hipcook's Reviews
260 recipes reviewed. Showing 51 to 100Sort by: Book Title 
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Cook's Illustrated
(Mar/Apr, 2008)
Steaming the potatoes instead of boiling them really does seem easier. I have to admit that I wimped out at the idea of getting out the food mill, and just used the potato masher. It turned out OK, but I do think breaking the potatoes more would have helped them be fluffier. (Also, I note that the butter and milk are added separately, instead of together like every other mashed potato recipe I know.)
All that said, there's nothing but potato flavor in this recipe. Fine, if that's what you're looking for, but I like mashed potatoes rich with dairy and other flavors. (If I wanted potato flavor, I'd eat them baked.) So for me, it's more a recipe that illustrates a technique, than a finished dish.
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Cook's Illustrated
(Mar/Apr, 2010)
We participated in the testing phase for this dish, and it was an interesting take. The flavors are definitely lighter and more distinct than the beef stroganoff of my past... it's a classier, more refined dish. It bears almost no resemblance to stroganoff a la college cafeteria, that's for sure!
Or, put another way, if you _like_ stew-like beef stroganoff, this isn't it. I do prefer a heartier approach, and I already have an easy recipe for that from the Fagor pressure cooker manual, so while this is a good and pretty easy recipe, it won't be going in my personal heavy rotation.
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Website: Cooks Illustrated
Nice combination of flavors, straightforward stir-frying technique. I might increase the ginger next time.
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Website: Cooks Illustrated
There's not a lot to this recipe - get thick-cut pork chops, brine them, cook on a 2-level fire. I found the timing a little short, but I was cooking on a windy day at about 60 degrees F, so my grill was cooler than it will be in July.
But it's a 5-star recipe for me, because these pork chops were every bit as good as any I've had in a restaurant. Tender and juicy with a nice smoky flavor (and a hint of the BBQ rub I used for a spice). I'm always afraid that pork on the grill will either be shoe leather or burnt on the outside, raw in the middle, but with this technique, I see how some of my summer nights will shape up.
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Website: Cooks Illustrated
I was impressed with how high these pancakes were. Admittedly, I like my pancake batter a little stiff, but this batter hit a sweet spot of being workable and still substantial. The flavor is creamy and sweet, if a bit plain. The method of putting the batter on the griddle and then adding berries is the only way to go.
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Website: Cooks Illustrated
This is a very refined, light and custardy sweet potato pie. It has good sweet potato flavor, with a strong hit of bourbon and an eggy-milky sweetness which reminds me of egg nog. I'm partial to the rustic, dense version of sweet potato pie, but this uptown version is definitely a recipe I'll make again. A friend suggested it was lacking pecans, and we agree - a layer at the bottom of the pie would be a fantastic surprise.
(Disclaimer: this is not a review of the pie crust, because I used store-bought.)
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Website: Cooks Illustrated
Good technique here for pan-seared shrimp, with a variety of glazes. We've tried all 3, and the chipotle-lime is our favorite - tropical and sweet, with just a bit of spice. Could serve as a great appetizer, an ingredient in shrimp tacos, or as a main course on its own.
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Website: Cooks Illustrated
Every year, at Christmas or Thanksgiving, my wife says "we could make glazed carrots" and I say "we don't have a glazed carrots recipe" (meaning "I don't really like cooked carrots.") And she says "yes we do, the Cook's Illustrated one" and I say "I have no memory of what you're talking about." And then we make this one, and the strong hit of ginger balances the rosemary really well and gives needed complexity to its restrained sweetness.
And I say "you were right, honey, these are really good."
And she smiles, knowing I'll forget about them before next year.
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Website: Cooks Illustrated
I love cacio e pepe, and I'm pretty sure this is the first recipe for it I ever tried. It's worth hunting down the video on this - the tempo at the end is a combination of do all the steps in quick order, so you don't lose your heat, but you pour the pasta water into the cheese slowly (and the same is true of the sauce over the noodles).
If I owned a fine grater blade for my food processor, I'd make this more often. Grating 6 ounces of pecorino romano is a job.
