The Best Make-Ahead Recipe

As with other Cook's Illustrated projects, Make-Ahead includes recipes that have appeared previously in its other works, though a majority of these have been amended with make-ahead or scaling-up data. Almost all the recipes are prefaced with their trademark testing "diaries," exhaustively detailed accounts of the recipe-making process ("With the onion shells figured out, we focused next on the filling...," gives the flavor), which some readers will find enlightening, but others will think excessive. Of course, certain recipes, or recipe classes, like that for desserts, are necessarily made wholly or partially in advance--but the book's point is to provide formulas designed to yield superior results even when the uncompleted dishes are held, as most can be, in the refrigerator or freezer. Mission accomplished. Readers will find the book a consistently reliable resource for superior make-ahead dishes for everyday and special-occasion cooking. --Arthur Boehm