| Dear Home Cook,
I’m not a professional chef, but give me a recipe I can trust and clear steps to follow and I know I can cook anything. I want you to cook with absolute confidence, and I know that a membership to CooksIllustrated.com will help you succeed in the kitchen. But I’m not going to use slick salesmanship to convince you (I'm not the slick type). I prefer an honest pitch and the time to decide if what’s being sold is right for me. So here's my pitch to you: Try the recipes and resources on CooksIllustrated.com FREE for two weeks and see what a profound difference they make in your life. If you decide to continue as a member, you'll save 50% off the price of an annual membership. A membership to CooksIllustrated.com provides more than a recipe in a magazine, on a blog, or in a cookbook could possibly offer because it will help you become a better cook. In addition to more than 3,500 obsessively tested recipes, we share 20 years’ worth of test kitchen discoveries and innovative cooking techniques using videos, photographs, and step-by-step illustrations. Plus, you'll get up-to-date taste test results and equipment ratings that will help you save time and money (recommendations you can trust because we don't accept advertising). Read on for a preview of all that CooksIllustrated.com offers. And take advantage of this risk-free 14-DAY FREE TRIAL membership to see for yourself how foolproof recipes and two decades of test kitchen experience at your fingertips can make you a more confident cook. Continue as a paid member and you will pay just $17.50 for an annual membership—a 50% savings off the regular price of $34.95.
Sincerely,
Christopher Kimball
Founder and Editor
Cook's Illustrated CooksIllustrated.com offers you
guaranteed success in the kitchen. Recipes That Work®, along with test-kitchen developed tips, techniques, and ratings that help you cook with confidence. Roasted Chicken Breasts: It's not just what's on the inside that counts. At their best, roasted bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts ought to provide moist, tender, seasoned meat and crisp, brown skin. Yet nothing is worse (or more common) than ending up with chicken breasts with chalky, sour meat and rubbery, flaccid skin. Our goal was to create a quick and simple weeknight recipe for perfectly roasted chicken breasts. The solution was a simple preparation of the skin before roasting. A little oil on the outside and salted butter underneath were all we needed for crispy, juicy results. Ready to master roasted chicken breasts? Start your FREE TRIAL membership to call up the recipe—fast!
With your FREE TRIAL membership, you'll also get access to recipe-related information, including: | RECIPE VARIATIONS
Roasted Chicken Breasts with Herbs and Porcini Mushrooms • Roasted Chicken Breasts with Garlic, Rosemary, and Lemon • Roasted Chicken Breasts with Chipotle, Cumin, and Cilantro • Herbed Roasted Chicken | | TASTE TEST Supermarket Chicken
Tasters found the winning bird "perfectly seasoned" and "well balanced." |  | | HOW TO COOK
• Preventing Spice Rub Contamination
• Containing Raw Chicken: A metal
colander provides for easy, more
sanitary rinsing of raw,
slippery chicken. |  | |
 |  | Our 100% foolproof pie dough relies on an 80 proof secret ingredient! Pie dough should be simple: Mix flour, salt, and sugar together; cut in some fat; add water; roll it out; and bake it. But somehow the same recipe can result in a perfect crust one day and a tough-as-nails crust the next. We wanted to figure out why this happens and how to guarantee a tender, flaky crust every time. The trick to creating consistently great dough depended on the amount of water incorporated and, in particular, how it was absorbed. There had to be a substitution that would keep the dough moist but not create too much gluten, which is produced by combining water and flour and makes for a leathery crust. After many dry, crumbly, dough “don'ts,” we discovered the perfect liquid to use. Vodka! It added moisture but is only 60% water—the other 40% of vodka is ethanol. The alcohol doesn't create dough-toughening gluten, so when we baked up this pie dough, we had a perfectly flaky AND tender pie crust with absolutely no vodka taste (all the alcohol evaporates in the oven during baking).
Beyond the recipe—watch technique videos; read equipment reviews for pie plates, pie servers, and rolling pins; and explore dozens of other core baking techniques, with the start of your FREE TRIAL membership. | RELATED RECIPES
Foolproof Pie Dough For a Single-Crust • Blueberry Pie • Apple-Cranberry Pie • Pumpkin Pie |  | | EQUIPMENT REVIEWS
• Pie Servers: Get great performance and value,
friendly to lefties as well as righties.
• Pie Plates
• Rolling Pins |  | | HOW TO COOK
• Thickening Fruit Pies with Tapioca
• Moving Pie Pastry
• Freezing Pie Pastry
• Moistening Pie Dough: Pour the entire
recommended amount of water into small
spray bottle and spray flour mixture as needed. | | VIDEOS
• Making Pie Dough
• Make Pie Dough without a Food Processor
• How to Roll Out Pie Dough |  | |
| | Do you really need an expensive skillet? A 12-inch skillet should last a lifetime and cook almost anything. But does top-quality construction have to cost top dollar? We tested seven traditional skillets by searing steaks, cooking crêpes, and sautéing onions. They were also judged by weight, ergonomics, and durability. Our highly recommended pan is the reliable All-Clad Stainless 12-inch fry pan. But this great pan comes with a big price: $135. If you can afford it, it is well worth the money—it has everything you need, and nothing you don't.
