The Good Housekeeping Cookbook: 1,275 Recipes from America's Favorite Test Kitchen - Hardcover

Starred Review. This update of the iconic magazine's cookbook has recipes for all tastes and occasions, and gives The Joy of Cooking a run for its money. Traditionalists may scoff at some of the crew's shortcuts (a version of the classic Vietnamese soup pho using canned chicken broth, for instance), but most recipes remain faithful to tradition. Those new to the kitchen or in need of an all-encompassing reference will find the knowledge and confidence to roll up their sleeves and warm up the oven. In addition to recipes for practically every imaginable American dish, readers will learn basic techniques for cutting up and grilling a whole chicken, deveining shrimp, interpreting food labels (nutritional information is included for each recipe), creating formal place settings, and even getting the most out of the mundane (five ways to use up extra tortilla chips, for instance). Quick recipes and simple dessert preparations, like Fire-Roasted Nectarines and Coffee Granita, will please anyone pressed for time, but the encyclopedic inclusion of recipes for everything from Egg Salad, Lobster Bisque, and Chocolate Souffle to Pad Thai, Salmon with Mustard-Dill Sauce, and Muffuletta is its true benefit, making it a cookbook readers will grow with.

For more than a century, Good Housekeeping magazine has served as a touchstone for homemakers who peruse its monthly pages for recipes, tips, and guidance to keep spouse and children well fed, well housed, and well clothed. More recent decades have brought significant change to the magazine as women returned to the workplace for both financial necessity and personal fulfillment. At the same time, American household cookery migrated from valuing speed and efficiency above all else to concern for nutrition, freshness, food sources, diversity of flavors and textures, and budding interest in restaurant cuisine as a model for the home kitchen. This comprehensive new edition of the classic cookbook reflects this contemporary focus with ingredient inventories tabulating information on seasonality and selection. Vegetables and fruits find expanded use, and every recipe ends with nutritional analysis. Ethnic choices extend from Mexican through Indian. Useful for cookery reference collections. --Mark Knoblauch