It's a great book that marries the lesson-rich writing of earlier food science greats like Harold Mcgee with actual recipes that a home cook can pull off. The writing is info-dense but the little...
Exemplary
It's a great book that marries the lesson-rich writing of earlier food science greats like Harold Mcgee with actual recipes that a home cook can pull off. The writing is info-dense but the little nuggets of nerdy humor help to keep it from feeling oppressive while not falling into the style-over-substance of Alton Brown's cookbooks.
For people that want more here are a few more recommendations:
On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen - Harold McGee (Goodreads)
Not really a cookbook but a dense tome of approachable lessons and explorations on how, why, when, and what on all things cookery. It's not a book to reach for when you want to cook dinner but your time spent reading a chapter will teach you things that you can apply to everything you cook from then on.
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook - A. Kamozawa & H. Talbot (Goodreads)
A great cookbook combining how to make something with the oft-scientific why it works. Unlike Food Lab, its recipes are a bit more "out there" compared to cooking a delicious steak or making an apple pie. If you're adventurous in the kitchen, give this one a look. My favorite tip from this one concerned "cryo-blanching" tough veggies like asparagus in a home freezer.
The Flavor Equation: The Science of Great Cooking Explained in More Than 100 Essential Recipes - Nik Sharma (Goodreads)
I first heard about this one from seeing Nik's posts on Serious Eats. Seemed very similar to The Food Lab series so I put in a pre-order. Instead of being focused on cooking process and food chemistry, this is concerned with how the sense of taste functions and how flavors can be used across all cooking. The recipes within are quite Indian-cuisine leaning but what dishes I've been able to make were good, though not groundbreaking.
Texture - A Hydrocolloid Recipe Collection - Martin Lersch et al. (Free PDF Download)
Created by the wonderful Khymos community, this is a collection of tested recipes that aim to show via example how to incorporate emulsifiers, thickeners, gelling agents, and other hydrocolloids into home cooking. Recipes for ultra-stable pie fillings, rich sauces, and party-trick foams and gels are in here. Not too much on the why, just lots of how with tons of exceedingly "chefy" recipes. Perfect for people that already have gone down the food science rabbit hole and just want to get their hands dirty and make something special to wow their friends. It's free, just download it.
Lastly here are a few "professional" tomes of knowledge for those that need deeper understanding. I've gotten these secondhand from abe books and I've consulted them a few times for cooking issues but I find the solutions either require ingredients I can't get access to (modified yellow pea starch, anyone?) or equipment I can't afford (one day I will buy a rotor-stator homogenizer). So YMMV but I felt like they're worth mentioning.
Essentials of Food Science 4th Edition - V. Vaclavik & E. Christian (Springer)
Food science 101 textbook for the non-food science major. Approachable but very general.
Food Texture Design and Optimization - Yadunandan Lal Dar, Joseph M. Light (Wiley)
Info-dense and not for outsiders. I've pulled from this one heavily then combating issues with breaded+fried foods and baking. Not something to get recipe ideas from but useful for figuring out how to improve or why processed foods are so much more stable than homecooked.
This is a book by Kenji on cooking, which is a recipe book primarily focused on the principles of cooking rather than specific meals. Sorry, not sure if this should go under books or cooking –...
This is a book by Kenji on cooking, which is a recipe book primarily focused on the principles of cooking rather than specific meals.
Sorry, not sure if this should go under books or cooking – please move as appropriate.
It's a great book that marries the lesson-rich writing of earlier food science greats like Harold Mcgee with actual recipes that a home cook can pull off. The writing is info-dense but the little nuggets of nerdy humor help to keep it from feeling oppressive while not falling into the style-over-substance of Alton Brown's cookbooks.
For people that want more here are a few more recommendations:
On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen - Harold McGee (Goodreads)
Not really a cookbook but a dense tome of approachable lessons and explorations on how, why, when, and what on all things cookery. It's not a book to reach for when you want to cook dinner but your time spent reading a chapter will teach you things that you can apply to everything you cook from then on.
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook - A. Kamozawa & H. Talbot (Goodreads)
A great cookbook combining how to make something with the oft-scientific why it works. Unlike Food Lab, its recipes are a bit more "out there" compared to cooking a delicious steak or making an apple pie. If you're adventurous in the kitchen, give this one a look. My favorite tip from this one concerned "cryo-blanching" tough veggies like asparagus in a home freezer.
The Flavor Equation: The Science of Great Cooking Explained in More Than 100 Essential Recipes - Nik Sharma (Goodreads)
I first heard about this one from seeing Nik's posts on Serious Eats. Seemed very similar to The Food Lab series so I put in a pre-order. Instead of being focused on cooking process and food chemistry, this is concerned with how the sense of taste functions and how flavors can be used across all cooking. The recipes within are quite Indian-cuisine leaning but what dishes I've been able to make were good, though not groundbreaking.
Texture - A Hydrocolloid Recipe Collection - Martin Lersch et al. (Free PDF Download)
Created by the wonderful Khymos community, this is a collection of tested recipes that aim to show via example how to incorporate emulsifiers, thickeners, gelling agents, and other hydrocolloids into home cooking. Recipes for ultra-stable pie fillings, rich sauces, and party-trick foams and gels are in here. Not too much on the why, just lots of how with tons of exceedingly "chefy" recipes. Perfect for people that already have gone down the food science rabbit hole and just want to get their hands dirty and make something special to wow their friends. It's free, just download it.
Lastly here are a few "professional" tomes of knowledge for those that need deeper understanding. I've gotten these secondhand from abe books and I've consulted them a few times for cooking issues but I find the solutions either require ingredients I can't get access to (modified yellow pea starch, anyone?) or equipment I can't afford (one day I will buy a rotor-stator homogenizer). So YMMV but I felt like they're worth mentioning.
Essentials of Food Science 4th Edition - V. Vaclavik & E. Christian (Springer)
Food science 101 textbook for the non-food science major. Approachable but very general.
Food Texture Design and Optimization - Yadunandan Lal Dar, Joseph M. Light (Wiley)
Info-dense and not for outsiders. I've pulled from this one heavily then combating issues with breaded+fried foods and baking. Not something to get recipe ideas from but useful for figuring out how to improve or why processed foods are so much more stable than homecooked.
Wow thank you so much, this is a really fantastic list!
This is a book by Kenji on cooking, which is a recipe book primarily focused on the principles of cooking rather than specific meals.
Sorry, not sure if this should go under books or cooking – please move as appropriate.