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Cookwise: The Secrets of Cooking Revealed
By Shirley O. Corriher
William Morrow Cookbooks - 1997
A good example of the double-cooking method of mashing potatoes. It's never let me down, and it's easy enough to mess with the recipe if you want to.
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Website: Epicurious
Coming up to Thanksgiving with a small number of sweet potatoes and one butternut squash in the house, this recipe was a great find. The squash adds an interesting texture to the smooth sweet potatoes, but the flavors are completely complimentary.
I'd disagree that this is a "lightly spiced" dish. It's very pleasant, but the spices of nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, and ginger are pronounced. I enjoyed the zing it brought to the table (and it's certainly not hot or unbalanced), but it's not subtle.
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Essential Pepin: More Than 700 All-Time Favorites from My Life in Food
By Jacques Pepin
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt - 2011
This is my absolute favorite party recipe. It's invariably a hit, and it has a classy French name and comes from a famous chef. Little does anyone suspect that the whole recipe is "throw all the dairy in your fridge into the food processor, with a splash of wine and some garlic." Voila, cheese dip - simple and bulletproof.
The recipe will change slightly every time you make it, based on the combination of cheese you have on hand. If it seems too sharp, you can add butter or sour cream to gain sweetness without sharpness. And someday, I will remember that my food processor takes ages to break down a solid brick of old Parmesan cheese, and anything that hard should be grated first.
I first saw Jacques Pepin do this recipe years ago on PBS - I remember it as the series with Julia Child, but perhaps it was the one with his daughter Claudine. Either way, I'm thrilled to have a copy in his cookbook.
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Another entry in my collection of "Pepin recipes which look more complicated than they are." This would be a great vegetable for when company comes over... it looks classy but requires only a hair more time and attention than boiled green beans.
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I like this recipe because it says that sometimes, you just let the meat speak for itself. Everything doesn't need a fancy-schmancy preparation; this 5-ingredient preparation is perfectly capable of standing next to the 10-ingredient dish on the same page.
I also appreciated being introduced to savory, not an herb I'd cooked with before. I couldn't get fresh savory in our supermarket, but the dried herb tastes a little like a lot of things - a peppery note, a rosemary-like flavor, a hint of a warm herb like thyme. I want to play with that particular ingredient more.
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Straightforward to be sure, but a satisfying base for plenty of experiments. Alone, they'd work as a side dish. Pepin himself suggests that you could add sausage and chicken and call it cassoulet. Americans might be thinking of white bean chili. My wife added a quart of chicken stock and turned it to soup. I'm sure we'll be returning to this versatile base.
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Another simple approach from the master. Searing the chops over high heat and then allowing to finish in a barely-warm oven (instead of rest on a table) is a smart technique which should save a lot of people from leathery pork chops. Unfortunately, making this inside in a pan instead of outside on a grill, I got occasional tastes of burnt oil. I wonder if I could have avoided that by putting them on a rack in the oven instead of in the pan.
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Hash is comfort food; it turns stretching the meat or using up the leftovers from an act of necessity to an act of love. Pepin hits that note just fine with this recipe.
That said, I found this recipe under-spiced. It wanted more Worcestershire sauce, and for my taste, more Tabasco. Of course, this will vary depending on how the pork roast was prepared. (I also suspect that I'd prefer the more mild flavors if I'd had it for breakfast instead of dinner.)
I had trouble getting mine to brown, even going a little longer on the time than stated. Perhaps my "medium" heat wasn't high enough. I wonder, though, if I over-worked the potatoes and caused them to steam more than saute, or if this is a problem with the thin slices of potato called for.
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A fast, basic preparation of sweet potatoes. Pepin treats it as a side dish, but you could also imagine it as a base for something like a hash.
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A nice rich tomato soup in just about an hour, all told. At my house, the first question was whether we could make enough of it to can, and just stop buying canned tomato soup all together. (The butter is added just before serving, so it looks like the answer is yes.)
