Kitchen Simple is a book of simple recipes that can be executed in a half hour or less. It is designed for people who have worked all day and don’t want to spend hours in the kitchen And while some of the recipes may require a bit longer than a half hour to cook, most of that time is when a cake is baking or a pot is simmering away, and you are free to prepare another recipe, perhaps a side dish.
Kitchen Simple does make certain assumptions. It assumes you’re smart but that you know little about cooking and just want to put good food on the table. In many of my books, there are pages and pages of context and explanation before the recipe proper begins. In Kitchen Simple, I get right to the matter at hand. Many of the recipes will be familiar and seem almost ridiculously easy, but they are included to remind you of the infinite possibilities of simple recipes. These simple recipes lend themselves well to improvisation such that you might find yourself fooling around in the kitchen inventing your own recipes.
While Kitchen Simple doesn’t call for a lot of exotic ingredients, it does assume that you have access to a good supermarket, and that you’re willing to shop. Keep in mind that it’s helpful to have a pantry of dry goods and supplies so when you shop you’re only looking for meat or fish, and produce. Most of the recipes in Kitchen Simple are inexpensive to prepare, but it is not a book for cooking on the cheap or for someone on a diet. Many recipes contain small amounts of cream and butter. My attitude has always been that moderation in all things is best, including moderation itself.
A good number of the recipes in Kitchen Simple are designed as first courses. While Americans usually don’t eat in courses (at least not at home), there are many dishes that work best when served on their own. Salads are a prime example of dishes that don’t work as side dishes, yet most aren’t substantial enough to be served as main courses. But remember, if you serve a salad as a first course, you can dispense with a vegetable to accompany the main course.
Kitchen Simple includes ideas for a well-stocked pantry so you can be prepared for unexpected guests or for nights when shopping is just not an option. And, while Kitchen Simple is not a technique book designed to teach the ins and outs (and the context) of various cooking styles, it does contain a discussion of the (surprisingly small number of) basic cooking techniques needed by any competent cook.
A few of the dishes are more time-intensive than others. These are included as weekend projects, and even though the cooking is long, the prep time is less than 30 minutes.
So how much time is needed to make an entire meal? Most of the dishes included here are designed to take a half hour of active preparation, not total cooking time. If you’re making three dishes—a salad, a piece of fish, and a dessert for example—it’s not going to take you an hour and a half to make the three dishes. The time will be closer to 45 minutes since the fish can be cooking while you’re chopping vegetables for the salad. This is a good thing to keep in mind when constructing a menu—plan so that you can work on more than one dish at a time. Try to organize yourself so you’re not making three dishes that require the stove or oven. For example, you might serve a salad as a first course, a piece of sautéed meat or fish as a main course, and roast potatoes as an accompaniment.
You’ll save a lot of time if you have a well-stocked pantry with things like olive oil, anchovies, pasta, dried beans, canned things, spices, dried herbs, and so on. When writing this book I’ve made several assumptions, including that you’ll have a well-equipped pantry and a fairly well-equipped kitchen.
Most anchovies come packed in oil; look for ones packed in olive oil, and that come in bottles, not cans. You can also find anchovies packed in salt, which is preferable. If you find these, soak them in cold water for 30 minutes before you use them. They’ll come tightly packed and will cling together; you should separate them as they soak. The best come from Sicily in large blue tins.
Don’t confuse these two. Baking soda is sodium bicarbonate and releases carbon dioxide in the presence of an acid. Baking powder contains acid that releases carbon dioxide when it becomes moist. Baking soda is called for in baked goods that contain something acidic, such as sour cream. Baking powder is called for in situations where there’s no ingredient to provide acid. Be sure to use “double acting” baking powder, which is what most baking powder is anyway.
Use imported bay leaves (most come from Turkey) instead of domestic (which come from California). Domestic bay leaves have a strong eucalyptus flavor that can overwhelm the other flavors.
The best broth is homemade starting with raw meat and bones. You can tell if your broth was successful by seeing if it gels in the refrigerator, which indicates it has the necessary gelatin to give body to soups and sauces. When making broth, it’s imperative that it never reach a hard boil or the churning will emulsify particles and fat into the broth. There are now better brands of low-sodium (low salt) broth, but they still don’t gel in the refrigerator and are too salty to be boiled down (reduced) for a sauce.
These recipes were tested using unsalted butter. If you’re using salted butter in a dessert, decrease the amount of salt added in the rest of the recipe. One stick of salted butter contains about ¼ teaspoon salt. So, if you have a recipe that calls for 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 cup (2 sticks) of butter, you know the butter is adding ½ teaspoon salt. Therefore, you should cut the salt down to ½ teaspoon.
