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The First-Time Cook
Sophie Grigson
Setting up home for the first time and feel lost in the kitchen? ‘The First-time Cook’ is a one-stop guide which shows you not only how to cook delicious food but also how to understand ingredients and techniques so you can feel completely confident cooking on your own.Assuming no prior knowledge,'First-time Cook' takes you through the basics of shopping and cooking equipment. Sophie Grigson then covers each essential cooking technique and food in turn, moving step-by-step through the basics with lots of incredibly useful advice on the possible pitfalls and showing variations and alternatives once you have mastered the essentials. From the perfect roast chicken to twenty variations on the quick-and-easy omelette and pasta of all descriptions, the recipes have been chosen not only to show core techniques but also to provide a fantastic collection of dishes that cover everything from quick (and cheap) supper ideas for one, to coping with Sunday lunch for six for the first timeInterest in cookery has never been greater but the number of people actually able to cook continues to decline. Sophie Grigson's TV experience has given her a natural ability to teach cookery in an informal and friendly way and, with this book, she fills the gap left by conventional cookbooks which assume a knowledge most people don't possess.
The First-time Cook
Sophie Grigson
Dedication (#ulink_97aec69f-4b01-5edb-afc6-d2f51831bd26)
For Florrie and Sid, who may find this book useful one day.
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#ud6de683d-6f57-52e6-a383-6ca6fa7778c8)
Title Page (#u52cc62c0-44db-5b90-a32c-8b35c219e040)
Dedication (#u4a10566a-9516-58d3-a643-16591d2df986)
Why Cook? (#u0712a006-d8e0-565c-93e0-8b3b22125f74)
Techniques and General Tips (#u3de40a44-98b4-5747-9169-4b7610a229e3)
Chapter one Soups, Starters and Eggs (#uaa0454e8-91db-5db3-a8c7-f196ce71d89e)
Chapter two Pasta, Pizza and Rice (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter three Meat and Poultry (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter four Stir-frying (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter five Fish (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter six Vegetables and Salads (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter seven Puddings, Cakes and Biscuits (#litres_trial_promo)
Index (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Why Cook? (#ulink_10273f9e-4781-5dc2-a472-0fc23f546717)
Good question. Why should you learn to cook at all? You’ll get by just fine on takeaways, ready-meals, sandwiches, crisps and chocolate. Nobody needs to cook at all these days, as long as they own a microwave, a kettle and a toaster.
This is potentially a good thing, and certainly hugely liberating. Before you throw the book down in disgust, let me explain. Cooking should be and can be a thoroughly enjoyable life-enhancing task. There is such pleasure to be had from working with beautiful, fresh, natural produce, from combining ingredients to expose their finest, most enticing flavours, a kind of magic that is there to be discovered by every person who walks into a kitchen with appetite and hunger. All this before you even get to the climax of the whole endeavour – the eating itself.
How miserable then, when cooking becomes a tyranny, which it can when there is a day-in-day-out obligation to put a proper cooked meal on the table. So to me, the ideal is a balanced compromise between real cooking as often as possible, and convenience food as back-up for those days when work or play has sapped your energy. There’s nothing wrong with beans on toast every now and then.
There are considerable health benefits to be had from cooking your own food, too. This is not a book about nutrition, but the fundamental principles of healthy eating are straightforward: variety, moderation, loads of veg and fruit. With you as head honcho in the kitchen, you can make yours a healthy, delicious way of eating that allows for occasional indulgences without guilt.
To do that though, you will have to know how to cook. It’s really not at all difficult. It just takes a bit of practice and it will stand you in good stead for the rest of your life. Encapsulated in the recipes in this book are most of the basic techniques you will need to cook a myriad of dishes. It is not a ‘complete’ or ‘comprehensive’ course – that would be quite impossible. I’ve skipped over certain skills you can manage without for the time-being (e.g. making pastry). I have included a wide range of recipes covering both familiar foods and some that may be new to you, to get your culinary imagination in full working order.
And finally, a kitchen motto that has worked well for me, ever since the day when I moved into my first bedsit, and began the task of learning to cook for real: don’t panic. If the worst does come to the worst (we all have off days) and you bodge it up completely, bin it, and send out for a pizza!
Techniques and General Tips (#ulink_f1445c60-f9fb-5807-b9b8-514f776ac298)
How to Read a Recipe
Skip this if you want to; I know it sounds superfluous. Any fool can read a recipe, but do they know how to interpret what they read? Mostly it is common sense, just a list of instructions that you should follow in the right order to end up with something enjoyable to eat. It is, however, worth noting that these instructions are nothing more than guidelines, not hard and fast rules inscribed in granite.
