As I enter the final week of my 12 week internship at America’s Test Kitchen, I realize it’s been a few weeks since I’ve provided any kind of update. To make a long story short, as a result of some of the things that I’ve previously blogged about, current ATK employees are no longer allowed to blog about specific recipes that are in the development, testing or evaluation stages. Only after a recipe has been published are we free to discuss our experiences during that whole process. This stance does make sense to me because there is generally a lengthy lag time between the testing and publishing phases. There’s always that possibility that an ATK competitor could read the details of an upcoming recipe or book on an employee’s blog and then rush their own version of that recipe or book to the market before ATK has a chance to do so. While I do understand this ‘media blackout’, its immediate effect has left me with a severe case of ‘internship writer’s block’. In my eyes, my own contributions to a recipe’s development through a constant cycle of tasting, testing and tweaking are the more interesting parts of my internship.
I can say that over the last few weeks I’ve been working with the ATK book team. The book team operates a bit differently than the Cook’s Illustrated and Cook’s Country magazine teams in that each book released usually has an overarching theme, as the recently released titles of “The Best 30-Minute Recipes” and “The Best Skillet Recipes” would suggest. Individual test cooks are responsible for different chapters within a book, a task that includes recipe development and testing as well as authoring all of the chapter’s content. In my tenure on the book team, I’ve been relieving some of the test cooks of their recipe testing duties while they focus on writing. I’ve been enjoying this tremendously as the constant testing provides me with an opportunity to chop and cook all day. After I prepare a recipe, myself, the test cook, and the other members of the book team will taste and critique the dish, discussing what we like and what we don’t like along with any potential errors or corrections that need to be made to the recipe’s list of ingredients or procedures. My input in this phase is critical; as I am often the first person besides the test cook that executes a given recipe, I can catch any errors relating to cooking times, temperatures and procedures and relay that information back to the test cook who will incorporate those changes into their next version of the recipe. As I hone my own palate and become more confident in my ability to taste the different components of a dish, I also can make suggestions for enhancing the flavor and texture of a dish. One example of this is a recent noodle dish I was testing, which was yielding gummy noodles. I suggested altering the cooking time for the noodles by adding them to the rest of the ingredients at a later point, thus shortening the cooking time for the noodles and improving their texture dramatically.
With the end of my internship in sight, it’s natural to begin reflecting on what I’ve learned and how I’ve developed over the course of the last 11 weeks. I’ve certainly learned just how much behind-the-scenes testing (a lot!) happens before any ATK-branded recipe can be published, with some recipes that I’ve tested having been through 10 or more iterations before being finalized. More than that, this experience has made me a better, if not, much more organized and astute cook. Unofficial ATK operating procedures state that all ‘mise en place’ for a recipe must be completed before any cooking begins. This means that all ingredients need to be cut, diced, chopped, trimmed and measured before one starts to cook. Because ATK is a stickler for accuracy (especially when it comes to measuring out ingredients and cooking times), a scale and kitchen timer are absolute necessities in the test kitchen. When a recipe calls for something like a cup of chicken stock, I will weigh that out to ensure I have exactly 8 oz of liquid. Since it’s not a natural act to for me to be measuring, weighing and timing as I go, it took me some time, but I now feel like I’ve hit my stride in the kitchen over these last few weeks, finding a good balance between working accurately as well as efficiently.
Some of these behaviors have carried over to my home cooking adventures. While I’m not as particular about times and weights when cooking at home, I strive to be organized and work as efficiently as I can, feeling strangely compelled to have as much ‘mise en place’ for any dish completed before I actually begin cooking. Some recipes may have long cooking times between steps (i.e. a pasta dish that requires cooking the pasta for 15 minutes before tossing it sauce); I have embraced the fine art of multi-tasking, using those longer times to prepare ingredients for other dishes that I intend to cook. I’ve learned that having a cluttered and dirty workstation can bring my entire operation to a halt so I’ve become even more anal about keeping things clean and organized as I cook, both at work and at home. Being exposed to the daily act of picking apart the flavors of a dish has also made me a much more critical home cook and restaurant diner. I also find myself much better equipped to objectively evaluate the cooking procedures spelled out in a recipe, allowing me to determine if something will or won’t work, or sounds fishy, before I’ve begun any actual cooking. Having feel like I’ve made some big strides in my own development as a professional cook, I’d say that this experience at ATK has been extremely valuable for me.
What’s next once the internship is over? Well, that will just have to wait for another post.
