Acharmingly obsessive, thoroughly tested exploration of the best ways to cook and bake your favorite foods.

Some might think the best roast chicken means most efficient without sacrificing juicy meat, while others might think best is the one that you wont be able to stop thinking about for years, no matter how long it takes in a sous vide bag. When writer Ella Quittner (creator of Food52s Absolute Best Tests)is cooking or baking something, she cannot rest until shes tested every method she can to arrive at the best result. Even if that means traveling to Tokyo to learn the trick to extra juicy tsukune for her tender meatballs or spending time in the Alabama Black Beltgathering intel from the pros for her flakiest biscuits.

InObsessed with the Best,Ella walks you through the results of 24 head-to-head tests of cooking methods to help you find the perfect choice for your palate. From these building blocks, Ella shares more than 100 recipes, grounding you in minimalist techniques that maximize flavor, and sharing creative options as jumping off points for your own favorite flavors. Recipes include:

* Under-Pressure Flaky Biscuits, Fluffy No-Special-Equipment Buttermilk Pancakes, and a failproof Caramelized Shallot Soft Scrambled Eggs with Comt
* Crispy Smashed Potatoes with Insurance Cheese, Rigatoni with Vodka AllAmatriciana,and more than a dozenoptimized veggies, like Braised Tomato-Butter Cabbage.
* Entres likeTriple-Secret Tender Meatballs, One-Hour Roast Chicken, Opulent Slow-Roasted Chicken,and Lemon-Butter Cold-Poached Shrimp
* Sweets likeOverachiever Extra Brown Butter Bakery-Worthy Chocolate Chunk Cookies, Soft & Tender Yellow Cake, and Actually Manageable French-ish Buttercream

Punctuated with reported essays on people, places, or things obsessed with the bestbe it a bacon evangelist from Iowa who flies annually all the way to Kofu, Japan, to throw a Porktober Fest in the middle of a seasonal celebration of a feudal lord, or an international spin through different pasta-making methods from Osaka to TuscanyObsessed with the Bestis precise, informative, personal, and fun in equal measure.