All the cream called for is heavy cream or whipping cream which usually comes “ultra-pasteurized.” Ultra-pasteurized cream can be hard to beat, so if you can find just regular pasteurized cream, it is preferable (although not essential). Both of these have a high butterfat content and won’t separate when boiled. Don’t substitute light cream or half-and-half, which don’t thicken as well and may curdle. You can also use crème fraîche, which has a high butterfat content. Don’t substitute sour cream, which has a lower butterfat content and can curdle. You can make your own crème fraîche by inoculating 4 cups of cream with ½ cup buttermilk and leaving the mixture in a warm place for 24 hours.
The recipes in this book were tested with large eggs. White and brown eggs can be used interchangeably.
Flour varies from brand to brand. Recipes in this book were tested using King Arthur brand all-purpose flour, which is a relatively hard flour with a fair amount of gluten. If you’re using a different brand, you may find that your flour absorbs liquid less readily than King Arthur, so, when making tart dough, add less liquid than the recipe calls for, until you are certain it is all needed.
It’s handy to have meat glaze for thickening a pan sauce and giving it body. You can make your own meat glaze by cooking chicken broth down to a fraction of its original volume (definitely a weekend project), or you can buy commercial meat glaze. One of the better meat glazes is made by More-than-Gourmet, usually found in the gourmet section of the supermarket. Meat glaze can be stored in the refrigerator for several months and can be frozen indefinitely.
All milk used, except for buttermilk and coconut milk, is whole. Sometimes used for making custards, milk tends to curdle when simmered with other ingredients, especially vegetables. For this reason, it has to be stabilized with flour. The best known example of this is béchamel sauce.
Nut oils turn rancid very quickly unless they’re made from roasted nuts. Le Blanc brand is consistently the best brand I’ve found. Keep nut oils, such as walnut or hazelnut oil, in the freezer.
Because nuts turn rancid rapidly, even in the refrigerator, a good trick is to toast them as soon as you get them and then store them in the freezer. Toasting brings out their flavor and impedes rancidity. To toast nuts, spread them out on a sheet pan and roast for about 15 minutes at 350°F, or until you can smell them.
I use both “pure” olive oil, made by stripping the flavor from olive oil that doesn’t make the grade to be called extra virgin olive oil. Pure olive oil is inexpensive (especially if you buy in large quantities) and doesn’t have the sometimes fishy flavor that many vegetable oils have. When extra virgin olive oil is needed—in dishes where its aroma is not being cooked off—it’s stated in the recipe; otherwise use pure olive oil
In general, I find fresh flat-leaf parsley to have more aroma than the curly variety, but feel free to substitute one for the other.
Almost indispensable for savory foods, pepper comes in black, white, or green. Black pepper is the most commonly used because of its bold, round flavor. White pepper tends to be used for stuffings or in conjunction with other spices. It is also used when specks of black pepper would upset the appearance of, say, a cream soup. Green pepper is the underripe peppercorn and is often crushed or chopped and worked into sauces.
The recipes in this book have been tested using regular fine salt, except in some specialized recipes such as the radish toasts.
All sugar is granulated unless otherwise stated.
Use authentic vanilla extract, not artificial. Artificial vanilla will give your baked foods a cloying mass-produced quality. If you’re using vanilla beans, keep them tightly wrapped (first in plastic, then in foil) in the refrigerator.
All the vinegars called for in this book are wine vinegars. Good vinegar can be hard to find and, when you do find it, it’s expensive. The best vinegar I’ve found is Banyuls vinegar (vinaigre de banyuls) but, again, it’s hard to find and expensive. Champagne vinegar is a good all-round white wine vinegar. Sherry vinegar, especially if it’s been aged, is usually of excellent quality. Balsamic vinegar, when authentic, is extremely expensive and isn’t really meant for cooking. Inexpensive balsamic vinegar can be boiled down by half to give it more body and intensify its flavor. Although perhaps not simple, the best solution is to buy yourself an oak barrel and make your own vinegar by adding the ends of bottles of wine to the cask and keeping the cask in a warm place. In any case, buy the best (which is often the most expensive) vinegar you can find.
Flavored vinegars, such as tarragon vinegar, are made by infusing herbs or other flavorful ingredients in wine vinegar. Don’t confuse flavored vinegars with vinegars that are actually made from different fruits or grains, such as cider vinegar or rice vinegar.
When white wine is called for, use a dry wine, preferably one with a lot of acidity. Sauvignon blanc is good and generic ones from France are very reasonable. Red wine should have a lot of body. Argentinean wines, especially Malbecs, are inexpensive and perfect for cooking When using sherry, buy a dry fino or amontillado, which is simply an aged fino.
