Copycat Taste Test Day

I have been fortunate enough in operating this site to get a few offers for review books and giveways related to cooking from time to time. Since this site is for fans of Alton Brown, I always try my best to relate the post to something about one of his projects. However, there are times when passing up a great opportunity just because it isn’t from or about AB, Food Network or his publisher isn’t wise.

That’s the scenario for this post, a few weeks ago I was presented with an opportunity to get a review copy of More of America’s Most Wanted Recipes by Ron Douglas. On top of getting the advanced copy of the cookbook, I was asked to participate in The Great American Taste Test, which compares the recipes from the book with their restaurant counterparts.

The new cookbook from Mr. Douglas is collection of “copycat” recipes from some of the nations best known chain restaurants and follows last year’s New York Times best-selling America’s Most Wanted Recipes. Both books are now available from Atria Books.

Despite the fact that I love the premise of AB’s Feasting on Asphalt series, there are still chain restaurants that I enjoy and frequent. So, what could be better than having a cookbook to crack the code on some restaurant dishes so they can be made at home? With that possibility, I decided to take on the offer and the taste test.

The most challenging part of The Great American Taste Test lie in finding a recipe from a restaurant in my area. Many of the chains in the book are not located close to me. I did, however, find a few. The next challenge was find something I wanted to make from those places. Since I am an unabashed lover of seafood, the offerings from Red Lobster looked promising. I found Crab Alfredo Linguine. It looked great and simple to make, so that would be my dish for the taste test.

The dish selected was something I had never ordered before, so along with trying the copycat version I would be trying the real version for the first time as well.

In reading the copycat recipe for Crab Alfredo Linguine, I found a simple dish. The most time consuming thing being shelling the snow crab legs. The Alfredo sauce was built on a basic white roux, half and half and Parmesan cheese.

Visually both dishes looked the same. But would they both taste the same?

I tried the Red Lobster “real” version first. The dish was creamy and loaded down with crab. I surmised replicating the dish would be a challenge. However, in reviewing the copycat recipe, I noted the simplicity of the dish and hoped that, in fact, it was was basic.

Once I made the copycat version, a very quick dish with the longest part being cooking the linguine, I dove into see how it stacked up to the restaurant version. Tasting the copycat dish, it was indiscernible that it was not the one from Red Lobster. I found it a wonderful recreation of the original.

My friend J told me the version I made was very good. I still insisted there was no difference in the two dishes.

As for this copycat recipe, I found it to be on par with the original. Truly, the only thing missing was the famous Cheddar Bay biscuits. Now finding the perfect copycat recipe for that would complete the experience. If the other recipes work out as well as this one, the book is a definite keeper.