JenniferArmentrout
Jennifer Armentrout
editor
Posts
How to Attach a Thermometer to a Pot
For some recipes you need to monitor water temperature.
There's a better way to use a rasp-style grater.
Butter-Braised Belgian Endives
Endives are just as delicious cooked as they are raw.
Think You Hate Beets? Think Again
A simple recipe changed this blogger from a beet basher to a beet worshipper.
The idea of flipping a hot, half-cooked turkey onto its back can cause anxiety in even the most experienced cooks. Fear not—after you’ve done it once, you’ll see it’s really not a big deal.
Making the most of a favorite food find from a warehouse store.
You may not know the term “deglaze,” but if you’ve ever made a pan sauce or gravy, then you’ve probably used the technique.
The usual approach to mincing ginger can be a bit fussy. Try this simpler method out.
A Chile Roaster for Electric Stoves
Charring chiles directly over a stovetop burner is quick and convenient, but it doesn’t work well on electric stoves.
Store Tomatoes at Room Temperature
Fresh vine-ripened tomatoes are one of the summer’s chief pleasures. To keep them tasting their best, don’t refrigerate them unless they’re about to spoil.
How to Make a Homemade Substitute for Za'atar
Learn how to make the Middle-Eastern spice blend called za’atar.
Learn how to scrape vanilla with the back of a knife.
The easiest way to peel a fresh hot chile or sweet bell pepper is to char it first. In this post, I'll show you three easy ways to char a chile.
Double your Grill Space with a Rib Rack
A low-tech rib rack solves a common grilling problem.
All things savory go into this compound butter.
Attention soft-shell crab lovers: they're back!
Authentic Pad Thai calls for pressed tofu because it is firm and doesn’t break up during stir-frying. Here's how to press your own tofu if you can't find it in an Asian market.
How to Remove Pin Bones from a Salmon Fillet
Before cooking a salmon fillet, it’s always a good idea to check it for pin bones. Here's an easy way to find and remove them.
Our recipe for Salmon, Lentil, and Rice Kedgeree in Fine Cooking #111 calls for rinsing the rice before cooking. This step removes some of the starch from the surface of the rice grains so they...
Use a Parchment Collar to Mold Tall Layer Cakes
Christina Tosi’s towering Strawberries and Corn-Cream Layer Cake with White Chocolate Cap’n Crunch Crumbs, in Fine Cooking #111, requires a tall mold for assembling the cake. In her...
How to Slice Chicken Cutlets from Chicken Breasts
Chicken breast cutlets are a boon for weeknights because they cook so quickly—about 5 minutes in a skillet and they’re done. Cutlets from the grocery store are often unevenly sized, so we...
Did you know that you're seasoning your wok every time you stir fry aromatics like garlic, ginger, and scallions? In this post, I'll explain how you can maintain your wok's patina.
With its exotic, complex flavors, Indian cuisine might seem difficult for American home cooks to master, but not with Suneeta Vaswani’s book, Easy Indian Cooking.
Zoe of Zoe Bakes shares an easy trick for making smooth sorbets from any type of juice.
A layer of chocolate-covered thin mints makes these brownies über-decadent.
Peeling asparagus can be frustrating, here is an easier way to do it.
How to Cut Steak Across the Grain
Slicing the steak across the grain makes the steak seem tenderer because it shortens the length of the fibers, so chewing is easier.
Toasting pine nuts releases and intensifies their rich flavor.
Pasta dishes are best served piping hot. This is easy to do if you heat the serving bowls.
Soup Week: Mushroom Soup with Cashew Cream
Puréed cashews add creamy richness to a vegan soup.
If you’re making the Lamb Shanks en Papillotes, here’s how contributor Molly Stevens recommends preparing them for cooking
How to bruise lemongrass to release its flavor
To get the most flavor out of this citrusy stalk and into a curry dish, begin with bruising the lemongrass stalk.
Tuscan kale + blood oranges = a side dish that's good-looking and good for you.
Cheese and Cracked Pepper Scones
Smoked paprika adds a flourish of flavor and color to these rich treats.