While the emphasis in this book is on fresh foods, it helps to have certain foods handy in the pantry. This is especially useful when cooking for unexpected guests.
• Anchovies
• Baking powder
• Baking soda (keep for only one year)
• Beans (dried)
• Capers: Capers come both packed in vinegar brine or packed with salt. If you’re using capers packed in brine, just drain them before you rinse them. Salt-packed capers should be rinsed off before you use them.
• Chiles (dried and canned chipotles in adobo sauce)
• Cornmeal: You’ll find that cornmeal comes in fine, medium, and coarse grains. Most of the time these can be used interchangeably.
• Flour (just all-purpose white; whole wheat is too perishable to store for long periods.)
• Jam
• Lentils (dried)
• Olive oil (pure and extra virgin)
• Pasta (dried)
• Pepper (just black will do; white is nice for cream soups)
• Rice (short-grain for risotto; long-grain, especially basmati, for other dishes)
• Salts (ideally a variety, but one—just plain fine salt—will do)
• Spices (including cloves, cumin, coriander, cinnamon, cardamom, and nutmeg, ground or whole. (If whole, you’ll have to grind them yourself in a coffee grinder.)
• Sugar (granulated and confectioners’)
• Tomatoes (canned)
• Vanilla (extract will do, but beans are nice)
• Vinegars (white wine, red wine, sherry, balsamic)
You can survive with very little kitchen equipment, but a few lesser-known items are surprisingly essential or will save you an enormous amount of work. Vegetable slicers and peelers, food mills, and of course sharp knives, will prove almost essential. Much of the other equipment listed here you’ll be able to get around with a little improvisation.
An assortment of baking dishes in various sizes and shapes is almost essential for cooking a number of dishes. Pyrex is good (it typically comes in 8-inch squares and in 9 by 13-inch rectangles), and oval copper gratin dishes are lovely and can be used both for cooking and presenting at the table. Oval copper gratin dishes come in assorted sizes and aren’t as expensive as you might think because the copper isn’t that thick. Porcelain is also good for quiche dishes and soufflé dishes. Souffle dishes come in assorted sizes and can be used for individual servings or for serving a small group.
Your best bet is to buy half-sheet pans (one is enough but two are better) from a restaurant supply store. They’ll be made of aluminum and they’ll be cheap. They come in a standard size, about 13 by 17 inches. You may want to invest in nonstick sheet pans, but an even better idea is a reusable silicone mat to which nothing ever sticks. Their only disadvantage is that they’re a bit expensive.
If your baking sheets are thin, and many of them are, you may want to double them up to help them cook evenly. You can even go as far as sprinkling the bottom one with water to help prevent the bottom of cookies or other pastries from burning. If you’re feeling flush, you may want to buy French baking sheets, which are made of iron and are of a thicker gauge, so they cook more evenly with less likelihood of burning.
If you don’t have a food mill, a blender is imperative for pureeing soups and sauces. There are two types: the regular blender with a stand and the immersion blender.
If you are buying a stand blender, choose one with a solid, heavy base and only two or three settings—not one with twenty different buttons for pureeing. Those with fewer settings are usually better made. When using a blender to puree hot mixtures, never fill it more than halfway full and hold the top on firmly with your hand wrapped in a towel. This prevents the mixture from shooting out and burning you.
If you blend soups or sauces with any regularity, I highly recommend an immersion blender. This is a long rod with blender blades attached to one end. You can submerge an immersion blender in a soup or sauce and puree it, without the cumbersome moving from blender to pot.
Buy a set of inexpensive mixing bowls in glass, glazed pottery, or stainless steel. I don’t know if they make aluminum bowls, but if they do, avoid them because they discolor eggs.
If you like making sponge cakes or soufflés, you’ll find that egg whites beaten in a copper bowl retain their height better after baking. If you don’t have a copper bowl insert for your stand mixer, you may want to get one for beating egg whites. If you want to beat your egg whites by hand, buy the largest copper bowl you can find (small ones are decorative, but because they limit the motion of the whisk, they make beating more difficult). Clean the bowl with a handful of salt and a splash of vinegar each time you use it. Make sure it’s perfectly clean (rinse it after the salt process) and dry before using.
The best approach is to buy a set of fluted cutters and a set of plain cutters. There are usually about twelve cutters in a set and they vary in size from about 4 inches in diameter to ½ inch in diameter. These are almost essential for cutting out biscuits and cookies.
Not so many years ago, all restaurants were compelled to replace their wooden cutting boards with plastic. But not long after that, it was discovered that wooden boards harbor less bacteria and are therefore safer.
