Kitchen Smarts

Book excerpt: The experts at Cook’s Illustrated magazine offer hundreds of definitive, researched, and kitchen-tested answers in this Q&A-style guide for home cooks looking to improve their kitchen prowess Does searing meat really seal in juices? Does it matter what kind of salt you use? What's the best way to measure a sticky ingredient like honey? Why does whiskey taste better when you add water? How do you actually pronounce dacquoise, and what on earth is it? In this follow up to Kitchen Hacks, the expert editors at Cook’s Illustrated magazine answer your burning questions, offering tips and tricks on how to become a better, more confident cook. Kitchen Smarts captures all the questions Cook’s Illustrated test cooks have worked through in their quest to determine the best way to do everything in the kitchen, and it does so in a fun, hip, but still very practical way. It can be a real challenge to figure out who’s right and who has no idea what they’re talking about when it comes to cooking. We are used to being able to simply Google any kitchen question—no matter how strange—the moment it arises. But how do you know you're getting the best (or even the right) answer? Silence all the noise and avoid confusion by going straight to this go-to cooking reference guide from one of America’s most trusted cooking magazines!