The Fastest and Richest Chocolate Mousse Ever
If you have chocolate and a whisk, you can make mousse in less than 10 minutes (cooling time included).
A Visit to a French Olive Farm
Plus, ten things you need to know about olive oil
A year in cured meat.
Salty, savory miso takes peanut butter cookies to a whole new level.
Each of the three kinds of soy sauce in the Steamed Pork Bun recipe contributes a different flavor nuance.
Use wet hands for shaping meatloaf
Ground meat mixtures, like those for meatloaves and meatballs, can be sticky to work with. Handling the mixture with wet hands helps.
One thing we learned while testing the pressure cookers is that they’re great for cooking dried beans.
Fresh pearl onions are the devil to peel unless you know a little trick—blanch them in boiling water first, and they practically peel themselves.
There are several good reasons to own a set of stacked bamboo steamers. I'll share them with you.
Tips for assembling a traditional French Christmas pastry.
Big, soft, chewy cookies to sink your teeth into.
Fried foods are on the menu during the Festival of Lights
A spread made from spice cookies is vying for a spot on your morning toast
A heartwarming story of learning to cook Norwegian potato crêpes with Grandma Eunice
Susan has eaten a lot of flan in her lifetime, and this one, she says, is the best she's ever had.
Bored with oven-roasting your holiday bird? Try Poor Girl Gourmet's technique—all you need is a shovel, some fire, and beer...lots of beer.
How to Make Your Own Brown Sugar
The next time you run out of brown sugar, check your pantry again before you head to the store. I'll tell you how you can make your own brown sugar from a couple of pantry staples.
Not just for ice cream, a tablespoon-size mini scoop makes speedy work of portioning dough for drop cookies, like Abby Dodge's Double Dark Chocolate Thumbprints.
If you’re new to cooking, terms like zest and pith might be unfamiliar to you. They refer to parts of a citrus peel and I'll explain how to identify them.
Pastry bags and piping tips aren’t just for decorating
Popcorn for dinner? Yes, please, if there’s bacon in it.
How to Make Gravy for a Brined Turkey
Pan juices are usually the backbone of turkey gravy, but gravy made only with the juices from a brined bird is bound to come out too salty. Fortunately, there’s a solution to this problem.
A pinch or two of kosher salt does wonders for the flavor of a tossed salad.
Amco's spoutless fat separator solves the problem traditional spouted fat separators have.
A whole hanger steak is vaguely heart-shaped, with the two halves connected by a line of gristle, which should be removed. You can ask the butcher to do this, or trim it yourself. Here's how.
With ingredients like pineapple juice and gin, this grilled corn soup is either culinary genius or insanity.
Can fire tame the slippery nature of this African vegetable?
How to Cut a Whole Chicken Into Pieces
Our Classic Fried Chicken recipe is a great excuse to learn how to cut a whole chicken into pieces, a skill you’ll use over and over.
To make tomato purée, you’ll need a tool to strain and separate the tomato pulp from the skins and seeds. A food mill does this well enough, but we especially love this tomato press.
A fire in the kitchen is usually bad news, but in this issue we’re starting a couple of fires on purpose. The Bananas Foster and the Fireman’s Sausage are both ignited. If you’re new to flambéing, here are tips for pulling it off safely.
There's a campaign afoot to eat lionfish out of existence. Read on to find out why.
Quick Tip for Perfectly Cooked Potatoes
Here's a quick tip for checking potatoes for doneness that ensures a perfect batch of potato salad for every cookout.
Hint: It's green, and you can eat it.
Stretchy, Chewy Turkish Ice Cream
Think you know ice cream? Think again.
Use Real Butter is a blog that makes me hungry every time I read it.
How to Prepare an Indirect Grill Fire
Most grilling takes place over a direct fire, but large meats like whole chickens and rib racks call for indirect heat. Here's a foolproof method for setting up the grill so there's a hot zone and a cool zone.
How to Remove Silverskin from Ribs
Whether you’re cooking pork baby backs or spareribs, you’ll want to be sure that the membrane, or silverskin, covering the bone side of each rack gets removed. I'll show you how.