You’ll need at least two cutting boards: a small one for slicing lemons, mincing shallots, and so on, and a large one for chopping herbs, meat, fish, and so on. Buy cutting boards without feet of any sort so you can turn the board over and use both sides. Some people go so far as to label the side of the board they use for garlic or onions. One side of your large cutting board should have a moat around it for catching the juices of roasts.
This is a bit of an exotic item—essentially a wooden or metal ring with a sheet of fine mesh metal or nylon screen pulled over it—but nothing works like a drum sieve for making purees perfectly smooth. Wooden drum sieves with nylon mesh are less expensive than metal drum sieves. Unfortunately, they don’t allow you to change the screen, so when they wear out, they’re finished. Metal drum sieves, on the other hand, allow you to insert different mesh screens. The metal screens never seem to wear out.
A Dutch oven is a large pot or kettle, often made of cast-iron, with a tight-fitting lid. Such pots are great to have around for slow-cooked braised dishes, such as the pot roast. Le Creuset brand makes excellent enamel-coated Dutch ovens. A large oval Dutch oven is perfect for most pot roasts, but ideally the Dutch oven should match the size of the pot roast as closely as possible.
Many people think of this device as an anachronism but, in fact, it’s the perfect gadget for pureeing and straining at the same time. It’s very useful for making soups and for sauces, such as tomato sauce or tomatillo sauce. When buying a food mill, buy the largest one you can find. (There are beautiful tin-coated large ones from France but they’re hard to find and expensive.) It should have removable inserts to make purees with different textures.
While not essential, these make short work of many kitchen tasks, especially when it comes to pureeing solid mixtures. (Don’t buy miniature food processors—their motors aren’t strong enough.)
Grills come in various shapes and sizes. The least expensive are little hibachis that sit on the ground. These are good to have because they typically have heavy metal bars that form the grill (which leave distinctive grill marks), and the distance of the grill from the coals can be controlled. The disadvantage to hibachis is their size (of course you can always use two) and the fact that they have no cover.
Most typical on people’s patios is the classic Weber kettle grill, which has a cover. The disadvantage to this design is the grill grate, which is made of thin metal, almost like thick wire, and the fact that the distance of the grate from the coals can’t be controlled. Weber now makes some more expensive grills that have the requisite heavy metal grill grate to leave the distinctive grill marks.
Gas grills are becoming increasingly popular and for good reason. They impart as much grilled flavor as briquettes. The one disadvantage is that many don’t allow you to burn wood or sawdust to impart a distinctive flavor to grilled foods.
Don’t buy terry cloth, which catches on fire very easily. One trick used by professional cooks is to use towels as pot holders. Wearing a towel tucked into the apron keeps it always handy.
One can hardly imagine cooking without knives. They come in all shapes and sizes and price ranges, all enough to leave us baffled. Fortunately, you really only need two knives to do most essential cooking tasks (what an awful word).
First, you’ll need a chef’s knife, which will be your most important investment. The length will depend on your preference, but I recommend going a couple of inches longer than you may feel comfortable with—at first. A 10- to 12-inch blade knife is usually best. The length makes it easier to chop bunches of herbs, vegetables, and other ingredients quickly and easily.
Second, you’ll need a paring knife with a 3-inch blade. It will come in handy for peeling.
When buying a knife, don’t start out with an expensive German knife, but try knives that can be had for a third of that price. Most knives are stainless steel these days, which has the advantage of not staining certain vegetables or eggs. Stainless steel is very hard to sharpen, and it sometimes seems true that less expensive knives, made from softer steel, are easier in this regard. You can always go with carbon knives (which are easier to sharpen and are among my favorites), but they are hard to find, they rust easily, and, again, stain certain foods. You may want a narrow-blade boning knife, if you cut up a lot of meat, and a carving knife (with as long a blade as possible) for slicing roasts. Last, if you cut up fish, you may want a flexible filleting knife.
Have at least two sizes: a 2-ounce and a 6- or 8-ounce. The small size is convenient for working mixtures through strainers (a ladle works much more efficiently than a spoon) and for ladling out sauces. The large size is handy for ladling soups and broths.
There are two types of measuring cups: dry and liquid. The dry measuring cups are designed to allow you to sweep the straight edge of a knife across the top to create an exact measure. The liquid measuring cups are transparent, have excess capacity to allow you to fill up to a mark without the liquid spilling out, and have a spout for easy pouring.
A set of nested dry measuring cups and a 1-cup liquid measure work for the recipes in this book. A set of nested spoons is necessary for many recipes, especially the recipes for baked goods, where accuracy is important.