For instance, I cannot tell you exactly how long to cook a sauce or a gratin; your pans and dishes are unlikely to be exactly the same size or style as mine; your stove will not be the same as mine; and your idea of a medium heat will not be identical to mine. But, assuming that you and I concur roughly on these three parameters, my suggested cooking times will be roughly right. So, treat them as estimates. Use your own senses to judge when dishes are perfectly cooked – check the look, the smell (a waft of burning cheese is a dead giveaway that you’ve massacred your cheese on toast), the taste, the feel (with cakes this is essential), and even the sound – sizzling is the best indicator of the heat of fat, for instance. The more you cook, the easier this all becomes.
When you decide to cook a particular recipe, read it through carefully before you even write your shopping list. Do you have all the right equipment (no good tackling a gratin if you don’t have a suitable shallow ovenproof dish)? If not, it may be worth adding what you lack to your list.
Do you understand the various cooking terms? If not, look them up in this book, or another reference book, or phone somebody who might be able to explain them to you. Don’t give up instantly if you are not quite clear – often something makes much more sense as you are preparing or cooking real ingredients, and it’s only by practising that you will become proficient. How long does it take to cook? Can you prepare some of it in advance?
It is worth noting that in a well-written recipe, the ingredients are usually listed in the order they are used. This can be useful when you are cooking. As a novice cook, it makes sense to measure and prepare all ingredients as described in the ingredients list before you actually start on the cooking proper. The exception to this is when one part of the recipe needs to be made in advance (you might need to marinate something for several hours before cooking and making the sauce), but if you’ve read your recipe carefully you’ll already be aware of this. As you gain experience and confidence you will know what has to be chopped or sliced initially, and what else can be done while the first batch of ingredients is sizzling away in the pan.
Weights and Measures
Recipes, as I’ve already said, are merely a set of guidelines and recommendations. This is as true of the ingredients list as of the method. As a beginner it is advisable to stick to the given quantities and suggested ingredients – as you become more familiar with a particular recipe, you can start to play around to a certain extent. In some instances it is fine to deviate slightly from given amounts where common sense dictates. Suppose, for instance, that a potato salad calls for 450g (1 lb) potatoes – there is no need to cut off a third of one new potato to get exactly the right amount; a tiny bit more or less will make little difference.
The standard advice is to stick with either metric or imperial measurements and not to mix the two. This is probably what you will do anyway, but in truth it won’t make much difference in most recipes if you do mix them up. And always taste as you cook; adjust seasonings and balance of flavours to suit your taste and your ingredients. The one area demanding strict accuracy is baking. Surprisingly small differences in the ratios of flour, fat, sugar, eggs and so on affect the way the cake turns out. So, no guess work, or slapdash weighing out here.
Spoon measurements Spoon measurements in this book are all rounded, unless otherwise indicated. I use a 5ml teaspoon, a 10ml dessertspoon and a 15ml tablespoon.
A sprig, a stem, a bunch or a handful? At first these terms will seem infuriatingly vague, but try to view them as opportunities to exploit your own personal tastes. If you really love the aroma of a certain herb, then make your sprig or handful big and generous. If it is new to you, you may prefer to err on the side of caution at first – reduce that sprig to a couple of inches, grab a petite handful. Soon the deliberate vagueness will become endearingly familiar.
Preparing Common Vegetables and Other Ingredients
Chopping Onions
The most important advice here is to make sure you have a sharp knife before you begin (see knives and knife sharpeners below). Chopping an onion is easy when the blade glides smoothly through the layers, a right pain when you have to push hard and saw your way through. As so many savoury recipes begin with chopping an onion, it will improve your kitchen life considerably if this basic operation is painless and swift.
1 First cut the onion in half, slicing from stalk to root (photo 1). Place one half flat on the chopping board and cut off the upper stalk end (photo 2). Now pick up the onion and peel the brown skins back towards the root, without ripping them right off – it isn’t disastrous if they do come right away, but left attached to the onion root, they act as a handle to grip hold of when chopping. So bend the skins back, away from the onion (photo 3).
2 Place your left hand (or right if you are left-handed) flat on top of the onion to hold it still, then slice it horizontally, stem end towards the root, but stopping just short of the root, so that the pieces stay together (photo 4).
3 Now, keeping the onion flat on the work surface, grasp the skin handle holding the onion steady, and make parallel vertical cuts, from root end towards the stalk end (photo 5).
4 Finally, make parallel cuts at right angles to the previous set of cuts, working your way from stem end back to the root.
And there you have it: a mound of perfectly chopped onion (photo 6).
Slicing Onions
Easy. Peel the onion completely, and trim ends. For rings, turn the onion on its side and slice downwards, thinly or thickly as you wish. Leave whole or separate into rings. For halfmoons, halve the peeled onion through its equator. Set cut-side down, and slice.