I don't buy "fresh" tomatoes in the winter if I can help it, so I used two 28-oz. cans of whole stewed tomatoes, drained, and it worked just fine. I must admit I'm looking forward to tomato season to see how it turns out with fresh.
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Not at all what I was expecting, this is a delicate European savory custard flavored with pumpkin, not a pumpkin-forward American side dish. Tasty, but IMO in need of tweaking. I'm imagining using a lot more than 15 ounces of pumpkin, and an herbal note like rosemary. (On the other hand, I used a smoked gruyere, which some people found dominating - I'll go with unsmoked next time.)
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Website: European Cuisines
For some reason, this cake came out really dense and dry last time. It was tasty enough, but not quite what we were expecting. The icing, however, is magnificent - buttery richness balancing sweet with just the right fresh kick of orange.
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Fagor Pressure Cookers
By Fagor America, Inc
Fagor America, Inc - 2000
This is the recipe which convinced me I'd spent my money well on a pressure cooker. It's just as good as any coq au vin I've made, but it's ready in well under an hour instead of after a 3-hour braise. And frankly, a lot less work than some of the deconstructed "weeknight coq au vin" recipes I've seen.
One thing - don't skip that step where it says to brown the chicken before adding the wine. Or do skip it, and when your chicken comes out purple, call your geek friends and declare it "Romulan Chicken." Tell them to bring the Saurian brandy. Purple chicken tastes as good as brown, but, well... it's purple.
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Another revelation from the pressure cooker manual. A quick recipe that turns out tender beef and fully-flavored sauce. Since cooking this one, I've tried a couple of "quick stroganoff" recipes - and all were more work than this way.
Also the recipe that taught me to watch the heat in a pressure cooker like a hawk. The first time I tried this recipe, I scorched the beef a bit but chose not to wash out the pot. Wrong choice. The bitter flavor of burnt meat smoke was infused into every tender bite. Since then, I've been careful that any error gets completely washed out of the pot before the recipe continues.
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A serviceable recipe from the pressure cooker manual. It's a light stew, appropriate for a spring or summer dinner, with only meat and sauce. I made it with a beef flank steak instead of lamb stew meat and it worked just fine. It might benefit from an herbal note - maybe a bay leaf.
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I usually think of chicken stock as an all-afternoon project, one where I break out the biggest stock pot I own and all the frozen chicken carcasses I've been saving for months, then boil (and cool) for hours. This recipe is a completely different take - with 2 pounds of chicken bones and 30 minutes at pressure, you get 6 cups of stock. Hopefully, this recipe will help with my freezer space, and lead to me eating more soup.
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I've been reluctant to try the "roasts" in the pressure cooker cookbook - but since my favorite pork roast recipe is really a braise, I thought this one was worth a shot.
And it's well worth it. The pork came out perfectly moist and tender. The herbs added intense and complimentary flavor. I used small sweet potatoes, which came out pretty mushy but were still a hit.
If I have a quibble with the recipe, it's that it makes a very small amount of very tasty gravy (which ended up as sauce on the potatoes). I'm wondering if upping the liquid would make enough sauce for the meat.
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A passable pot roast in half an hour of cooking time. The flavor is good, but my attempt turned out dry. I suspect this has to do with which parts of the roast were covered in liquid and which weren't.
I'll probably make it again for the convenience, but I have other pot roast recipes which pay off the long braise with superior flavor and texture.
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A very nice take on the French classic. I used a round steak instead of stew meat, which broke down into a tender stew. The sauce is luscious and rich (probably because it's finished with a half-stick of butter...)
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Another winner for the pressure cooker! Admittedly, I was on a "cleanout the freezer" binge and used nearly double the meat called for. It turned out a luxurious stock, with a fraction of the time and energy used on the stovetop.
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Website: Firey Foods and Barbecue SuperSite
Thoroughly enjoyed this low and slow approach to lamb. The marinade gives wonderful onion, garlic, and paprika flavors to the lamb without overpowering. I wish I'd had even more rosemary sprigs on hand to smoke with - the smoke was delicious, but I think it was lost in the apple wood I used as well.
