Americas Test Kitchen - Comfort food makeovers: all your favorites made lighter

Makeovers are the very essence of the American experience, from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy to This Old House, but, in Vermont, makeovers are less popular. I am reminded of the story of a kindhearted lady from Cavendish who was always on the lookout to invite a less fortunate soul over for a good meal during the holidays. One Christmas, she invited the local handyman, who was a bit eccentriche wore several suits of long underwear during the winter along with two pairs of pants and several shirts, and he lived in squalid quarters. She met him on the street and extended the invitation, at which point he said that he would have to think it over. A few days later, he gave his reply as follows: I thank you for your kindness but Ive been thinking it over and I just dont know. Id have to take off my clothes, take some kind of bath, and then try to find something else to wear. And Ive about decided that it aint worth it!

In the test kitchen, recipe makeovers have been controversial. One group of cooks, including myself, wondered if it would be best to let comfort food classics alone. Do we really want to replace fat in a chocolate cake with prunes or applesauce? But when our own test kitchen undertook makeover projects (without silly substitutions), I found myself reaching for more. In fact, many of these recipes were so good that I actually preferred them to the originals. It wasnt about reducing fat or calories; it was about creating something that I actually liked more. That extra fat was often obscuring the flavor of the food itselfthe leaner cupcake, muffin, or lasagna was, in fact, better.

To achieve truly revelatory makeovers, however, requires that one discard the easy and sometimes fraudulent methods employed by many test kitchens. No more tiny servingsthe classic ruse used by food manufacturersand no silly and off-putting ingredients such as the aforementioned prunes and applesauce in chocolate cake. Just because it looks like a chocolate cake doesnt mean that it tastes like one!

We had lofty goals for our makeovers. We aimed to cut calories by a third (we ended up averaging 41 percent) and fat by half (final average was 65 percent).But the major rule was that the food had to taste good and be as similar as possible to, for instance, the that we had started with. We had to love it or leave itif the latter, we simply moved on to the next recipe challenge.

Many of these recipes started their lives in restaurants and fast-food establishments, so we slimmed down and improved dishes such as McDonalds Quarter Pounder with Cheese (our (a strange but successful use of Honey Nut Cheerios!).

In the end, I think of these recipes as my new comfort food repertoire, not my go-to versions only when I am watching my weight. I prefer cleaner, leaner recipes that still have a good level of fat but use it wisely and to best effect. Since the culinary arts are a work in progressone generation revises the recipes from the prior onethis makes perfect sense. In the past 50 years, my tastes have changed and I want my food to step up to the plate and deliver big flavors that are not obscured with thick layers of cheese, cream, and butter. I want my chocolate cake to taste, well, like chocolate cake. And thats the essence of this bookif it doesnt taste good, if it doesnt satisfy, then you wont find it on these pages. A simple rule but one that ensures that a comfort food makeover is the real deal, not an ersatz imitation! (Try the Chocolate Cupcakes and you will see what I mean.)