Mixers come in two styles: hand-held and stand. Stand mixers with planetary motion are the best, and I recommend buying the best one you can afford. (Only the largest and most expensive home models seem capable of kneading bread dough.) Hand-held mixers are far less expensive and will do in a pinch. If you’re a perfectionist, buy a copper bowl for your smaller model (for some reason they don’t seem to make the bowls for the larger mixers) KitchenAid mixer. This is perfect for beating egg whites.
This old-fashioned gadget consists of a handle with thick wires arcing out of it. It is very handy for cutting the butter into a flour mixture—for biscuits, scones, and pastry.
This inexpensive tool is handy for scraping clean work surfaces and for transferring mixtures from bowls. The most convenient ones come in flexible plastic, ideally with one side straight and the other rounded.
Pots and pans are made from various metals and are priced accordingly. The best bargain in sauté pans are cast-iron skillets from the hardware store. They’re inexpensive and very heavy, heaviness being an advantage because of better heat conductivity. Their only disadvantage is their tendency to rust—they must be seasoned by heating them with a thin coating of oil and salt—and the fact that they are dark, which makes it difficult, if not impossible, to judge the condition of juices from sautéed foods.
Aluminum pans are cheap but should be bought in a heavy gauge. The disadvantage of aluminum is its tendency to encourage food to stick and to discolor some foods, such as artichokes or egg yolks. Anodized aluminum pans have the advantage of not chemically interacting with foods—but have the disadvantage of being dark in the same way as cast-iron pans, and they are not cheap. Stainless steel, especially well-polished stainless steel is bright and easily reveals the condition of juices. Because it is a poor conductor of heat, some stainless steel is made with a core of copper on the inside to improve conductivity.
Of all materials used for making pots and pans, copper is the Rolls Royce, the best conductor of heat and the one that will cook foods evenly without burning. Copper pots come lined with tin or with stainless steel. The tin lining on copper cookware eventually wears off; but in the average home kitchen, it can take years before the copper has to be sent out for retinning. Copper pots and pans also come lined with stainless steel, which never wears off and never discolors. The disadvantage of copper in general is its expense and, for some, its weight. Stainless steel–lined copper is usually made with a slightly thinner gauge of copper than tin-lined pots and is considerably more expensive. My own preference in this domain is for tin-lined copper pots.
For sautéing, I recommend a 6-inch cast-iron skillet for cooking steaks or chops for one or two, a 10-inch or larger skillet for cooking for four, and a 10-inch and a 12-inch skillet for sautéing. It’s a good idea to have a straight-sided 12-inch pan with a lid. This will be handy for cooking a whole quartered chicken and for any number of slow-cooked braised dishes.
When choosing pans for sautéing, it’s a good idea to have them in two shapes—with straight vertical sides for sautéing foods like chicken that are turned with a spatula or with tongs, and with sloping sides to accommodate foods, such as mushrooms or shrimp, that are tossed.
You’ll need a variety of pots, including a 2-quart saucepan, a 4-quart pot, and a 4-gallon pot. The large pot is handy for boiling pasta and for making broth. Because it doesn’t have to be made of heavy metal, a thin aluminum (and inexpensive) pot will do the trick.
Ramekins are convenient for soufflés, mousses, and custards. Five-ounce ramekins are ideal for many dessert preparations, but it’s a good idea to have some 8-ounce ramekins also (you’ll need them to make the goat cheese soufflés).
Ideally a roasting pan should be the same size as the roast so the uncovered parts of the pan don’t overheat and cause the juices to burn. For the same reason, don’t bother with a roasting rack. A roasting pan should be as heavy as possible. A large cast-iron skillet makes a perfect roasting pan for chicken, as does an oval copper baking dish. The nice thing about copper baking dishes is that they can be brought right to the table.
Actually “rubber” spatulas are made of silicone nowadays, so they don’t melt. They are especially handy for transferring mixtures from mixing bowls, and for folding mixtures such as beaten egg whites.
How people once lived without salad spinners, I don’t know. When using a salad spinner, turn slowly, rest, drain out any water; repeat, rest, drain, repeat until no water is produced from spinning. Don’t spin with all your might, or the centrifugal force will crush the lettuce leaves against the walls of the spinner. Some spinners drain through a hole in the bottom; if you have one of these, be sure to work in the sink.
Silicone mats on the bottom of sheet pans will completely prevent food from sticking. They’re great for cookies and other baked goods that are cooked directly on the sheet pan. Their only drawback is their expense. An increasing number of baking pans, such as muffin tins, are made with silicone.
