The Confident Cook: Basic Recipes and How to Build on Them

introduction

Can you remember the time when you thought you couldn’t boil an egg? Then one day you discovered it wasn’t difficult at all. All you had to do was to put the egg into a pan of water and cook it for five minutes. The only difficulty lay in remembering where you put it and when!

Once you can boil an egg, you can make a whole range of dishes. After all, it’s just as easy to poach an egg as it is to boil it. You have only to break the shell and add a pinch of salt to the water. If you substitute a fresh trout or a tender chicken breast for the egg, the only thing you need add is four more minutes of cooking, and lunch is ready. For a dinner of boiled beef, you just have to lengthen the cooking time. Boiled beef, poached chicken, and poached fish are just variations of a boiled egg.

So many dishes seem at first to be made from entirely unrelated recipes, and yet there are very few methods of cooking. All foods are eaten either raw, boiled, roasted, or fried. Poaching, braising, baking, and deep-fat frying are simply variations of these processes. It is the character of the ingredients themselves that determines the method of cooking. A tough piece of meat, for instance, becomes tender if it is stewed in a liquid for a long period of time; a filet of beef is already tender and needs only to be broiled or fried for a few minutes to make it culturally acceptable. The same techniques of broiling and frying apply equally to all tender meats and poultry, while all stews follow a similar pattern. It is only the substitution of one ingredient for another that makes a French boeuf Bourguignon appear to be an entirely different dish from a Belgian carbonnade of beef. In fact, the preparation of these two dishes is almost the same. They are related not only to each other but to all other stews. Similarly, the principles of making stews apply to the preparation of many soups, many sauces, and an infinite variety of other dishes, from beef Stroganoff to kidneys in mustard sauce.

Good cooking is not necessarily elaborate cooking, but it is important to know how to make the simplest of dishes before you can tackle more intricate preparations with confidence. The recipes that seem most complicated always turn out to be just a series of simple steps.

The purpose of this book is to describe these simple steps, which are the basic techniques of cooking, and to show how the steps are linked together to form whole families of dishes. A cheese sauce becomes a spectacular soufflé just by the addition of a few egg yolks and a huge gulp of beaten egg whites. The whole thing is then inflated further by the heat of the oven and the admiration of the assembled company. Although this basic-techniques approach may take some of the mystique out of cooking, it certainly makes everything in the kitchen a lot easier. If you think of a soufflé as merely a humble cheese sauce, it doesn’t pose nearly so much of a threat!

Once you have learned how the same principles of cooking can be applied to a variety of dishes, it may be interesting to reverse these principles, in a sense—to see how similar groupings of ingredients can be cooked in a variety of ways to achieve entirely different results. Thus, if you assemble the ingredients used for making cream puffs, you can produce eclairs merely by changing the shape. Deep-fried and sprinkled with cheese, the very same ingredients may be eaten as tiny cocktail puffs; dusted with sugar, they can be serves as miniature pastry puffs. If you poach spoonfuls of the mixture in water, they form dumplings. Add some ground fish, the potential cream puff becomes a quenelle!

The best cooking results from a sympathetic understanding of the personalities of the ingredients. When you get to know an egg really well, you are much more tolerant and understanding of its vagaries. Eggs, I have found, have much in common with small boys. If they are hurried, overheated, or overbeaten in the beginning, they tend to turn on you, and no amount of future love and concern can right the wrong. As you come to be able to predict the behavior of the ingredients, it becomes easier to complement or even substitute one for another.

Cooking often involves not so much the art of creation as the relief of retrieval. Knowing which ingredient to bring to the rescue can result in the difference between a disaster and a triumph.

This book, you’ll discover, is arranged as if it were a series of lessons. You may complain bitterly that you cannot find the fish section, only to discover that there is no fish section. Instead, the fish have landed in the poaching, frying, and broiling sections, so it is necessary first to decide how you like your fish cooked and then turn to the appropriate chapter. You can track down any recipe in the index. More important, it is hoped that having made a recipe once, you will not need to find it again, for you will know all there is to know about cooking fish, or whatever. Occasional food biographies have been included, because knowing provides part of the pleasure of cooking.

