![]() ![]() In the school's kitchen, I dove in, starting with butternut squash soup, where you put squash chunks in the blender along with chicken broth, a chopped shallot, a bit of butter, honey, and salt. ![]() There, Elisabeth and I were "dorm parents" for four screenwriters who were also enthusiastic eaters. My wife Elisabeth and I took the Ace and the cookbook along with us on a trip to Mineral, Washington, where our friend Jane runs the Mineral School writers' residency. (Full disclosure: I occasionally give talks at trade shows with America's Test Kitchen's executive tasting and testing editor Lisa McManus.) If you want to know how the Ace works and understand the full range of capabilities of a blender that can cook, there's no faster way to do it than with this book. There's the kind of stuff you'd expect in the cookbook like butternut squash soup, nut milks, curries, and frozen margaritas, but they've also figured out clever "hacks" that allow you to eke the most flavor out of chicken noodle soup, corn chowder, and even barbecued pork sandwiches. This is far from their first rodeo, and ATK fans will feel right at home with their unimpeachable recipes. The America's Test Kitchen team, however, takes the machine and applies their own template, dividing the Ace's capabilities into five areas: soups mains and sides dips, spreads, and sauces drinks and smoothies and desserts. Per tradition, Instant Pot has punted on recipes, offering only a seven-recipe pamphlet with one recipe going as far as calling for store-bought pre-cooked pasta. (Alas, the book is only available separately, but it hits shelves this week.) ![]() The only thing that could make this pairing more effective and useful is if the book arrived nestled inside the blender's own styrofoam clamshell. Now, holding this idea in your head, behold the new Instant Pot Ace Blender, which not only blends but cooks, and which I absolutely implore you to buy with the Instant Pot Ace Blender Cookbook by America's Test Kitchen. (I emailed an Instant Pot representative a request for release dates and sales figures to back this up, but my emails went unanswered.) Instant Pot's manuals have slowly become more passable, and while the official user guides still provide a few token recipes, the company has essentially farmed out the heavy lifting to the cookbook pros who put "Authorized by Instant Pot" on the cover of their own books. I'd argue that it truly took off only once longtime stovetop pressure cooker users began adapting their existing recipes to the new format and started sharing their recipes with the rest of us. The company's manuals and recipes, however, have been roundly mocked and its response to that problem has been intriguing. Yes, its electric pressure cookers (aka multicookers) are incredibly popular. Instant Pot has also struggled in this arena. Those are two exceptions, though, and not the rule. See, for example, Philip Tessier's outstanding work for Hestan's Cue and the company's Smart Induction Cooktop. I had similar struggles more recently with the Cinder grill.Įvery once in a while, a manufacturer does a great job and nails the content. Less than six months since I reviewed the Vermicular, I can't remember any amazing food I made in it or any problem it solved in my kitchen. It's a sophisticated and different enough setup that you clearly need their recipes to get the hang of it, and apparently I didn't. Take the recently released Vermicular Musui-Kamado, a $670 Dutch oven with its own fancy induction heater and to-the-degree temperature control, allowing you to braise, roast, sauté, make rice, and even steam. Manufacturers don't need to do this for kitchen standbys like an oven or a cast-iron pan, but if they're introducing a new style of cooking, here's the important news: They do. Why risk having people shelve your miraculous gadget just because they aren't presented with the best ways to use it? It happens again and again, but it's a choice I never understand. It's as if they get 90 percent of the way to the finish line then just decide to crowdsource the last, crucial 10. It needs to have clear instructions and provide a big set of fantastic recipes that cover everything from the basics, like how to cook a sausage, to more complex stuff for a big dinner.Īmazingly, many manufacturers struggle to understand that idea, or just don't bother to make the effort to solve the problem. If the product proposes a new way to cook, it's going to need to be very well explained. The moment I hear that a new and notably different kitchen product is coming to market, I cringe. ![]()
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