For the full test results and a video demonstration of what to look for in the perfect skillet, start your FREE TRIAL membership now! With a CooksIllustrated.com membership, you'll also have access to skillet-based recipes, how-to-cook tips, equipment reviews, and related resources for hundreds of other kitchen gadgets and cookware products, like blenders, baking dishes, cutting boards, and whisks. | RECIPES
Lighter Skillet Green Bean Casserole • Skillet Apple Pie • Pan-Roasted Chicken Breasts with Sage-Vermouth Sauce • Skillet Baked Ziti |  | | EQUIPMENT REVIEWS
• Inexpensive Nonstick Skillets
• Green Skillets |  | | HOW TO COOK
• Removing Burnt-On Oil
• For Quicker Thaw, Put Meat on Metal
• Cleaning Copper Cookware with Ketchup |  | | VIDEO Traditional Skillets
Understand which skillet designs, surfaces, and thicknesses yield the best cooking results. |  | |
Get Recipes That Work
wherever you go with our
FREE Membership Companion App for iPhone and iPod Touch.
Members get access to:
- The entire Cook's Illustrated database of recipes and ingredient reviews
- Recipe videos, shopping lists, kitchen timers, and more useful tools
- "My Favorites," which lets you tag favorite recipes and content for easy access later
|  |
| |  | Two things stand in the way of making parlor-quality pizza pies at home: good dough and a very hot oven. Until now. We tackled the first challenge by adding just the right amount of water to our dough so that it would stretch out thin without tearing, and yet stay tender when baked. Then we let the dough rise in the refrigerator which slowed down the fermentation process and prevented the crust from puffing up (focaccia-like) when baked. Since most home cooks don't have an 800-degree oven handy that would cook both the crust and toppings quickly, we experimented with pizza placement in a 500-degree oven. Traditional recipes call for baking the pie on the lowest rack, but we found moving the pie to the highest rack produced a pie with well-browned toppings and a crust that was thin, crispy, and slightly charred on the outside and tender and chewy on the inside. Finally, a foolproof pizza dough recipe, delivered.
Get the recipe for this foolproof pie and other pizza variations, along with kitchen tips, equipment reviews, and more with your FREE TRIAL membership. | RELATED RECIPES
Thin-Crust White Pizza • Pizza Margherita • Deep-Dish Pizza • Provençal Pizza • Four-Cheese Pizza Topping with Pesto • Fresh Tomato Pizza with Arugula and Prosciutto |  | | EQUIPMENT REVIEWS
• Pizza Wheels
• Food Processors
• Pizza Screens |  | | HOW TO COOK
• A Better Dust for Your Peel: Semolina
• Reheating Pizza
• Freezing Pizza Dough
• No More Shrinking Pizza Dough: Gently pull
the edges of the dough downward, stretching it
over a bowl. |  | |
| | Extra-Virgin Olive Oil: Which brand is worth buying? We tested 10 extra-virgin olive oils, selected from the top-selling supermarket brands in the United States, to see if olive origins or price had any correlation to taste. The oils were tasted plain as well as heated and tossed with pasta. None of the brands could best our favorite olive oil, Columela Extra Virgin Olive Oil, which can be found in high-end grocery stores and gourmet shops. Our tasters' comments for the majority of samples ranged from "soapy and metallic" to "smells like kitty litter." We did, however, find two supermarket brands deemed acceptable for their "fruity, peppery finish" and "clean, green taste." Unsurprisingly, these two finishers were the most expensive of the lot—so when it comes to buying this coveted oil, you do get what you pay for.
Read the complete ratings to see which olive oil brands offer the best combination of value and quality, and find featured recipes, cooking techniques, and tips for storing olive oil as well as ratings and related resources for hundreds of other everyday ingredients when you start your FREE TRIAL membership!  |
| RELATED RECIPES
Spaghetti with Lemon and Olive Oil • Sautéed Garlic-Lemon Spinach • Pear and Cranberry Chopped Salad • Grilled Argentine Steaks with Chimichurri Sauce |  | | TASTE TEST California Olive Oils
California growers have spent the last two decades developing extra-virgin olive oil that might rival the best of Europe. Is it time to stop importing foreign oil? |  | | EQUIPMENT REVIEW Oil Misters
Handy for greasing cookware or lightly coating meats and vegetables, these refillable canisters offer long-term savings over single-use nonstick sprays and let you choose the oil. |  | | HOW TO COOK
• Keeping Olive Oil and Other Oils Fresher
Longer: Store certain oils in pantry to
prolong shelf life.
• Oil Change for Baking
• Identifying Rancid Oil |  | |
Don't miss this opportunity!
Start your FREE TRIAL today
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Act now and you can enjoy two weeks of free access to CooksIllustrated.com. If you decide to stay on as a member, you'll save 50% off the price of an annual membership and pay just $17.50. As a CooksIllustrated.com member, you'll have the ultimate cooking resource at your fingertips:
• 20 years of Cook's Illustrated magazine recipes
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• Science tidbits
• Web-exclusive menus
• Unbiased equipment ratings
• Taste tests of supermarket ingredients
• Favorite recipe organizer
• One-click shopping list feature
• Time-saving kitchen tips It's all searchable and all available 24 hours a day from anywhere on the globe. And remember, if you decide to become a member, you'll pay just $17.50, 50% off the regular price of $34.95. Hurry, this offer ends August 16.
| Offer expires August 16, 2013. All prior sales excluded. No substitutions.
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