One point - the timing is for a grill-smoked leg of lamb. In my water smoker, the timing was more like 4 hours. I do expect the marinade would have become a very nice rub, but slow smoking gave me a delicate texture, rare but fully done, which was just to die for. Worth the wait.
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Website: Fitocracy
Sweet potato, brown sugar, and cinnamon... what's not to like? It's a classic flavor combination and a lot less work than sweet potato pie.
However, mine also turned out dry. Not unpleasantly so - just a consistency I associate with roasted vegetables, not dessert. Part of the problem may have been that I microwaved the sweet potatoes. Boiling or steaming may have left more moisture in them. But then they're sauteed and baked, so maybe not. I was tempted to add a liquid (maybe orange juice, maybe bourbon) to get a syrup started. I also cheated and used panko instead of fresh bread crumbs; that would have left a bit of moisture too.
Everything came together when my wife pointed out that it needed a scoop of ice cream. (Ben & Jerry's Peach Cobbler, to be precise.) There's the moisture, and a contrasting texture and temperature. Of course, you won't get that kind of advice when you get recipes from a fitness site...
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Website: Food: The Insider's Guide
We make this without the addition of apples; the cider provides enough of an apple taste to the bread. Very nice loaf, hearty without being overly dense.
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Website: Food Wishes
This was a delightful and easy shortcake recipe. These shortcakes seemed sturdier than the crumbly ones I often make. (That may be because my dough was too wet, but they turned out fine anyway.)
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Website: Food Wishes
If, like me, you always seem to end up with more winter squash than you actually want, this is a pretty neat approach. I took some liberties with the recipe, and can report it works pretty well as a technique. Specifically I used tasso instead of ham, which worked wonderfully and points me to the idea that any strongly-flavored meat might work well. And I used supermarket cheddar which I suspect did not work as well as the specified Gruyere. I'm not sure whether the answer is better Cheddar or sticking with the recipe.
I also used a mix of smaller butternut, acorn, and delicata squash, because that's what I had on hand and quite frankly I can only barely tell the difference. Delicata is probably too delicate for the scoop-and-stuff procedure; I broke too much skin on one half and ended up just peeling it.
Personally, I think that re-stuffing the shells is fiddly, annoying work, and I'm tempted to do it as a casserole in future. In the shell is a pretty plating, though.
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Website: Food Wishes
Is this "the best egg sandwich" I've ever had? It is not. Is it better than 80% of the omelets I've had, and 90% of the omelets I've made? It is. It's a wonderful exercise in textural contrasts, with soft cabbage, crispy toast, and carrots which still have a little crunch.
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Website: Food Wishes
This is a remarkably simple technique for a delicious fiery pepper puree. You can make it with green hot peppers (poblanos and jalepenos are more available to me than fresnos); the color gets muted but the flavor is still delightful. I'm considering draining my next batch in cheesecloth to get a pastier consistency, but honestly, the looser texture is fine with me.
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Website: The Food Network
I think of gnocchi as a rich, hearty dish, and this is one. But with the fresh flavors of lemon and thyme, it's also light and fresh. I don't quite get how that's possible, other than with a fabulous balance of kinds of flavors. It's very important to give the dish a few minutes at the end to "allow flavors to blend" - this is a dish that actually improved markedly over a couple of minutes, basically as the lemon got less aggressive.
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Website: The Food Network
A hearty dish which comes together with a lot less work and time than I thought it would. It's almost a 4-star recipe, but I'm dinging it a bit because the gravy didn't thicken in the oven as much as I thought it would. (It's my fault, though, that I gave the sauce more time in the oven and the chops got tough.) I didn't have a Vidalia onion, so I used one medium-size white onion. The flavor worked, but it would have been more "smothered" if I'd gone for 2 onions.
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Website: The Food Network
More of a technique than a "recipe", really, but I have to admit that I would have tried to split the trout into 2 fillets if not for this recipe telling me to pan-fry it whole. I suspect that frying both sides with their skin keeps the meat moist and avoids sticking to the pan.
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Website: The Food Network
I'm in favor of anything that makes me break out the pressure cooker. This is a pretty quick approach to the classic dish, although I suspect getting the dumplings the right size is just a matter of repetition.