Peeling Garlic
Remove outer layers of papery skin from the head of garlic, then ease out as many cloves as you need for your recipe (photo 1). Store the rest of the head in a cool, dry place, but not in the fridge, where it may taint milk and eggs and other foods.
Slice off the base and the tip of the clove (photo 2). If you are going to chop or crush the garlic, the easiest way to get the skin off is to place the clove flat on the chopping board, then press the bowl of a wooden spoon down on it firmly, crushing it gently (photo 3). Now the skin will almost fall off.
If, on the other hand, you intend to slice the clove, or keep it whole, pull the skin away bit by bit with your fingers. Any skin that sticks can be loosened by running the blade of the knife, held at an angle to the clove, firmly down the skin.
Chopping Garlic
Garlic is chopped in much the same way as onion, but scaled down appropriately. If you’ve crushed it virtually flat when removing the skin, then you obviously won’t be able to slice it horizontally.
Crushing Garlic
A garlic crusher is quick but wasteful. A lot of good garlic gets left behind or stuck in the holes. A knife does the job more efficiently, though it takes a little practice.
Peel the garlic and chop it very roughly into three or four pieces. Sprinkle with a good pinch of salt (this diminishes slippage). Press the flat of the blade of the knife down on the pieces, crushing them, then drag the sharp end of the blade, at an angle to the board, over the smashed pieces. Push them all back together, and repeat the dragging and crushing until you have a smooth paste. The dismaying thing is how little you end up with, but don’t fear – the impact of the smoothly crushed garlic will be epic.
Chopping Herbs
Pile the leaves up together on the chopping board. Grab the biggest knife you own (but not a serrated knife). Hold the handle with your right hand, and the tip with your left (reverse this if you are left-handed). Hold the knife over the herbs, the tip in contact with the board close to one side of the heap. Now hold the tip steady on the board, and bring the knife firmly and quickly down on the herbs, again and again, swinging it backwards and forwards. Push the herbs back together in a pile, and repeat the whole operation. Keep doing this until the herbs are chopped as you want them. With practice this becomes an easy, quick and rhythmic operation.
This is also the method to use for fine chopping garlic or onion, once they have been roughly chopped in the usual way.
Skinning Tomatoes
Cut a small cross in each tomato, opposite the stalk end (photo 1). Place in a bowl and cover with boiling water (photo 2). Leave for a minute, then pick the tomatoes out of the water. The skin will now pull away from the tomato with ease (photo 3). If it doesn’t, repeat the process – the tomatoes must have been under-ripe.
Deseeding Tomatoes
Method 1 For tomatoes that are to be cooked in a sauce or stew or soup. Halve the tomatoes through the equator, i.e. cutting halfway between stalk end and base (photo 1). Squeeze each half over a bowl or bin, just as if you were squeezing out lemon juice (photo 2). The seeds will ooze out.
Method 2 For when you want perfect looking pieces of tomato. Halve the tomatoes as for method 1, then scoop out the seeds with a teaspoon (photo 3).
Deseeding Peppers
Begin by slicing off the stem end as if it were a lid. Turn the pepper upside down and tap the base firmly several times to loosen the seeds. Shake them out, and scrape out any malingerers with a knife. When you want to keep the pepper whole, perhaps for stuffing, or cut it into rings, you should also scrape out the white ribs (not 100% necessary, but it does improve the flavour a mite). For quartered peppers or long strips, cut the cup into four from one corner to the other, to give flattish pieces. This makes them easier to cut into strips, or grill. Remove the odd seed and cut away the white ribs if you haven’t already. Now cut into strips if required.
Handling Chillies
It is the capsaicin in chillies that makes them hot. When you handle chillies, capsaicin transfers itself to your fingers, so you need to be extremely careful that you don’t rub your eyes, or worse still, especially for men, go to the loo, before cleaning your hands thoroughly. The results can be painful. Capsaicin is not water-soluble, so you need to use a good deal of soap, or some alcohol-based cleanser to get rid of it all. Either that or wear rubber gloves when working with chillies, not a bad idea if you have sensitive skin. The plus side of this is that you absolutely need to drink some kind of alcohol with a hot curry, if you want to soothe your mouth and throat. Water just won’t do.
Deseeding Chillies
Halve the chillies lengthways and scrape out the seeds and cores with a knife. These are the hottest parts, although the flesh too is hot (as described above).
Chillies vary in heat, and there seems to be a correlation between size and heat – often the smallest chillies are the hottest!
Topping and Tailing Beans
Most fresh green beans need to be topped and tailed. This means cutting off the tips on both ends. I like to do them individually, as long as there is something interesting to listen to on the radio. When I have a huge pile to work through, I’m inclined to become more wasteful – taking a bunch of beans at a time, lining up the ends and then just slicing them all off in one fell swoop.
