Cookbook Review: "All About Roasting"

When I started cooking, I was very timid in the kitchen, convinced that my inexperience would ruin whatever dish I attempted. I stuck to the recipes my Mom had given me, handwritten on index cards. All through college, I bored myself and my roommates with the same six dishes whenever it was my turn in the kitchen. A few years later, in grad school, farther from home and clearly more adventurous, the first thing I made that wasn’t on those cards was a roast chicken, and it was such an improvised, impulsive dish that I had no expectations.

Hoping I was remembering correctly what I'd seen them do at home, I shoved garlic and rosemary inside the bird, plopped it in the biggest pan I could find (a brownie pan, as it turns out), and rubbed it with a mix of salt, pepper, and olive oil. I called Mom to ask how long and how hot, set the oven to what she told me, and stuck the bird in. I must’ve opened the oven door a hundred times the first hour, but as it started to brown and glisten and to smell just like home, I realized that it’s pretty hard to ruin a roast chicken.

The bird was upside-down in the pan, which was a happy accident: all the juices collected in the breast meat, which kept it from drying out, canceling all the missteps I made. The roast had the crispy skin I love, plus plenty of pan juices to make the gravy my Gramma taught me to make, and the moist meat was faintly infused with garlic and rosemary. It was delicious, and my apartment smelled like home, like the holidays, like comfort and warmth and love. I think my oven has been on ever since: I never want that feeling, those smells of home, to go away.

Over the years, I tried every suggestion and technique for roasting a chicken, every tip and trick I heard from other cooks, read in foodie magazines and cookbooks, or saw on Food Network. I’ve got my own strategy – it’s too simple to be called a recipe – that I developed from all this informal research and experimentation. I believe mine is the best way, but I have to confess that whenever I pick up a new cookbook, it’s the roast chicken recipe that I use to decide if it’s a book to take home to my kitchen.

And so when I found Molly Stevens’ newest cookbook, All About Roasting, it took about three seconds to decide that it was a cookbook for me, and oh, is it ever.  Every home cook should have this cookbook. It might look like a high-end coffee table book, but don’t let that fool you. This is a book with the smells and tastes of home, and its pages will soon be stained and crinkled with pan drippings and sauce.

“A New Approach to a Classic Art” is the subtitle of All About Roasting, and as Stevens explains in her introduction, and as I demonstrated in my kitchen as a grad student, being able to create a good roast dinner does not necessarily imply an understanding of the technique involved. This cookbook is designed to teach a home cook the science behind roasting: what’s really going on inside the oven and how to control the results.

If the idea of a science lesson in a cookbook makes you roll your eyes and reach for Joy of Cooking or a takeout menu, hang on a second. All About Roasting is designed so that if you’re a food nerd like me, you can read it cover to cover, but it’s also set up for the cook who just wants to make a great dinner. There are 200 recipes, all written with clear, concise, specific instructions – you can just flip to the recipe you want and start cooking. Chances are, though, that you’ll get drawn in by the stories between recipes, and you’ll be reading while the roast is in the oven.

Each recipe begins with an anecdote, a personal history of the dish or the ingredients, told with such wit and charm that you’ll wish you could sit in Molly Stevens' kitchen while she tells you stories and cooks you one of these scrumptious dishes.

The recipes are laid out and presented perfectly on the page – they are easy to read and even easier to follow. Stevens helpfully lists all special equipment, do-ahead tasks, and total cooking time above the ingredients list. In the introduction, she explains the basic methods of roasting (high heat, low heat, moderate heat, dual heat); each recipe tells you up front which method is being used, so you can go back and review if you wish. Each dish also comes with a wine or beer pairing, which is a nice touch. The ingredients, along with any prep work, are listed in the order they will be used in the steps of the recipe.

Molly Stevens is an award-winning food writer, editor and cooking teacher, and it’s her teaching experience that is most evident on these pages. The steps for each recipe are written so clearly, with such patience and detail, that when following them, I almost felt like she was standing over my shoulder, guiding me.

There are six chapters to this cookbook: an introduction to the principles and science of roasting, then five chapters of food, Beef & Lamb, Pork, Chicken & Poultry, Fish & Shellfish, and Vegetables & Fruits. Each chapter beings with the most basic rendition of a roast, often just seasoned with salt and pepper, followed by more intricate variations, with options like spice rubs, glazes, and sauces. Tucked in and among the recipes are facts and tips about ingredients – the history of the Cornish game hen, the difference between the types of sweet onion, how to clean mushrooms, and so on.

This cookbook has more than fancy Sunday roasts; there are plenty of mid-week, quick-prep dishes that taste like they’ve been cooking for days. Roasted Hamburgers will sound like sacrilege to you burger purists, but try it before you dismiss it – these come out plump and juicy. The Herb-Roasted Shrimp with Pancetta is super fast and super easy, and it’s even tastier than it sounds.

Roasted Buffalo Wings! If you've always wanted to have the best, juiciest, crispiest, not-greasy, tender wings at home, this is the recipe you want. Until this book, I swore by Alton Brown's recipe for homemade wings. His recipe involves steaming and chilling and then roasting, and the results are worth all the labor, but it is a lot of work. Sorry, Alton, love you, but these wings are just as good and a lot easier!

And the roast chicken? Give it a try. I, for one, won’t be turning off my oven anytime soon.