simply soaking rice or pasta for a few hours in cold water (or any other flavored liquid!), draining it then cooking normally but in less time. When this is done the starch cooks quicker, and allows for the addition of extra flavor via the soaking liquid, really cool!

I have read my fair share of cookbooks and in terms of value for your investment I can't imagine a better pick than this book. There is so much knowledge, explained with such finesse and enthusiasm, this is definitely a rare find. I thank the authors for their contribution and hope they keep the ideas coming! :)

If a book's worth can be measured by the number of dog-eared pages, then Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work could turn around the international financial crisis. In fact, my copy has so many turned page corners that I'm expecting a `Cease and Desist" order to arrive at my home any day now. Well over 75 pages are marked as requiring my re-reading and note taking. And lest you think I'm a chronic book destroyer, a quick scan of my most favorite and used books show less than ten dog-eared pages in any one book. This is one worthy book for anyone who cares about the inner workings of their food or for anyone who wants someone to do the homework for them so they can simply follow instructions and put out great dishes.

Aki Kamozawa and H. Alex Talbot are the pragmatic culinary uber duo from Ideasin Food.com and the Kitchen Alchemy column of Popular Science magazine. Their kitchen pedigree includes Clio in Boston and a slew of smaller kitchens and consultancies. In the modernist cyber kitchens, Alex and Aki are royalty.

The much anticipated Ideas in Food comes in at 320 pages with zero pictures, sketches, drawings or even graphical imagery. That's right! This book, the sister of the blog, as know for its rich stimulating photography as its cutting edge techniques, has left the artistic creativity to the reader's imagination. Instead, it hones in on the science of creating great food. And Aki and Alex bring the reader this science in such a friendly way that even the most science phobic among us will be able to understand why eggs cook the way they do.

But with Harold McGee and Hervé This books and the countless food blogs (paramount among them: CookingIssues.com) that examine food science, where does Ideas in Food fit in? Having read pretty much every food science offering, I can say that this is the densest and most accessible of them all. McGee and This offer more lab sterile approaches to food science where their findings are undisputed and readily disseminated. You can't go wrong with either. CookingIssues is more experimental and up-to-the-minute, but at the whim of its authors' fancies. Ideas in Food starts with the basic principles but quickly races down roads guided by their own creativity. What good is it to learn the best way of making pasta if you don't do anything interesting with it? Where McGee and This's lecture circuit is the classroom, Kamozawa and Talbot's is in the kitchen.

The book is divided into two sections: Ideas for Everyone and Ideas for Professionals. The Ideas for Everyone section includes seasoning and preserving, bread, pasta, gnocchi and risotto, eggs, dairy, fruits and vegetables, and meat and seafood. The Ideas for Professionals section includes hydrocolloids, transglutaminase, liquid nitrogen and carbon dioxide. Possibly because I work with the professional additives that they cover, I did not find the professional section overly useful (with the exception of carbon dioxide which rarely gets coverage) with the exception that it provides a succinct summary of the various hydrocolloids. However, the Everyone section was ripe with new and refined ideas.

With no fuss, Aki and Alex throw out tip after tip. For example, they state that in frying "We use rice bran oil for frying because it has a high smoke point and a clean, neutral flavor, which means that fried foods tend to cook evenly without burning or absorbing any heavy flavors from the oil." After reading this I switched my restaurant's oil over to rice bran oil and we haven't looked back. Really, rather amazing stuff - how did I not get the memo on this earlier!? And transfat free!

In regards to brining, "We don't generally wash fish and seafood; instead we soak them in a 5 percent salt solution for ten minutes. This soak coagulates exterior proteins, firms the flesh, and extends the shelf life of the fish." When considering the best way to have pasta cook quickly, "The answer was a cold-water soak. This technique almost completely separates the hydration and cooking processes. We know that starch needs water to cook properly. A cold-water soak, at a 4:1 ratio of water to pasta, allows the starch to slowly absorb the water that it needs to gelatinize." Page after page of tips and techniques that are not esoteric, but down-to-earth useful.

Ideas in Food also offers 100 recipes ranging from scrambled eggs to root beer braised short ribs. Nothing crazy and fancy, just food that you're likely to attempt at home. And while the authors may mention the use of the expensive professional gadgetry in the introduction to the recipes, none is required to attempt the recipes in a home kitchen.

Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work is a worthwhile book for your library. It is said that humans only use 10% of our brains, and if you only use 10% of this book, your meals will still be richer for it.

As someone with a background in both biology and chemistry as well as someone who is known by family and friends for being almost comically exacting in applying science in the kitchen I brought very high expectations to this book. I was hoping that it would both expand my knowledge of the science behind various cooking techniques as well as supply some delicious recipes that I could duplicate in the kitchen. I was sorely disappointed on both fronts.

The scientific explanations, while interesting, are frustratingly vague and difficult to apply to your cooking without a concrete example. I assume the the recipes which follow were intended to provide concrete examples. Unfortunately most of the recipes are immensely complex, expensive, and labor intensive. For example the braised short ribs recipe referenced in the publisher's weekly review is nothing less than a 48-72 hour cooking marathon requiring ice baths on two separate occasions, a circulating water bath on three separate occasions, a pressure cooker on two separate occasions, and a vacuum sealer. They provide some substitution options such as zip locks for vacuum bags, but how, for example, I am I supposed to safely keep a large pot of water at exactly 149 F on my open flame gas stove-top for 24 hours? This recipe is far from an exception. Most of the recipes in the book are not accessible unless you own a mountain of kitchen equipment, have extensive cooking experience, and have a lot of time on your hands.

I had to give the book two stars because there are some useful tidbits that make it not a complete waste of time and I could see how if you did own the equipment and have the time and experience it would probably be very helpful. If you don't have those things, be prepared to be frustrated as you come across recipe after recipe which you simply can't duplicate at home.