How to Butterfly a Pork Tenderloin
Learn how to butterfly a pork tenderloin in three easy steps.
There are lots of ways to pit a cherry, and if you cook with cherries often, it’s worth buying a dedicated cherry pitting tool. But you can also improvise with objects that may already be in your home.
Buying and Caring for a Paella Pan
Paella pans come in three different materials and each has pros and cons. Get paella expert Sarah Jay's tips for buying the right pan and caring for it so it lasts.
These immature shoots are a different way to add garlic flavor to your cooking.
Busy weekday mornings equal breakfast in the car. Trouble is, my favorite breakfast foods are hard to eat behind the wheel.
When it comes to brownies: cakey or fudgy? Nuts or no nuts? Glazed or plain? Where do you stand? We want to hear about your brownie musts and the brownie recipes you swear by.
If you don’t have a mini blowtorch, put it on your Christmas wish list—at $25 to $35, it’s an inexpensive addition to your kitchen arsenal, and once you own one, you’ll find all sorts of excuses to fire it up.
Running down the center of a parsnip is a tough woody core that should be removed before cooking. I'll show you how.
How to Make a Salt Crust for a Roast
Learn an unusual but simple technique for keeping a beef rib roast juicy during roasting.
Concentrated Flavor (in a Tube)
A "Squirt and Taste" test has the Test Kitchen wondering: Do you ever use concentrated pastes in your recipes?
A food mill is one of those tools you may not use very often, but you’ll be glad to have one when you need it. Making apple sauce (or butter), mashed potatoes, and separating seeds and skins from tomatoes are three main uses for a food mill.
Eco-friendly materials are big in the cookware market right now, and one of our favorite green lines is Lamson & Goodnow’s GoodNow recycled cooking tools.
We're thinking about featuring a few rabbit recipes in a future issue, but we need your feedback first.
Garlic: To press or not to press
Thoughts on whether garlic presses are worth using.
The light at the end of the (cake) tunnel - update
Adventures in troubleshooting a problem pound cake...
How much chocolate can you eat?
When it comes to chocolate, what looks like a reasonable serving size might not be realistic.
A new ginger-peeling tool by Oxo has some advantages over other methods
Some recipes call for kosher salt by weight.
The quest for crispy chicken skin - Update
Will an overnight rest in the fridge turn flabby, pale skin into crisp, brown skin?
Lessons Learned from the Appliance Guy
If your dishwasher's not working, it might be the soap...
Bologna: lunch meat or economic indicator?
According to A&P's bologna meter, economic recovery may not be as close as we hope
Do you really need a kitchen torch? Maybe not, but there are occasions when it really comes in handy.
Shopping in the 'burbs takes determination
Unbleached cake flour, at last
Coming this August from King Arthur, the first and only unbleached cake flour
The crazy seasons of the test kitchen
It may be early summer outdoors, but it's Thanksgiving time in the Test Kitchen
Behind the scenes at a video shoot
We're upping the ante on our cooking videos. Video director Rob Patton-Spruill showed us how it's done.
When it comes to developing an original recipe, there are lots of approaches
A corn stripper that really works
After testing at least a dozen models, we've finally found one that gets the job done well.
An oil can be rancid without smelling bad, so be sure to taste your oil before every use.
Ring molds are a chef’s secret weapon for building towering creations.
A Chilean spice blend might be the next big flavor of the month
Why sencha and ice cream don’t mix
Happy Valentine's Day from the Endive People
Bored with Flowers? Try an endive bouquet.
The best tomato soup in the world comes from a can, but it's not a can of Campbell's
Use a scale or a spoon for best results
Can't find a ruler? Use your pinky.
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Recent Comments
Re: The Fastest and Richest Chocolate Mousse Ever
Thanks, aqn. Typo fixed.
posted: 12:30 pm on February 15th
Re: A Tasty Tomato Tart
That sounds good! I love tomatoes with blue cheese. You should tell your dad to quit stashing the tomatoes in the fridge. The cold kills the tomatoes' flavor. If he leaves them on the counter, they'll taste better, plus if they're sitting there in plain sight, maybe he won't forget them.
posted: 12:24 pm on July 28th