Cooking Real Food

Part 1

Knife safety — and why a sharp knife is the safe one

Almost every kitchen cut comes from a dull blade slipping off food rather than cutting into it. Sharpening is the safety measure.

1. 1

   Hold it properly

   Pinch the blade between thumb and forefinger just in front of the handle, and wrap the remaining fingers around the handle. It feels odd for a day and then gives you far more control than gripping the handle alone.

2. 2

   The claw

   Curl the fingertips of your other hand under, knuckles forward, and rest the flat of the blade against those knuckles. The knife physically cannot reach your fingertips. Every professional does this and it is the single habit worth building first.

3. 3

   Stabilise the food

   Never cut anything round on its curve. Cut a flat side first, then turn it onto that flat face. Onions, potatoes and carrots all roll, and rolling food is what sends a blade sideways.

4. 4

   Keep it sharp

   A honing steel before each use straightens the edge; a whetstone or a shop sharpening once or twice a year actually restores it. If a knife will not slice a tomato skin without pressure, it is dull and it is dangerous.

5. 5

   Two rules that prevent the worst injuries

   Never try to catch a falling knife — step back and let it land. And never leave a knife in a sink full of water where a hand will find it blind.

Part 2

The temperatures that keep people safe

This is the part guessing does not cover. Color is not a reliable indicator in either direction — meat can be pink and safe or brown and unsafe.

• Poultry, all of it, including ground: 165°F. No exceptions, no judgement calls.
• Ground beef, pork and mixtures: 160°F. Grinding spreads surface bacteria through the whole thing, which is why burgers need more than steak.
• Whole cuts of beef, pork and lamb: 145°F plus a three-minute rest.
• Fish: 145°F, or until it flakes.
• Leftovers being reheated: 165°F, all the way through, not just the outside.
• THE DANGER ZONE is 40°F to 140°F. Food should not sit in it more than two hours — one hour if it is above 90°F outside, which in a Texas summer is most of the year.
• Cool leftovers fast and refrigerate within two hours. Put hot food in shallow containers rather than one deep pot, which can stay warm in the middle for hours.
• Thaw in the fridge, in cold water, or in the microwave — never on the counter, where the outside sits in the danger zone while the middle is still frozen.

Part 3

Five methods that cover almost every meal

Learn these five and you can cook without a recipe, because every recipe is a variation on one of them.

1. 1

   Roasting

   Hot oven, 400–425°F. Toss anything in oil, salt and pepper, spread on a sheet pan in one layer, roast until browned. Crowding the pan steams food instead of browning it — that is the single most common mistake. Works for nearly every vegetable, chicken thighs, sausages, whole meals at once.

2. 2

   Sautéing

   Pan hot before the oil goes in, oil hot before the food does. Food should sizzle on contact. Do not stir constantly — browning needs contact time. Onions first, then harder vegetables, then garlic near the end because it burns fast.

3. 3

   Braising

   Brown the meat hard, take it out, cook onions in the same pan, return the meat with enough liquid to come halfway up, cover, and cook low and slow for a couple of hours. This turns the cheapest tough cuts into the best meals you will make. Shoulder, shank, chuck.

4. 4

   Boiling and simmering

   Boiling is aggressive and full of bubbles; simmering is a lazy occasional bubble. Pasta boils. Almost everything else simmers — a hard boil makes meat tough and stock cloudy.

5. 5

   Building a soup or stew from nothing

   Fat in the pan, onion and carrot and celery softened, garlic, then whatever protein, then liquid, then whatever vegetables and starch you have. Simmer. Salt at the end, tasting as you go. This is a method, not a recipe, and it absorbs leftovers better than anything else.

Part 4

The cupboard that makes cooking easier than takeaway

Most people order food because the alternative required a shop first. Stock these and there is always a meal in the house.

• Dry: rice, pasta, oats, flour, tinned tomatoes, tinned beans, tinned tuna, stock cubes, lentils.
• Fats and acids: neutral oil for cooking, olive oil for finishing, vinegar, lemons. Acid at the end is what makes food taste finished rather than flat.
• Aromatics: onions, garlic, and whatever else keeps. These start almost every savoury dish.
• Seasoning: salt (buy the cheap coarse kind in bulk), black pepper you grind, and five spices you actually use rather than twenty you do not.
• Freezer: frozen vegetables (nutritionally equal to fresh and never wasted), frozen meat portioned before freezing, bread.
• Salt is the difference between home cooking and restaurant cooking more often than any technique. Season in layers as you cook, taste, adjust.
• Buy whole and break it down. A whole chicken is far cheaper than the parts, gives you two meals plus stock from the carcass.
• Plan around what is cheap this week rather than deciding first and paying whatever it costs.

Part 5

Five meals worth actually learning

Cook each of these three times and you will stop needing the recipe. That is the point at which cooking gets easy.

1. 1

   Sheet-pan chicken and vegetables

   Chicken thighs and chopped hard vegetables, oil, salt, pepper, 425°F for 35–40 minutes until the chicken hits 165°F. One pan, no skill, endlessly variable.

2. 2

   A pot of beans or lentils

   Onion and garlic softened, lentils or soaked beans, stock, simmer until tender, salt at the end. Pennies per serving, freezes well, and it is a base for soup, tacos or a rice bowl.

3. 3

   Pasta with a real tomato sauce

   Garlic gently in olive oil, tinned tomatoes, simmer twenty minutes, salt. Better than any jar and cheaper. Save a cup of the pasta water and stir it in — the starch is what makes sauce cling.

4. 4

   Eggs, properly

   Low heat and patience. Scrambled eggs go rubbery over high heat; take them off while still slightly loose because they keep cooking. A three-minute skill that feeds you for life.

5. 5

   A braise

   Any tough cut, browned, with onions and liquid, low oven for two to three hours. The cheapest meat becomes the best meal, and it makes the house smell like someone lives there.