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A Book of How-To Tips for Home Cooks

Home cooking today isn't what grandma, or maybe even mom, used to cook.

Page through "Sara Moulton's Home Cooking 101" (Oxmoor House, $35) and you'll see the difference. How many moms of the past made ghee, or paneer cheese? Only those who  lived in India, probably. But today, home cooks are into Indian food, Thai curries,  Moroccan, Mexican, Middle Eastern dishes and much more, including vegan and vegetarian cooking. 

Moulton's book addresses this change, but it's worth buying even if you never use a single recipe. That's because it's filled with basic techniques, step-by-steps, pointers that can apply to any style of cooking.

Moulton hasn't repeated the same old tips that appear in book after book but shares what she has learned in the trenches, working in restaurants, developing and testing recipes for Gourmet magazine, hosting cooking shows on the Food Network and right now hosting "Sara's Weeknight Meals" on public television.

"I took chef's knowledge and applied it to home cooks," she said, during a book signing and cooking demo at Melissa's Produce. 

Here are some examples:


The spicy creamed corn she presented at Melissa's (above) included no cream, which "gets in the way of other flavors," Moulton said, and so should be used sparingly. The natural starch in corn provides enough creaminess.

To make her beef stroganoff burgers (above), you should grind your own beef, and the book tells how, with a grinder or food processor. Moulton said she wouldn't touch pre-ground hamburger meat with the proverbial 10-foot pole. 

Her book is subtitled "How to Make Everything Taste Better." "No ingredient is more crucial to making food taste good than salt," she wrote in the book. To get full "steaky" flavor, you need to salt a steak before cooking or, better yet, a few hours in advance. Sprinkle on salt after cooking and what you get is merely "steak with salt on top."

Moulton tells how to slice apples so that the slices don't scatter over the work surface.

You need this technique for her French apple tart, for which she provides a step-by-step layout (above) so clear that even a beginner could make the tart. 

And here is the tart, as it appears in the book.

She also showed how to roll out pizza dough so that it stays extended rather than bouncing back (you brush the work surface lightly with olive oil).

Remember all those recipes that say to seed tomatoes? Don't do this, Moulton said. "That jelly around the seeds is where the flavor is." 

She's learned a new way to cook hardboiled eggs--steaming."The whites come out more tender, and they are easier to peel," she said. That's how the egg were cooked for her fancy stuffed eggs (above) with truffle zest and chives. 

And don't be afraid to put your (impeccably clean) hands in the food. "This obsession with hand sanitation is bad news," according to Moulton. She has found that salads taste much better if the greens are tossed with the hands.

For dessert, she presented bananas Foster crepes (above). "If you have crepes in the freezer, you have dinner on the table," she said, meaning you can fill them with anything from leftovers to fruit. The book shows each step in making the crepes. 

Moulton has been on a 40-stop book tour. For those demos, she chose a recipe that would suit tastes anywhere, including Minot, North Dakota. That dish is fusilli with Italian sausage and peas (above, as photographed for the book). Here is the recipe:

FUSILLI WITH ITALIAN SAUSAGE AND PEAS
From "Sara Moulton's Home Cooking 101"

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup finely chopped onion
1 tablespoon minced garlic
3/4 pound sweet or hot Italian sausage, casings removed
1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes (preferably fire-roasted)
2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon kosher salt, divided
2/3 cup heavy cream
12 ounces fusilli
2 cups thawed frozen peas
3 ounces finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, divided
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Shredded fresh basil for garnish

Bring 6 quarts water to a boil in a large saucepan or stockpot.

While the water is coming to a boil, heat the oil over medium heat in a large skillet and add the onion. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is softened, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, 1 minute.

Add the sausage and cook, breaking it up with a spoon and stirring, until the sausage is just cooked through, about 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes and 1 teaspoon salt, bring the mixture to a boil, and simmer, stirring occasionally, 2 minutes. Add the cream to the sauce and simmer for 2 minutes.

Meanwhile, add 2 tablespoons salt and the pasta to the pot of boiling water and stir well. Boil the pasta, following the timing instructions on the package, until almost al dente. 

Reserve 1 cup of the pasta water, and then drain the pasta and add it to the skillet along with the peas and half of the cheese. Simmer until the pasta is al dente, adding some of the reserved pasta cooking water if necessary to thin the sauce.

Add salt and pepper to taste and divide the mixture among 4 bowls.Top each portion with some of the remaining cheese and the basil. 

Makes 4 servings. 

 

Italy's Sparklers and a Note on Cheese

Prosecco always seems like fun, more informal than Champagne, bright, casual, and often cheap.

I was thrilled to find a bottle marked down to $5 at my supermarket. But later, I tasted Italian sparkling wines at their best.

This happened at an Italian wine lunch for the L.A. Wine Writers (above) at Cafe Del Rey. Two Proseccos and two other sparklers were poured, and they were impressive.

The first was 2Castelli Prosecco Superiore Conegliano Valdobbiadene (above). The bottle was labeled extra dry, which in Champagne means sweet, but this deep gold, fruity wine was not sweet. The suggested retail is $23, but online prices are lower.  There's also a Brut, or dry, version of the same wine.   

Step up a few notches and you have not a Prosecco but Franciacorta La Montina Saten (above). This wine was made according to the classic Champagne process and spent a good 30 months on the lees. The final fermentation took place in the bottle. Very dry and a little citrusy, it is 100% Chardonnay. You could serve it with serious food, not just as a party sipper. The suggested retail is $35.

For a pretty bubbly that's serious too, look for Franciacorta La Montina Rosé Extra Brut Millesimato (above). Coppery-colored, crisp and dry, this wine is 85% Pinot Noir and 15% Chardonnay. The juice spent a few days on the skins to give it color and 40 months on the lees. The price is about $40.

The rest of the lunch was devoted to two red wines, Barbera D'Alba DOC Ugo Lequio 2013 (above).

And a Nebbiolo, the 2011 Barbaresco Gallina Ugo Lequio 2011 (above).

The lunch highlighted Taste of Italy promotions now underway and scheduled to continue in 2017. The attention switched from wine to cheese as Genny Nevoso, executive director of the Italy-America Chamber of Commerce West in Los Angeles, spoke of how Americans are defrauded by ersatz Italian foods. 

She cited Parmigiano Reggiano (above), the famous Italian cheese made only from milk, enzymes and salt and so strictly regulated that an individual wheel can be traced back to the cows that produced the milk and the grass they ate. Such a cheese is never adulterated with phony ingredients.

What would those be? How about cellulose? You've eaten that if you've used those green or red canisters of American "Parmesan" cheese. Check the label, and you'll see that powdered cellulose has been added as an anti-caking agent and calcium proponate as a preservative.

Nevoso organized a master class in Italian cheeses recently at the Four Seasons. The cheeses were Parmigiano Reggiano, Pecorino Romano (above), Grana Padano and Piave. They would be delightful with Prosecco at a holiday party--that's what accompanied them at the tasting. And magnificent over pasta instead of that adulterated boxed cheese.