If you’re someone who has been paying attention to Christopher Kimball’s reinvention, you know that he invented Milk Street as a food media empire (television show, radio show, podcast, magazines, and a plethora of digital content that can be unlocked for a subscription) as well as classes, cookbooks, and food and kitchen products. But he did it all with a vision of what he wanted to bring to his customers. He wanted to change the old, staid ways of cooking and connect people with new flavors, new ideas, and new techniques. His latest cookbook brings that all together.
Milk Street: The New Rules promises readers a new way to cook. Kimball and his cadre of chefs have spent hours and hours testing recipes, traveling the world for new inspiration, and asking themselves if there is a better way to achieve more flavor, with easier cooking techniques and simpler recipes for home cooks who may be pressed for time.
The New Rules starts with the rules, 75 of them in all, and then moves on to the recipes. So when he says to grate root vegetables to make them sweeter, he later illustrates this with a Moroccan Carrot Salad with grated carrots. Or when the new rule is to treat herbs as greens, not as garnish, then he shows this through several salads such as a Grape Tomato Salad with Parsley and Dill or a Parsley and Arugula Salad with Lemon and Sesame.
He starts with his new rules for Vegetables, and then moves to Beans and Grains, Noodles and Breads, Eggs, Seafood, Chicken, Pork, and Beef. Rule 13: Stop Stirring Your Polenta (recipe: Creamy Polenta with Savory Sauces). Rule 34: Add Yogurt to Make Dough Flavorful and Flexible (recipe: Flatbread PIzza Dough). Rule 39: Steam, Don’t Boil, Your Eggs (recipe: Soft-Cooked Eggs with Coconut, Tomatoes and Spinach).
Rule 44: Stick with Single-Sided Searing (recipe: Pan-Seared Halibut with Spicy Mint-Lemon Sauce). Rule 49: Flat Birds Cook faster, Crisp Better (recipe: Crispy Chicken Under a Brick). Rule 63: Don’t Marinate Without Also Saucing (recipe: Japanese Ginger Pork. Rule 69: Sauce Meat as It Rests (recipe: Pan-Seared Steaks with Sherry and Caper Viniagrette). And then there is Rule 75: Salt Your Drinks, Not Your Glassware.
If you’re feeling intimidated by Milk Street’s recipes, I get that. I’ve been there too. But this cookbook has a lot of simple recipes as well as a wealth of information that can elevate your cooking in general. Don’t feel ready to try something like Hot-and-Sour Curried Chickpeas? No problem. The New Rules also has basics on steaming and roasting vegetables, cooking eggs, toasting spices, choosing beans, understanding chiles, and how and when to use which spices. There are also lots of photos, not just of the finished dishes but of the technique basics used to get to those finished dishes.
Milk Street: The New Rules is a beautiful cookbook that you can use as a collection of clever and flavorful recipes, or a primer on cooking techniques, or as a combination of both. However you choose to use this compendium of a cookbook, you will raise your game on flavors, cooking techniques, and all-around kitchen know-how.
A galley of Milk Street: The New Rules was provided by Little, Brown and Company through NetGalley, with many thanks.