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Website: The Food Network
A nice approach to comfort food. Hearty and rich, but simple and appropriate for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Saves well.
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Website: The Food Network
One of my go-to desserts for parties. It's tremendously easy to make, and to make ahead. It takes well to virtually any flavor that goes with chocolate - the recipe calls for coffee liqueur, but straight coffee, hazelnut liqueur, and berry schnapps all work well. Plus, the tofu is 100% hidden, so there are wonderful elements of a prank in it. Bring it to a barbecue or other festival of cooked meat, just to watch your friends' faces.
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Website: The Food Network
A terrific cabbage treatment, easy to whip together and finding the balance between bringing out the sweetness of the vegetable without turning it into mush. However, I do think Alton's definition of a "small" head of cabbage must be smaller than mine... I sometimes end up feeling the cabbage didn't get enough dressing.
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Website: The Food Network
The taste on this was fantastic - peanut butter and jelly plus a glass of warm, vanilla-scented milk, all at once.
But the pudding didn't come out right for me, I think because "half a loaf of challah" isn't a very clear measurement. I definitely should have added bread; I got something loose, more like pudding than bread. I also suspect I should have chosen a more rustic loaf of bread; the dense, soft loaf I used pretty much disintegrated at serving.
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Website: The Food Network
A perfectly serviceable recipe for a sugar cookie base for cutout cookies. I found the dough a little too dry; perhaps it's the hazard of winter baking.
And don't tell your 3-year-old it's time to use the cookie-cutters before the dough is made! Unless, of course, you were looking forward to him asking at every step whether it's time. (See also sturlington's review of what I assume is the same recipe but in a Nigella cookbook...)
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Website: The Food Network
Alton, you know you're my boy. There are terra cotta tiles in my over because of you. I eat barbecued tofu because of you. But, my friend, sometimes you just gotta rein it in.
Like this steak recipe. I mean, it's broiled steak! The point is simplicity. And here you go telling me to move the dang oven racks after 10 minutes of cooking. Not the steaks, the racks! I don't know what dinnertime looks like in your house, but in mine, it doesn't involve messing with hot oven racks.
Maybe I'm overreacting. But let's try a little less "mad" in your "mad genius."
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Website: The Food Network
Simple, inexpensive comfort food. Make it with your favorite sausages - our experience is that generally high quality is more important than the flavors of "Italian" sausage. I do wish it made a little more sauce, and I find it usually needs salt (though that may reflect the sausages we use).
Presumably, this is the same recipe as the one in the Nigella Bites cookbook.
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Website: The Food Network
We call this kind of recipe "refrigerator Velcro" - make it once to get the flavor profile, then in the future use the basic recipe as a background for cleaning leftover meat and veggies out of the fridge.
It's not exceptional or authentic, but it is tasty and quick, and it turned a dish I thought was restaurants-only into something I can pull off for a quick weeknight meal. That counts for something.
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Website: The Food Network
Short review: classic comfort food, with absolutely picture-perfect mashed potatoes. I think this has just become my go-to method for mashing potatoes.
Snark review: the recipe is basically melted butter and milk with enough potato, cabbage, and pork to hold it together. Clearly, that's a 5-star recipe.
Quote of the night: me: "I'd like to try it with ham; I think the bacon is taking over." Wife: "And what's wrong with that?"
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Website: The Food Network
Interesting take on cole slaw, with cauliflower playing the part of cabbage, and a flavor profile that's close to tabbouleh with its mint and parsley. I suspect it's a little overly salty, although that diminishes as the vegetables purge and the salt works its way more evenly through the dish.
It is important to break the cauliflower into reasonably small florets - I didn't, and ended up with slices of cauliflower which were a little bigger than I wanted. They broke up by hand easily enough, but it was a step I wouldn't have needed if I'd done a better job of coring and breaking up.
I also substituted pecans for pine nuts, because, frankly, I'm not crazy about pine nuts. My wife pointed out that almonds would fit the dish better, and she's right.
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