1. soups

BROWN BEEF STOCK • VEAL, LAMB, CHICKEN, OR FISH STOCK • CHICKEN AND CLAM BROTH • CLARET CONSOMMÉ • TOMATO CONSOMMÉ • JELLIED MADRILÈNE • ONION SOUP • VEGETABLE SOUP WITH BEEF • CHICKEN SOUP WITH RICE • TOMATO SOUP • TOMATO AND CLAM SOUP • TOMATO SOUP WITH BEER AND DILL • TOMATO-ORANGE SOUP • ASPARAGUS SOUP • CAULIFLOWER SOUP • POTATO SOUP • VICHYSSOISE • WATERCRESS VICHYSSOISE • PEAR AND TURNIP SOUP • CARROT SOUP • MUSHROOM AND BARLEY SOUP

I remember a story about a soup told by a friend who was an apprentice at a formidable French restaurant. The proprietors were justly proud that all of their ingredients were at the peak of perfection. The vegetables and herbs were grown on their own land, and the fish was brought in daily from the rivers and lakes in the vicinity.

The fish chef was an irascible fellow who worked entirely on his own and silently, except for snarling at anybody who came near his section of the kitchen. He was also a creature of habit. Early each morning he would don his white chef’s hat and go out into the adjoining garden to gather bouquets of herbs, which he then laid out in neat bunches along the length of his chopping block.

Next he arranged one of each type of fish in military formation, heads forward, tails to the rear. Then the work began. Stooping over his fish, he confronted them, eyeball to gleaming eyeball. Hands bent on chubby knees, he smelled each fish and each herb. Then, slowly and thoughtfully, he selected one herb from this bunch and one from that and chopped them into myriads of combinations. He put a little tarragon in this group, a touch of sorrel in another, and a few curls of parsley here and there. The gentle, soothing rhythm of chopping continued until each herb was so fine it could dance an arabesque on the head of a pin. Each combination of herbs was then matched to each fish until the parade was flanked with small mounds of fragrance.

The inspection then began again. The chef picked up the first fish in line, rubbed a pinch of herbs onto its shiny skin, sniffed it delicately, smiled smugly to himself, wiped his hands on his clean white apron, and proceeded to the next. By the time he had reached the end of the line, he was supremely content. His apron was green with sweet-smelling herbs and very slightly fishy.

One memorable night, the apprentice chef stole the master’s apron, which by now had become a historical record of the day’s activities. He dropped the flavored apron into a broth and simmered it gently for twenty minutes. The result was a glorious fish soup.

That is the way soup is made. You take a little of this and a little of that, and, if it pleases you, you put it all together and cook it until it is done. There are no hard-and-fast rules for making soup, but if you look at the following recipes it is extraordinary how similar they all are. Keeping the proportions of the ingredients the same, you can substitute one vegetable or meat for another and one herb for another. The basic liquid may be chicken broth, beef broth, beer, wine, milk, fruit juice, or even water. By rearranging your palette, you can make an infinite variety of soups.

CLEAR SOUPS

A clear soup is simply a flavored liquid, made by simmering one or many ingredients in a broth. Chicken broth, beef consommé, and jellied madrilène are all clear soups, which are sometimes used as the basis for other soups. Sometimes two flavored liquids are combined; if you add red wine to beef broth, for example, you will have made a claret consommé. Having produced a marvelous-tasting base, you can add one, two, or many more ingredients to give the soup a greater variety of taste and texture. If you add some vermicelli to the claret consommé, for example, the soup will gain another dimension. A touch of lemon juice will heighten the flavor, and a garnish of finely chopped chives completes a simple masterpiece.

Chicken broth can be built into a more substantial soup in a similar way, perhaps, by adding pieces of chicken and a little rice. If you think you might still be hungry, you could add a handful of carrots, peas, tomatoes, green peppers, chopped spinach, and/or herbs. When the soup is ready, each ingredient should retain its own form and be clearly identifiable.

