The Perfect Recipe | Pam Anderson | my favorites from this book

The Perfect Recipe | Pam Anderson | Perfect fun book

books:

The Perfect Recipe

	The Perfect Recipe Pam Anderson Houghton Mifflin, 2001 - 380 pages average customer review:based on 69 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Pam Anderson roasted more than 40 turkeys, steamed and boiled more than three dozen lobsters, cleaned and cooked more than 100 pounds of greens,
baked more than 50 cobblers ? all so you can have the perfect recipe . . .

Which comes first when mashing potatoes ? the butter or the milk? What grade and grind of meat make the best hamburgers? How do you roast a turkey so the breast meat is as moist and juicy as the legs? For the tenderest muffins, should you use buttermilk, yogurt or milk? At what temperature should you cook prime rib for the most succulent results? Is it possible to create a fudgy, cakey, chewy brownie all in one?
Most of us don't have time to figure out the answers to questions like these. We need somebody to do the work for us and get our favorite recipes just right. In this book, Pam Anderson, the food editor of USA Weekend magazine, does just that. Painstakingly conducting test after test, Anderson arrives at not only the best recipe but frequently the most convenient and sensible one:
? A simple formula for a stir-fry that can be varied with different combinations of meat, vegetables and sauces
? French bread so easy it can be baked every day
? Chicken pot pie for weeknights, made with convenient chicken breasts rather than a whole chicken
? Macaroni and cheese as effortless as boxed, but three times as satisfying
? Pizza dough that rises in just one hour or throughout the day
? A cobbler that can be prepared with dozens of different fruits, making it 40 desserts in one.

THE PERFECT RECIPE includes more than 150 recipes in all, with dozens of step-by-step illustrations of techniques, comparisons of products and useful tips.

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my favorites from this book

This book is easy to read and follow. There is enough information without being overwelming. I haven't tried all of the recipes, but the ones I have tried are now THE recipe I use. The meatloaf is outstanding and special enough to serve to guests. (Try making it free-formed). The apple pie solves the double-crust problem and is the BEST apple pie recipe. When I make it, I mix it up and use an assortment of apples instead of one variety. The pancakes are very good and is my Sunday morning staple (with the addition of blueberries). I just made the muffin recipe last weekend for overnight guests. I added 2 mashed ripe bananas and a cup of frozen blueberries to the base recipe. Also sprinkled raw sugar over the tops for a little crunch. Very good. All I can say is ...finally a recipe for a true muffin that is not the consistency of cake!

My point is this: these recipes are so excellent that I do not feel a need to search for any other. I can only hope that it holds true for the rest of the book.

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Perfect fun book

If you love cooking this is for you. I just love reading her cookbooks. What a great Gift this would be. And great recipes too.

Simply the best cookbook you will ever buy!

This book is full of test kitchen recipes that you really can use daily. The ways that they are explained and the mistakes they have made and show you how to avoid are priceless. My sister loved my book so much I had to buy her her own copy! Don't miss this one it is my favorite cookbook on the shelf and I collect them in the dozens!

Very nice "entry level" book for potential "Cook's Illustrated" fans

This book's style and editorial format has a lot in common with Shirley Corriher's "CookWise" and the output of the Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen group, which isn't surprising since Anderson was once affiliated with CI. Anderson brings much of that same chatty, educational style to "The Perfect Recipe"; some people will like it, some people will hate it, depending on what they want from their cookbooks. I happen to really enjoy this kind of cookbook style, so I quite like it.

Other reviewers have mentioned that "Perfect Recipe" is practically a remake of CI's "The Best Recipe", but has far fewer recipes and represents a lesser value for the reader (although it also costs less). The criticism has merit, but I think this book still has a place if the libraries of some cooks. I am thinking here of novice and middling cooks who find the dense, cluttered potpourri layout of the CI books unappealing or intimidating. There are also cooks who couldn't care less about ingredient and appliance brand reviews that pad out every variation of CI/ATK books. For these reader, "The Perfect Recipe" offers a contrasting format with a much simpler and easier-to-follow style - even the typeset and margins are larger and any given page is usually only devoted to one variation of a recipe.

A good example of the cookbook's value is Anderson's chapter on roasting chicken. She shows how to "butterfly" a chicken for quicker/easier roasting, and gives several variations of the recipe, any one which will yield excellent results. I was basically afraid to try this method before reading this chapter (even after seeing Alton Brown's excellent show on the subject) , but Anderson's detailed instructions removed those qualms and left me raring and eager to try it. If a cookbook empowers me to try one new thing, I consider it worth the purchase price...so I am happy with "The Perfect Recipe". I am confident that other readers may well find that Anderson's style is just the ticket to help them get past their fear of other basic topics in food prep.

Weaknesses: For my taste, the chapter on "Special Occasion" foods (crown roast, Thanksgiving turkey, etc) was both too long and too short. Most of these recipes are of little use for a single bachelor - but if you are going to have them, you need more than just a few standards). But I understand that Anderson was making a judgement call on how to structure her book, and that other people will regard the chapter as a Godsend.

So if you are a hardcore cook with 200-300 volumes in your library (including some or all of the "Best Recipe" volumes) you probably won't need (or want) "The Perfect Recipe". But if you are a newer cook trying to upgrade your recipes to the next level, Anderson may provide you the entry you are looking for.

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Get the "Best Recipe" instead from Cooks Illustrated.

Pam Anderson was the editor at Cook's Illustrated for years. Her 1998 book, while it won the Julia Child Award, has identical recipes in "The New Best Recipe" and also in "The Best Recipe", printed in 2004, both by Cooks's Illustrated, with WAY more recipes than Pam's book.

Get the "New Best Recipe" instead from Cooks Illustrated, with over 1000 tested recipes, because it has:

1. Way more recipes to choose from
2. Costs about the same as Pam's book
3. Most importantly, it condenses Pam's roundabout writing with a simple straight forward style
4. it is 6 years newer, and has updated some recipes, and added hundreds more!

Pam's 300 odd pages are puffed up by large print. The New Best Recipe has ~1000 pages that are chock full of simple helpful information.

Pam's book needs much editing, for example, on page 100, it says "If you plan to soak the chicken longer than eight hours, reduce the salt from 1 tablespoon to 2 tablespoons". Sounds to me like a doubling of salt amount, not a reducing, I don't know if she really meant to double the salt...and there's many more sloppy statements to wade through.

Some people feel they need only one main cook book and go for The New Best Recipe, Joy of Cooking (versions before 1976), or another such classic. Save your money , and get a recent version of one of the classics.

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