Instructions: As host of PBSs Americas Test Kitchen, Christopher Kimball guides viewers to the best recipes, cooking techniques and products.

Experience has taught him that not all recipes are created equal. So, what should home cooks watch for when considering trying a recipe for the first time?

Read between the lines to determine whether a recipe is likely to work, he said.

To that end, Kimball advises:
o Be suspicious of recipes that dont provide a range of cooking or baking times. Nothing bakes for exactly 25 minutes and is then done. o Good recipes provide visual and textural cues with cooking times, and may tell what to look for, or do, if things go wrong.

o Strip recipes to the basics. Often ingredients and steps can be scaled back for a simpler, better dish. A basic beef stew, for example, doesnt need five spices, three herbs, garlic, shallots and lemongrass.

o Watch for hard-to-find ingredients, long ingredient lists, and complex or lengthy preparations. Also, check for expensive ingredients. Very often they arent key to the success of the recipe.

Q: What basics can a cook assume about ingredients in a recipe?

Kimball: Use large eggs, unsalted butter, and unbleached all-purpose flour unless otherwise specified. Use butter and eggs at room temperature. And turn baked goods in the oven halfway through baking.

Q: Are there warning signs that a recipe wont work?

Kimball: Thats hard to judge unless you know a lot about cooking. For instance, I always look at the amount of chemical leavening in a baking recipe.

Many recipes use too much. More than one teaspoon of baking powder per cup of flour can cause a recipe to rise too much. It blows itself out and then falls.

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