Buy metal spatulas that are long, but not long-handled; you want a long surface for turning.
A spider is a utensil that looks like a spider’s web with a handle on it. It’s perfect for lifting foods out of hot oil without taking much of the oil with it.
Metal spoons are handy for spooning large amounts of mixtures from one container to another. Slotted spoons are handy for taking solids out of hot liquids without bringing along too much liquid. Wooden spoons are perfect for stirring mixtures in pots and pans because they don’t scratch the metal nor do their handles get hot.
Steamers come in various shapes and sizes. Small “leaf” steamers that look like flowers with metal petals and are designed to fit into small pots or saucepans; small pot steamers that consist of two pots, one on top of the other, the top one perforated; large two-pot steamers sometimes called couscoussières; and bamboo steamers. Bamboo steamers have the advantage of being stackable so you can steam an infinity of different foods cooked for different times. These two latter steamers are the best if you do steaming regularly. When steaming, keep in mind that an inch or two of water underneath the steamer will do the trick.
You’ll need at least one strainer and preferably two. If you’re buying just one, buy a fine-mesh strainer that’s 6 to 7 inches in diameter. If you’re buying two, buy a second with a coarser mesh and a larger diameter. If you’re feeling extravagant, you might want to invest in a chinois. A chinois is a conical shaped fine-mesh strainer that’s perfect for straining soups and stocks. A china cap is also conical, but it’s made of relatively heavy metal and is perforated with holes. These are convenient if you make a lot of broth in which the bones could damage a more fragile strainer. It’s perfect for straining stocks and anything in which you have to apply a lot of pressure or when there are sharp bones that would damage a fine-mesh strainer or a chinois. Buy a large colander for all sorts of kitchen tasks.
A tart pan has a metal ring (usually fluted) and a removable metal bottom. They are useful for most tarts, except those that might leak liquid, such as a quiche. Also quite useful are tart rings, simple rings on which the tart is constructed. Quiche pans, usually made of porcelain, are also handy, but they don’t allow you to unmold the whole tart.
There are several kinds of thermometers, each suited to a particular task. Most practical is an instant-read thermometer. It’s simply a metal rod with a small dial or digital display attached to one end. It reads the temperature as soon as you stick the probe into the roast in question. You may also want an oven thermometer that you leave in the oven to make sure the temperature is what it’s supposed to be. Last, a deep-fry thermometer is handy when you’re frying vegetables or other foods and need to control the temperature of the oil. I don’t bother with standard meat thermometers since the instant-read does the trick on its own.
Have at least one pair for turning over sautéed foods. Bamboo tongs are great because they don’t pierce the food.
There are two kinds or peelers. The most popular are the swivel type that conform to the contours of the vegetable and make peeling, for some, easier. The second kind are the old-fashioned nonswivel kind that simply have a metal piece with a blade attached. The essential difference in the two has to do with the direction in which you peel. Some people, and especially Europeans, like to peel toward themselves in which case the old-fashioned nonswivel peeler is best. Those who like to peel away from themselves prefer a swivel blade. Swivel-blade peelers come in the traditional shape or in the more contemporary “sling shot” shape. I find the traditional shape easier to work with.
There are three styles of vegetable slicers. The classic is a mandolin made of stainless steel, with attachments for julienning and for cutting French fries. The main disadvantage to a classic mandolin is its price. Next are two kinds of plastic vegetable slicers, both made in Asia. One kind (and the one I recommend), called the Benriner Slicer, has an adjustable plastic plate that makes it possible to cut vegetables to an exact thickness. The second plastic type has insertable blades of different thicknesses that make it impossible to adjust the thickness exactly.
If you’re using a vegetable slicer to julienne, it’s best to slice the vegetables (except in the case of potatoes) on the slicer, and then cut the slices by hand into julienne. If you’re using a mandolin, you can use the julienne attachment to make French fries.
If you only want to have one whisk (and one is essential), it should be a large whisk that balloons out slightly. This will be useful for beating cream and egg whites if you don’t have an electric mixer or if you get satisfaction out of doing things by hand. If you can have more than one whisk, get a large balloon whisk for airy mixtures like egg whites and a straight whisk about 8 inches long for sauces and mixtures on the stove.
Cakes and some cookies should be allowed to cool on a rack. If they’re allowed to cool in their pans, they can stick.
If you want your zests in neat little strips, you can cut them by hand or you can use a hand zester. A hand zester has a handle attached to a metal plate that has tiny holes cut out of the metal. By holding the holes against the peel and pulling toward yourself, you end up with the neat little strips. If you want finer pieces of zest, use a rasp-style grater, which is a long metal strip with little notches cut into it.
