The Cook's Illustrated Guide to Grilling and Barbecue

This is, without a doubt, the best cookbook I have ever purchased. It literally gives you every step, and explains the reasons for each step, without making you feel like an idiot. I always felt that most recipes give very vague instructions on grilling; not so with this book. If you enjoy details and want to get it exactly right, buy this book, or any from Cook's Illustrated for that matter - but this one if my favorite. Best of all, there are mouthwatering pictures in color in the center of the book. Enjoy!

While one can not truly barbeque on a grill, this guide gets you as close as possible. Good grilling is not rocket science but this book explains what many have learned only through trial-and-error. When trying a new receipe, I always compare it with this guide. While I may prefer sauces and rubs found in my other six grilling books, this is my Bible on how to apply them. Buy this book first and use it as your standard when reviewing others. Of course, like all receipe books, you must use your own good judgement. For example, one receipe says start your salmon fillets skin side down while another says skin side up. (I think skin side up is the right way to go to get better marking and to make it easier to see how cooking is progressing.) I use this book and I give it to my friends. Enjoy!

I gave this book to my brother for his birthday. He is a BBQ addict - once flew to Memphis for a week, just to do BBQ research. He rarely finds anything of interest in most books or magazines. He loves this book and within the first 20 minutes of reading it (while we finished assembling his birthday cake) he announced, twice, that he had "found something". Having found the perfect gift, I couldn't be more pleased.

"The Cook's Illustrated Guide to Grilling and Barbeque" is in my opinion a "must have" book for anyone wanting to learn or improve his/her outdoor cooking skills. This book, copyrighted in 2005, appears to me to be an updated and revised version of the similar "The Best Recipe Grilling & Barbeque" book copyrighted in 2001 (which I bought at the same time). After reading through both books, I do not see any reason for purchasing the 2001 book. The "Illustrated Guide" contains over 450 recipes, but those recipes are only one part of the great information this book presents. The book opens with the basics of "grilling" versus "barbequing" and discusses the differences between charcoal cooking and gas cooking. There is a lot of information and recommendations on products (cooking equipment and tools) needed for successful outdoor cooking. In the cooking chapters (beef, pork, chicken, turkey, vegetables, etc.), the "Illustrated Guide" gives much more than just recipes. The book describes how to choose the food (e.g. which cut of beef, what size chicken, etc.) and how to prepare it before cooking, including seasoning. Then, the book describes a step-by-step procedure for cooking the item; the book gives separate instructions for charcoal cooking and gas cooking. The book's "claim to fame" is that the authors/cooks perfected each instruction/recipe through extensive trial and error, and that the reader can benefit from the writers' experience and their detailed instructions. On my gas grill, I recently grill-roasted the book's "Beer Can Chicken" (for which I used lemonade- the recommended alternate to beer) and my family all agreed it was the best chicken we had ever eaten. I also recently followed the book's instuctions to select, buy, season and grill strip steaks. My family (and guest) also raved about those steaks. My steak tasted better than one I recently ate at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. Each time I've followed the book's instructions, the results have been outstanding. This book quickly pays for itself.

`The Cook's Illustrated Guide to Grilling and Barbecue' by the editors of `Cook's Illustrated' magazine may be the very first book you should get on the title subject. Unlike the charcoal only coverage of the excellent `The Thrill of the Grill' by Chris Schlesinger and John Willoughby, this book gives equal coverage to charcoal and gas, although it does not address grilling with raw hardwood. The first thing which impressed me about this book is that early in editor in chief Christopher Kimball's introduction, the point is made in no uncertain terms that good grilling and barbecue is hard to do. Doing it right requires both book learning and experience. The second thing that impressed me about the book was that I found lots of very good general information on techniques. I was expecting not much more than an anthology of grilling and barbecue recipe articles from the magazine as I see in many other `Cook's Illustrated' books. I was not surprised with the quality of this information, as `Cook's Illustrated' always provides reliable, albeit somewhat uninspired advice. One thing I find true of the `Cook's Illustrated' books is that they are fun to read. Every other page seems to have a sidebar of interesting opinions about everything from Santoku knives to catsup (Heinz is the best). I suggest you take opinions on ingredients such as vinegars or olive oils with a grain of salt, as there is a good chance that a minority of available brands were tested and their testers tend to play it safe. When they say they were surprised by their results, it's time to sit up and take notice! The best thing about their opinions is that they give the reasons behind their recommendations and when the reasons are sound, there is little room for argument, as when they describe their experiments with the heat distribution in a kettle grill measured from five different points in a comparison of two different methods of creating a high heat zone and a low heat zone in the same grill. A second big distinction between this book and `The Thrill of the Grill' is that `Cook's Illustrated' gives us recipes for all the standard dishes that appear on 90% of America's grills. It may be great to find out how to grill octopus, but it's a lot better to exercise one's grilling technique with hamburgers, steaks, and chops until you have the basic techniques down pat. As with most `Cook's Illustrated' recipes, I have a bit of a problem with the ones in this book. While I totally trust their opinions and findings on general grilling technique, I will probably adapt their recipes with a certain caution. Their recipes for hamburgers and London Broil have lots of good information about shaping the patties and choosing the meat, but the actual recipes are, I believe, not as good as my favorite methods acquired from Julia Child and James Beard respectively. I would be inclined to read what they have to say about the recipes, but use my own experience in seasoning or marinading. The other s