Milk Street's "The New Rules" is Only $17.95

New Year, "New Rules"

Discover over 200 recipes and 75 "new rules" that are guaranteed to make you a better cook. Get your copy for only $17.95 through midnight tomorrow.

Dear Milk Streeter,

The rules of home cooking have changed. We no longer dump sauce on pasta; we finish them together. We no longer sauté meat for a stew; we let the oven do the work. We don't just use ground spices; we know how and when to use whole spices. We don't mince garlic and cook it in hot oil; we cook smashed cloves in olive oil. And we know that marinades rarely add much flavor so we use them to sauce meat after its cooked.

By traveling the world, the editors of Milk Street have discovered what millions of home cooks from Dakar to Oaxaca, from Beirut to Sicily have known for generations—cooking methods and flavor combinations that transform home cooking from bland to bold, from boring to sit-up-and-take-notice exciting. Here are a few of my favorite new rules:

Rule No. 5: Treat Herbs as Greens, Not Garnish

Make a salad out of parsley or a combination of parsley and arugula or cilantro and scallions. Salads are not just made from lettuce anymore.

Rule No. 13: Stop Stirring Your Polenta!

Just south of Milan, we found an old grain mill and a family that cooks polenta low and slow in the classic manner—with lots of water and hardly any stirring. The result? The easiest, creamiest polenta you have ever tasted (and the oven does all the work).

"Guaranteed to make you a better cook... Simple techniques that will bring more flavor and better results to the table."―Parade

"Simple but smart solutions to make cooking a bit easier -- like how to keep dressing from sliding off salads, or how to thicken sauces without adding cream."―BuzzFeed

"A delightfully easy-to-follow cookbook with a bunch of little secrets -- 200 to be exact. These tips, tricks and techniques are perfect for the home cook who likes to know not only how to make food more delicious, but why a recipe works the way it does."―The Mercury News (San Jose)

ORDER THE NEW RULES

Creamy Polenta

Our polenta recipe, based on a trip to Milan, cooks in the oven, requires only minimal stirring and produces the creamiest polenta you have ever tasted.

Rule No. 16: Hold the Herbs Until the End

Add fresh, delicate herbs near the end of cooking for big fresh flavor.

Rule No. 21: Create Creaminess without Cream

Use ground cashews or grated corn kernels make a creamy no-cream sauce.

"All 200 recipes not only stand alone, but serve to illustrate one of 75 smart cooking rules and hacks that you'll be able to apply when you want to improvise in the kitchen. In the manner of all the best cookbooks, the idea is not just to tell you what to cook, but to teach you how to make meals your own."―Chowhound

Rule No. 23: Get Bigger Flavor from Supermarket Tomatoes

A slow simmer with lots of olive oil and water slows down the cooking to produce a richer sauce.

Bucatini Pasta with Cherry Tomato Sauce

A slow simmer with EVOO and water concentrates flavor so even supermarket tomatoes taste good.

ORDER THE NEW RULES

Rule No. 26: Finish Pasta in the Sauce

Boil pasta until just shy of al dente and then finish it directly in the sauce with a bit of the starchy cooking water allowing the pasta to absorb the flavors of the sauce.

Rule No. 53: Hit Repeat for Bigger, Better Flavor

Use the same spice mixture at the beginning and end of cooking for bigger impact.

Rule No. 44: Single-Side Searing is Best for Seafood

Cook shrimp on just one side and then finish off the burner using residual heat for perfectly cooked, moist results.

Mexican Shrimp in Garlic Sauce

Cook shrimp for 2 minutes and then remove pan from heat to finish for moist, tender seafood.

Rule No. 67: Use Less Liquid for More Flavor

Braising meats with minimal liquid concentrate juices and produces a richly flavored sauce.

Rule No. 70: Treat Meat as a Flavoring

Most of the world treats meat as a flavoring, not the main ingredient, which produces healthier, more interesting pairing with grains, rice, vegetables and beans.

Rule No. 72: Stop Searing Your Meat

For a stew, use the oven and an uncovered pot to do the browning work for you.

Rule No. 74: Tenderize Beef with Baking Soda

Balkan and Chinese cooks use baking soda or other alkalis to force muscle proteins apart, making the beef more tender.

Only a handful of cookbooks have truly changed the way we cook, from "Mastering The Art of French Cooking" to the "Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking" to "Plenty." We hope that "The New Rules" will up your game as well, changing the way you cook with simpler, bolder recipes.

Cordially,

Christopher Kimball
Founder, Milk Street