Cooking is infinitely nuanced: A Sunday post by Celia Wakefield

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Does she need an introduction? Ladies and gentlemen, Celia Wakefield.

 

It’s now more than four months that I've been away from my kitchen. No place to cook in my tiny apartment as a dead two ring electric burner, plus electric kettle and toaster together with a tiny fridge and microwave does not kitchen make in my eyes.

Writing and testing a recipe for you has been my JRW Sunday joy over the past few years. Now despite of my lack of a kitchen Julia has taken pity on me and has accepted my commentary on cook books, thank you Julia. (Editor’s note: I told her the JRW readers would riot if they couldn’t get a Sunday column from her.)

 

 "When I am not cooking, I'm reading." Asked about my passion, that is my first response and I would guess that it applies to many of us here at JRW. I would guess that we own or have owned The Joy of Cooking. In my case the British equivalent was Constance Spry Cookery Book. My copy was a twenty first birthday present from my aunt who worked at Winkfield, the finishing school owned by Mrs Spry and Rosemary Hume. (Winkfield closed back in the ’90’s). 

 

The Constance Spry Cookery Book is a most comprehensive book covering a huge range of house wifery skills too numerous to list. It is still available. So imagine my surprise to discover small book called RATIO: TheSimple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking, by Michael Ruhlman. Having reviewed it on line I promptly ordered 2 copies; one for me and one for a newly married friend who is cookery challenged.

 

The "kitchen" is next to the table!

Here for example is the ratio for bread: 5 parts flour: 3 parts water." even after the hundreds of books on food I've bought, skimmed, read and even recommended, this was an approach I hadn't considered. I wanted to write about this approach and share the RATIO idea with you.

 

While I consider myself to be a bit of a 'toss it in' type cook and I have encouraged you to follow your instincts when faced with the 'what’s for dinner' conundrum, I accept that to bake, it makes sense to follow the recipe carefully. Here is Mr. Ruhlman stating that we can do it all by Ratio. The following is at the beginning of the book.

 

The Ratios -

Doughs 

Bread = 5 parts flour: 3 parts water (plus yeast and salt)

Pasta Dough = 3 parts flour: 2 parts egg

Pie Dough = 3 parts flour: 2 parts fat: 1 part water

Biscuit = 3 parts flour: 1 part fat: 2 parts liquid

Cookie Dough = 1 part sugar: 2 parts fat: 3 parts flour

Pâte à Choux = 2 parts water: 1 part butter: 1 part flour: 2 parts egg

Batters Pound Cake = 1 part butter: 1 part sugar: 1 part egg: 1 part flour

Sponge Cake = 1 part egg: 1 part sugar: 1 part flour: 1 part butter

Angel Food Cake = 3 parts egg white: 3 parts sugar: 1 part flour

Quick Bread = 2 parts flour: 2 parts liquid: 1 part egg: 1 part butter

Muffin = 2 parts flour: 2 parts liquid: 1 part egg: 1 part butter

Fritter = 2 parts flour: 2 parts liquid: 1 part egg

Pancake = 2 parts flour: 2 parts liquid: 1 part egg: ½ part butter

Popover = 2 parts liquid: 1 part egg: 1 part flour

Crepe = 1 part liquid: 1 part egg: ½ part flour 

 

Stocks and Sauces 

 

Stock = 3 parts water: 2 parts bones

Consommé = 12 parts stock: 3 parts meat: 1 part mirepoix: 1 part egg white

Roux = 3 parts flour: 2 parts fat

Thickening Ratio = 10 parts liquid: 1 part roux

Beurre Manié = 1 part flour: 1 part butter (by volume)

Slurry = 1 part cornstarch: 1 part water (by volume)

Thickening Rule = 1 tablespoon starch will thicken 1 cup liquid 

 

The Farçir

Sausage = 3 parts meat: 1 part fat

Sausage Seasoning = 60 parts meat/fat: 1 part salt

Mousseline = 8 parts meat: 4 parts cream: 1 part egg

Brine = 20 parts water: 1 part salt

 

Fat-Based Sauces

Mayonnaise = 20 parts oil: 1 part liquid (plus yolk)

Vinaigrette = 3 parts oil: 1 part vinegar, 

Hollandaise = 5 parts butter: 1 part yolk: 1 part liquid 

 

Custards 

Free-Standing Custard = 2 parts liquid: 1 part egg

Crème Anglaise = 4 parts milk/cream: 1 part yolk: 1 part sugar

Chocolate Sauce = 1 part chocolate: 1 part cream

Caramel Sauce = 1 part sugar: 1 part cream.

 

Ratios printed above have been taken from Ruhlman's book.

 

However even if my cooking is via toaster or microwave, I still love to read about it. Over the past few months I haven't been buying much food that can be microwaved but I have been buying several cookbooks which give me great joy.

 

 

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat was made into an entertaining Netflix show with plenty of important tips on what foods work well and how to enhance your meals. She has just written a sequel of her experiences - Good Things, Recipes and Rituals to Share with People you Love. It has been very well reviewed. Samin is quoted, "Once I had these off to you these recipes are no longer mine." She sees her act of writing as a connection, an invitation to sit and eat together. I heartily agree with her.  I have shared many recipes with JRW over our time together. Some are my originals or my take on a particular recipe and some come directly from other authors, bloggers or publications. I always try to acknowledge the provenance.

 

This led me to cooking dinner during my last visit to Maine when Julia and the boys were staying to keep me company. As the temperature had dropped significantly I chose to make tomato soup served with raclette cheese paninis. Julia asked me for the recipe so I am reproducing it here.  But this is my take and doesn’t have much relation to the commercial tomato soup of childhood. (Editor’s note: Thank God!)

 

Tomato Soup for Julia

16 oz jar of sweet basil tomato sauce; I used Boves Sauce

Half a sweet onion chopped

8 Garlic cloves peeled and chopped in half 

Doz. plus cherry tomatoes cut in half

 3 Tblsp olive oil

2 Tblsp or to taste Italian tomato paste – the good quality kind in a tube

1Cup water

1 Cup heavy cream and more to taste at

Sugar, salt, pepper to serve as needed

 

In a heavy bottom pot heat the olive oil on a low heat

Add onion and garlic, stir to mix and cook on a low heat for 15 or so minutes till soft and clarified, don't allow to brown

Add tomatoes and stir, staying on low heat til softened.

Add tomato sauce and stir together

Pour water into tomato jar, tighten lid and shake to remove sauce in the jar, 

Add to pan, mix and continue to cook over low heat

Add tomato paste as season to taste

Cook another five minutes then add cream and mix

Serve hot and top with your choices of sour cream, Parmesan, cilantro or spring onions, even some pesto would work.

 

But to get back to the cookbooks. One stand out feature is the beautiful book presentation.  Just look at the end pieces of Stanley Tucci’s, Taste: My Life Through Food. Who could resist those gorgeous tomatoes? Another book is Amanda Hesser’s, The Cook and the Gardener, Recipes and Writings from France, telling the tale of 22 year old Amanda at the beginning of her outstanding career in food, which encompasses a James Beard Award, time at the NYT, as well as Founder of Food 52. Who could pass such a storied book by? The illustrations alone are worth the price. 

What are your favorite cook books or cooking stories, Reds? I’m giving away a copy of BOURDAIN: The Definitive Oral Biography, to one commentor.