Fortunately most food is cooked using a very limited number of techniques that once understood will make cooking a lot easier.
For most herbs, it isn’t necessary to take the leaves off the stems. This is particularly true of parsley and cilantro, which should only have the stems cut off from the bottom half. The leaves, with their small stems, can be chopped.
Use the longest knife you feel comfortable with, since the longer the knife, the more you’re cutting at once. Arrange the herbs on a cutting board along the length of the knife. Hold the knife with your thumb and forefinger gripping the handle and press the tip firmly against the board. If you’re right handed, hold the knife in your right hand. Don’t use your left hand to hold the knife blade but instead use it to gather up the herbs as you chop them and continually feed the herbs under the knife blade. Chop with a rapid up and down motion, with the tip of the knife held firmly against the cutting board. You can also lift the knife and chop with a rapid up and down motion.
CHOPPING ONIONS AND SHALLOTS
Unlike herbs, which are cut randomly, onions and shallots have their own special method. Peel the onion and cut it in half through the root end and the shoot end. With the root end away from you, slice the onion but leave the slices attached where they meet near the root end. Once you have the onion sliced in one direction, slice it sideways about three times so the slices are themselves sliced. Leave the slices attached at the root end. Slice the onions a third time, perpendicular to the other two slices. At this point the onions should fall apart into tiny pieces. If you want the onion finer, chop as though you were chopping herbs until you obtain the texture you seek.
Baking is simply cooking in the oven. Most recipes call for preheating the oven for precise timing control but if you’re baking something like potatoes, for which exact times are rarely critical, just stick the potatoes in the oven and turn the oven on.
Foods are rarely boiled. Boiling toughens meats and causes seafood to fall apart. But green vegetables are best boiled or steamed. When boiling green vegetables such as green beans, make sure there’s plenty of boiling water; or the beans will lower the temperature and they’ll stew instead of boil. Always boil uncovered. When boiling green vegetables, toss a small handful of salt into the water to help them retain their color.
Braising is cooking in a small amount of liquid. All stews and pot roasts are braises. The purpose behind braising is to create a flavorful sauce and very tender meat. Sometimes the sauce is thickened with butter and flour, other times with a bit of butter or cream.
Often, to braise meat, first you sauté it in order to brown it and develop the flavor of caramelized juices. This method is referred to as “brown braising.” Fish is typically “white braised,” which means you do not sauté it before adding the hot braising liquid.
Braising time varies. Long braising, usually requiring an hour or two, is needed to break down tough cuts of meat and occasionally seafood (octopus and squid are often braised). Short braising is simply braising long enough for heat to penetrate to the interior of whatever’s being braised. Most fish are short braised.
Frying is cooking with a large amount of fat, essentially poaching in hot fat. To fry successfully, adjust the heat of the oil so the foods being fried cook quickly. The point is to form a crispy crust (sometimes brown, sometimes not) while just cooking the foods through. If the oil is too hot, the foods will brown or the crispy crust will form while the food remains raw inside. If, on the other hand, the oil isn’t hot enough, the foods will absorb too much oil before the crust forms.
Be careful when frying. If you don’t have a fryer, use a heavy pot. Never fill the pot more than half full of oil and keep it on the back of the stove so no one bumps into it accidentally. When you begin to fry, use a spider to lower a piece of the food into the hot oil so that you can judge how much the oil bubbles up when you add the food. This will give you a sense of how much you can add without the oil bubbling over. Never add foods with your hands—always use a spider or a slotted spoon—or the oil can splash up and burn you
One problem you may encounter when deep-frying is the tendency of the foods to lower the temperature of the oil. Of course, the more oil you use, the less likely this is to happen. Otherwise, control the temperature of the oil with the heat of the stove, turning it up to high to bring the temperature back up.
Glazing is another type of braising, and is used for root vegetables that have been sectioned or rounded into football shapes by “turning.” The vegetables are placed in a sauté pan with straight sides and just enough water or broth to come halfway up their sides. The pan is then partially covered (or a sheet of aluminum foil is placed over the vegetables and the pan left uncovered) and the vegetables simmered until the surrounding liquid evaporates into a glaze that in turn coats the vegetables.
When vegetables are braised with a small amount of water or broth and a little butter, they become covered with a shiny glaze.
For the most part, grilling is cooking directly over the heat source. The idea is to brown foods and, in so doing, scent them with smoke from the grill, while preventing fats or other liquids from the food from dripping down into the grill, burning, and flavoring the food. Nowadays, people often cook in covered grills. Essentially a covered grill is like an oven, so cooking in one is more akin to roasting than it is to grilling.