The ultimate flavor of clear soups, as of all other soups, rests on the quality of the basic broth. Very few people have the time or the inclination to prepare homemade stock to be used as a soup base. Some of the commercially canned chicken and beef broths are both excellent and inexpensive, and though, undeniably, they are not so good as the homemade variety, they are satisfactory alternatives. In case you decide to prepare your own stock, this is how to go about it.

BASIC BROTH (STOCK)

Stock is derived from the long, slow simmering of meat bones, aromatic vegetables, and a group of herbs known as a bouquet garni. Stock is the foundation on which almost all soups, sauces, and stews are built. It is easy to make, and it takes only a few minutes to assemble the ingredients, but the actual cooking time is lengthy.

There are very few things to remember about stock, but each one is important. First you must decide what kind of stock you will make. Naturally, you would use beef bones for a pure beef stock and chicken bones (backs and wings) for chicken stock. However, if you just want to have fine-tasting, all-purpose broth in the kitchen, you can combine beef and chicken bones.

The foundation of stock is a good bone. A good beef bone is one that has meat clinging to it and some marrow inside it. The beef will give the broth flavor, and the collagen content of the bone will cause the stock to gel and give it body. (The marrow also tastes delicious!) It is best to use raw bones for stock; cooked meat bones and leftover chicken bones do not have enough flavor and make the stock cloudy. The vegetables must be fresh and of good quality. If you are in any doubt about whether to throw a vegetable into the garbage or the soup pot, let your conscience be your guide, and ignore all those tales about stock pots that simmer for generations.

Soup and fish explain half the emotions of life.

SYDNEY SMITH

The aromatic vegetables most often used in both beef and chicken stock are carrots, onions, and celery. Tomatoes and other fresh vegetables may be added, but don’t use strong-tasting vegetables such as spinach and turnips unless you have a specific purpose for using the stock. After the vegetables, add the herbs—a few peppercorns, a bay leaf, parsley, and thyme. (It is neither necessary nor wise to add salt at this point; if the stock boils down too rapidly, it may become too salty.) Finally, fill the pot with cold water so that the ingredients are barely covered, place it over a gentle flame, and allow it to simmer slowly, partially covered, for 6 hours. Then strain the liquid and discard the meat bones and vegetables (they will no longer have any taste). Chill the liquid to make the fat rise, so that it can be skimmed off easily.

Stock will keep in the refrigerator for at least a week, but it should be boiled again every three days to prevent it from becoming sour. It can also be frozen. You can freeze the stock as it is or, if your freezer space is limited, boil it, uncovered, until it has reduced to a small quantity. Freeze the concentrated stock in ice-cube trays and reconstitute it with water as you need it. You will need to taste it to estimate how much water to add.

BROWN BEEF STOCK

Yield: approximately 2 quarts of stock, depending on how fast the stock is boiled. (Ideally, it should be maintained at the simmering point.)

2½ pounds beef bones, with meat clinging to the bones

2 onions, peeled and coarsely chopped

2 carrots, washed and chopped

2 stalks celery

3 quarts water

1 bay leaf

½ teaspoon thyme*

10 peppercorns

4 sprigs parsley

1. Place the bones in a heavy roasting pan and allow them to roast, uncovered, in their own fat in a preheated 350° F. oven for 20 minutes.

2. Add the vegetables and allow them to brown for 10 minutes.

3. Transfer the bones and vegetables into a large saucepan or casserole. Discard the fat from the roasting pan and add ½ cup cold water. Scrape the bottom of the pan with a spatula to release the browned pieces clinging to the surface. Add this flavored liquid to the casserole with the herbs and enough cold water to barely cover the ingredients.

4. Simmer over gentle heat for 6 hours. The lid should be adjusted so that it almost covers the pot. (Allow a little opening so that some evaporation and concentration of the broth will take