A New Fondness for Fond

I just love Cook’s Illustrated magazine. I had heard good things about it, but I didn’t think I would want to subscribe because they don’t have glossy, mouth-watering photographs of food to inspire the home chef. Then I got a sample issue in the mail – devoured it – and I was hooked. Something about their savvy-but-no-nonsense approach really appeals to me. Even if I don’t have an interest in making a given recipe, I love to read how they tested the ingredients and techniques until they came up with the “perfect” version. I learn so much about cooking in general from that. I like the little facts about the science of food. I also love that they don’t have ads! I subscribed to Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food for awhile but I got so tired of hunting for the recipes in between so many ads.

The magazine subscription comes with an email newsletter and one time I found a link to sign up to be a recipe tester. That sounded like fun! This week I had bandwidth to test a recipe, Beef Stroganoff. I followed the recipe exactly as written – it was a fun challenge to find just the right cut of meat and try to do it all just the way they said. It was a growing experience for me because I often take the safe route and use my non-stick skillet, but this time I used my big heavy-bottomed skillet and cranked up the heat, to see if I could sear the meat quickly to keep it from sticking but develop lots of good brown “fond” on the bottom of the pan, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned from Cook’s it’s that fond = flavor. I did it! There was oil flying everywhere, I had to clean my glasses 3 times, but the meat got really well browned and my sauce came out such a beautiful shade of brown. It tasted really good, too. I was interested to note a couple of ingredients in the recipe that were used in such small quantities that it almost seemed pointless to add them – but I guess they all contribute to flavor even if they aren’t detectable in the final dish.