One technique, called indirect grilling, isn’t grilling at all, except at the beginning. To grill indirectly, build the fire to one side of the barbecue and start by grilling in the normal way. Once the foods are browned, assuming they’re not cooked through, move them to the side of the grill where there’s no heat and cover the grill. This roasts and smokes the foods in order to finish cooking them through. This technique works especially well for large pieces of meat, such as rib roasts, turkeys, loins of pork, or legs of lamb.
Unlike braising, which is cooking in a small amount of liquid, poaching is cooking in an abundance of liquid. The purpose of poaching is to cook evenly, with some of the flavor of the poaching liquid going into the food being poached but not, as in braising, the other way around. Poaching seafood is especially common and is usually accomplished with a vegetable broth called a court bouillon.
Sauces for poached foods are usually made independently from the poaching liquid. Beurre blanc, hollandaise, and mayonnaise are all served with poached foods. Occasionally some of the poaching liquid is added to the sauce to thin it or give it a little of the character of the poached item.
The purpose behind most roasting is to provide the roast with a brown savory crust while leaving it evenly cooked throughout. The best approach to roasting is to leave the roast in a hot oven long enough to brown it, and then lower the oven temperature to give the heat time to penetrate. In general, the smaller the roast, the hotter the oven should be. A turkey, for example, can be roasted in a relatively low oven (about 350°F) because the cooking time is long enough to ensure browning even at lower temperatures. A quail, on the other hand, is so small that to brown it without overcooking it would require an oven that reaches 1000°F. For this reason, small roasts such as quails are usually browned on the stove before being finished in the oven.
Then there’s the question of the jus or gravy. The sad truth is that roasted meat releases very little in the way of juices. For this reason, it’s helpful to put bones and trimmings in the roasting pan along with the roast so there’s something to provide juices.
There are two ways to separate the fat from the juices. If the juices are scarce, simply boil them down in the roasting pan until they caramelize into a crust on the bottom of the pan. Then pour off the fat and deglaze the pan by adding a small amount of water or broth to the pan to dissolve the juices. If the roast has been more generous and there is a lot of juice in the pan, then boiling it down to caramelize it is impractical. Instead, pour the juices into a glass container and skim off the fat that floats to the top with a ladle.
A gravy is a jus thickened with flour and butter and cooked until toasty or with cornstarch mixed with a little water and whisked into the jus. When using either of these thickeners, bring the mixture to a simmer for the thickening to take effect.
Basically, sautéing is cooking in a small amount of fat to brown foods and seal in their flavor. The fat isn’t typically absorbed by the foods being sautéed; it’s just there for lubrication and to prevent the food from sticking to the pan.
There are two ways to sauté. In one method, the food is rapidly tossed or stirred over high heat. In the second method, sometimes called “pan-frying,” the food is placed in the pan, browned, and then carefully turned over.
It’s important to choose a pan that fits the food being sautéed so it can be held in a single layer. If the pan is too small, the food is crowded and won’t brown properly. In fact, the food will release water and steam. In some cases, such as when sautéing mushrooms or scallops, the foods should be added to the hot pan only a small number at a time so that they don’t lower the temperature of the pan and thus inhibit browning.
The temperature needed for sautéing depends on the foods being sautéed. Because it releases water only slowly and is fairly thick, chicken can be browned over medium heat. Foods that release water or that need less cooking time, such as mushrooms or scallops, should be cooked over the highest heat so they brown without releasing water or overcooking. Sautéing should always be performed uncovered.
It’s important to distinguish simmering from boiling. In many recipes, especially those for broths and braised dishes, the liquid should barely simmer, or “smile” as the French would say. Avoid boiling these dishes or you’ll churn fat and scum back into the braising liquid.
To steam, place the food in a steamer suspended over boiling liquid so the steam rises and comes in contact with the food. Steaming is most popular for fish and vegetables.
Really a kind of sautéing, stir-frying involves keeping the food in constant motion over very high heat. A wok is ideal for this because its smooth sides and generous volume make it easy to keep the foods in motion. Unfortunately, to stir-fry authentically, you’ll need a very hot heat source to allow foods to brown almost the instant they come in contact with the heat. When stir-frying over a normal home stove, it is sometimes necessary to stop stirring from time to time to allow the foods time to brown.
Not to be confused with sautéing, sweating is cooking over low to medium heat so that foods (usually vegetables, such as carrots or onions) release water and cook without browning. Most directions for sweating say to do it covered so that the moisture released turns into steam and cooks the foods. The only disadvantage to this is that it’s easy to forget and let foods burn. If you use mild heat, you can sweat uncovered.