• Eat Your Books

  2003 James Beard Award Winner

Notes about Recipes in this book

• Marinated flank steak

  • pecken on May 03, 2010

    Marinated 7 hours in fridge and sat out 30 minutes before grilling. Very salty - probably will not make again as there are much better tasting marinades.

  • ellabee on February 23, 2013

    p. 63. Excellent, reliable marinade and recipe for London broil cooked in broiler; have always used top round rather than flank steak. Fresh ginger makes a big difference. Marinated 1.5 lb top round for 18 hrs. Six minutes broiling usually perfect.

• Shrimp soak

  • Bloominanglophile on February 12, 2014

    I found this recipe when surfing the internet--a ton of people raved about how it perked up less-than-stellar shrimp, particularly frozen shrimp. I was disappointed in some frozen shrimp I had bought from Whole Foods, and I still had half of the 2 lb. package to use up. Well, I may be doing this from now on to all frozen, raw shrimp that I buy--both the texture and the flavor improved! A word of warning--it did take about an hour for the ice to melt in the mixture before I could add the shrimp. I did thaw, peel and devein them before brining them for 20 minutes. He recommends brining shrimp in the shell for 30 minutes, and 1 hour for "jumbo" sized shrimp in the shell.

• Skirt steak: the master recipe

  • rionafaith on May 21, 2020

    Perfect basic technique for seared skirt steak. Pretty smoky in a apartment without exhaust, but worth it and only takes a few minutes anyway.

• Cast-iron duck

  • rionafaith on July 21, 2016

    p. 33 -- This is so simple as to be barely a recipe, it's more a method. I think my duck breasts were bigger than Alton's as they took longer to cook than indicated. The recipe didn't state a temperature, so I cooked them to 130* and that seemed pretty good, maybe a touch on the rare side (whereas the outside was very well seared). I might try cooking them more slowly, partly in the oven, next time. After removing the breasts to rest, I cooked some thinly-sliced fingerling potatoes in the fat remaining in the pan until they were tender... delicious!

• Alabama alchemy

  • rionafaith on February 12, 2017

    Used the pressure cooker instructions in the side bar and made in Instant Pot -- 5 minutes on high pressure with quick release ended up being perfect timing. Good, basic collards.

• Kitchn

  ...a pleasurable read and a reliable, well-tested first take to boot. The info-packed front section is funny, even a little earnest, but will make you feel like a more confident cook instantly.

  Full review