Grating Lemons
The zest of all citrus fruit contains aromatic oil, and this adds wonderful flavour to many dishes, along with the juice. Rub the surface of the (washed) fruit to and fro on the fine grid of a flat grater several times to remove the zest without any of the bitter white pith. Move around the fruit, covering different areas, until it is denuded. Only then squeeze the juice!
Recommended Kitchen Utensils
It is impossible to make one definitive list of the essential cooking implements and utensils you will need. Absolute basics are fairly obvious – with nothing but one sharp knife and a frying pan or saucepan, you could turn out a fair number of severely streamlined meals. After that, the list is dictated as much by what you like to cook as anything else.
View your ‘batterie de cuisine’ (cooking equipment) as a long-term collection that you will build up over the years. Sadly, the general rule is that the more you spend, the better the quality, and better quality often makes for easier, more enjoyable cooking. So, no long list but instead a few notes and recommendations on useful kitchen kit, and recommended buys.
Casserole Every home should have one (unless, of course, you loathe stews of any sort). Best bet is a flame- and heatproof casserole that can go both on the hob and in the oven. It should also look good enough to go straight from the oven to the table. It is better to buy a larger casserole dish than a smaller one, allowing plenty of room. After all, most stews improve in flavour if kept for a day or two in the fridge, or can be frozen if necessary, so making a big potful is a pretty sensible thing to do, even if you are just cooking for one or two.
Chopping Boards Hard to do without, so again, buy the best and biggest you can afford. It is far more useful to have one really big wooden chopping board, than several small book-sized ones. Chopping boards should be made of wood (which scientists now consider perfectly hygienic as long as you wash them after use) or plastic.
Food Processor You can manage very well without one, but your kitchen life will become a good deal easier with. Here, as so often, you should probably head for the best you can afford. Choose one with a relatively large capacity, and several different speed settings. Several models have small inner bowls that can be fitted to process small amounts – very useful for making curry pastes and spice rubs, amongst other things.
Frying Pan, Non-stick Another investment item. A really tip-top heavy-based non-stick frying pan does not come cheap, but is worth every penny. Choose one that is fairly large with high sides so that as well as frying, you can also cook a chicken stew and the like in it. Incidentally, modern non-stick surfaces are very tough, so it is usually all right to use metal implements in them.
Graters Don’t get too fancy. An old-fashioned box grater does the job very nicely. I like the modern Microplane graters, too, especially for orange and lemon zest, or Parmesan, or nutmeg.
Kitchen Tongs These do make turning practically anything in a frying pan or under the grill ten times easier and quicker.
Knives Buy the best you can afford (or ask some nice relative with more money than you to make a gift of them). A good knife will last you a lifetime. They’re not cheap, but since you will be using them constantly, knives should be seen as a major investment. You will need, at the very least, one fairly big chef’s knife (around 17.5–20cm/7–8in), one smaller 15cm (6in) knife and a bread knife. A smaller serrated knife (around 10cm/4in) is great for cutting tomatoes.
Knife Sharpener As essential as the knives. A small hand-held knife sharpener is easier.
Liquidiser If I had to choose, I’d say that a liquidiser is more essential than a processor and a darn sight cheaper, too. Liquidisers are important for making soup and smoothies amongst other things. For more on liquidisers, turn to page 17.
Pestle and Mortar Two most important characteristics: firstly, that the mortar needs to be heavy, so that it doesn’t slip and slide around on the table. Secondly, the interior must feel rough. If it is smooth it will make grinding and pounding hard work. Best pestles are rough at the wider end, rather than smooth.
Saucepans You’ll need one small one, one medium-sized one and one large. And no doubt you will add more over the years. When choosing your saucepans, look for solid, heavy bases that will conduct heat evenly.
Sieve I prefer metal, but modern nylon sieves are fine. More important than the material is the mesh size. This should be fairly large. If the mesh is too fine, then it can makes things like sieving a soup a complete nightmare. Never buy a sieve which doesn’t have one or two hooks on the rim opposite the handle, so that you can sit the sieve securely over a bowl or saucepan.
Weighing Scales Digital scales are far more accurate than most dial scales. Buy scales with a flat top, so that you can use any bowl or pan on them, resetting the display to zero before weighing out ingredients.
Cooking Terms
Baking and Roasting both refer to cooking in the oven, and the differences between them are not always clear. Generally, however, roasting is done at a high temperature without covering the food, so that it browns, while baking is undertaken at a slightly lower temperature and the food may sometimes be covered or not.
Frying means to cook something in hot fat, either in a shallow frying pan (sometimes also called pan-frying), or in a deep pan, half filled with oil, which is known as deep-frying.
Grilling means to cook food under a hot grill.
