The magic of simple cooking
I was in Boston this past week, arriving the day after a Nor’easter left a foot of snow. I went to the supermarket with my big brother, who is 75. He wanted me to shop for dinner in a market that’s thousands of miles from California, Mexico, Arizona. “Ora-gone” is not on the local radar. The first pass through the market, we got everything he needed. Eggs, spongy bread in a plastic bag. I bought yogurt. Yo Baby. He bought muffins that he liked because they were made in the supermarket. His task was accomplished with the support of two cell phone calls home because he forgot the list. He turned to me and said, “Now you can shop for our dinner.” The look on his face was pure joy.
“What are you in the mood for?” I asked for, fighting a feeling of being sucked into the hole of American food reality. I discovered salvation when he said, “There’s some good looking fish.” “I noticed, too. Let’s go take a look.” I chose Scrod because we were in Boston and was thrilled because it was wild, not frozen and looked fresh. (I learned that Scrod is an acronym for ‘special catch right off the dock.’)
“Will you eat asparagus?” I asked. “Do you like a certain type of potato?” I bought the asparagus because I knew they were the first of the season, from Mexico, and would probably be the freshest thing I could find. Some were a little tired from the voyage, but mostly they looked inviting. I sought out Yukon Gold potatoes, ignoring the pre-packaged ones marketed as “Gourmet potatoes” at $4. per pound. The loose ones I selected were about the size of a golf ball, and I prayed that they’d be good.
“Do you have unsalted butter,” I asked my brother. “It’s all we use, “I was told. “Do you want olive oil?” He asked. I didn’t’ answer because I wanted to keep this preparation as simple as possible, framed only by he herbs and spices of New England which are salt and pepper. I was pretty sure I could only count on being able to have only half of those.
The search for breadcrumbs to coat the fish led to a number of brand choices. I didn’t recognize any of them, and all shared four paragraphs of ‘ingredients’ and all included corn syrup. They all also wound up staying on the shelf. I saw panko, looked at the ingredients, noting only half a dozen, all of which I recognized. I threw that bag into the shopping cart noting they were twice as much as the corn syrup-infused bread crumbs I’d passed up.
At home, I put the Yukon Golds in a pot of cold water, brought it to a boil, and turned it to a simmer for 20 minutes. “Dinner will be ready in 30 minutes,” I announced, giving myself a margin of time since I was in someone else’s kitchen.
I wanted the potatoes to cook slowly so that the starches could soften, then become sweet. I was entertaining the hope that the natural flavor of the potato would suffice. I peeled and mashed them coarsely in a bowl. I tested them with a sprinkle of salt. “Not bad,” I thought, so put in some butter, in the spirit of gilding the lily. I know that a real Yukon Gold, grown in good soil, with no chemicals, comes complete with a buttery texture, and doesn’t need anything.
I trimmed asparagus while bringing a couple of inches of water to a boil in a straight-sided skillet. “Is there salt?” I asked, having long since learned to take nothing for granted. While my brother poked around in the chaos of the cabinets, I automatically unscrewed the cap of a salt shaker. I didn’t ask questions about the salt, and threw some into the water for blanching. The asparagus follow, and in and I searched for a pot lid to get the water to come back up quickly to a boil. I noted that my brother was watching out of the corner of his eye.
When it came back to a boil, and I tossed half a glassful of cold water into the pot, I knew I had his attention. This is the older brother who had the task of trying to teach me mathematics as a small child; he has an exacting, methodical nature.
“I thrown asparagus in a skillet with some olive oil,” he tells me, “and cook them in that. But they always come out oily, and I never have any idea what I’m doing.”
“I bring the asparagus to a boil,” I replied, and went on to explain how I add half a cup of cold because cooling slows down the cooking of the tips, allows the stalks to cook, and everything evens out. “If you taste an asparagus each time you add cold water,” I tell him, “you get to stop the cooking at the point where you find them to your liking.” It has the appeal of a reasonable theory, and he seemed genuinely intrigued.
I once had a very technical discussion with my brother about cooking turnips one Christmas. I had phoned in time to catch him at the stove preparing dinner. That was not something I knew he did, as I had no memory or food association with him. He led me into a very technical discussion about food, turnips specifically, that was one of the most joyous talks I ever experienced with him.
The asparagus were done before the potatoes, so I drained them, and stopped the cooking under cold water, and put them in the pan. I asked for flour to dredge the fish before dipping in egg, and breadcrumbs. “Ummm,” he stared., and I knew I was in trouble. “You might have to do without that. In this kitchen you have to work with what is,” he announced with a slight evil pleasure in his eye. “I’m used to that,” I replied.
I dredged the Scrod in egg, then in panko while I heated butter and olive oil. The pan was not a skillet because when I asked for a skillet, he started to answer by asking if that was a pan that had …. I don’t remember what shape he said, but I knew better than to hope. There was a wok sort of device I’d already pulled out from under the cabinets and put on a flame. It had a small flat surface area that turned out to be sufficient for holding the three pieces of breaded fish I was hoping to feed them.
With the fat hot, I dropped the fish in breaded side down, and let them cook, watching to ensure that the bottom developed nice golden crispness. I also watched the flesh of the fish to determine its doneness.
I like this way of cooking fish best when I don’t have to turn the fish over. It remains crisp on one side, while steaming on the other. I touched the flesh and when it started to flake, I declared it done. I placed it crisp side up on the plate, seasoned it with salt, and garnished it with potatoes. I set the asparagus beside the potatoes, sprinkled them lightly with salt, and I served my brother and sister in law a glass of California white wine.
“You make magic,” my sister in law announced after the first bite. “Were you watching,” she asked my brother. “No I answered. It’s not his thing.” I sat there, smug. knowing that at my core I have the expertise of a New England cook who knows how to find the flavor or what is, unassisted; and love that I made my brother and sister-in-law happy.
When I work at this level in evening classes, I title the class COURSE BY COURSE. If you want to build basic skills, knife work, sautéing, blanching, tart doughs, noodle making, soups, sauces, etc. these Thursday evening classes are the place to start.
They are offered once a week for six weeks. They operate from 6 to 9 PM, and are limited to about 6 participants. You come, we cook together. Tuition is $450. For the series.
IN THE EVENING CLASSES, We accommodate beginner, intermediate or advanced cooks. If you resolved at New Years’ to learn more, stretch your mind, or expand your skills, these series might be the chance to effect that resolve.
THE NEXT EVENING sessions begin in mid-May.
THE FORMAT FOR MONDAY NIGHT CLASSES IS … If you want to focus on how to put a menu together, learn how to string ideas together into a comprehensive and harmonious whole, while building skills, focusing on the techniques that make the difference between an okay dish, and an excellent one, sign on an beyond the basics session.
THE FORMAT FOR TUESDAY AND WEDNESDAY NIGHT CLASSES IS .. If you like the challenge of getting food to the table. You arrive at the studio, and discover a lovely display of ingredients arranged on the table.
We sort them out, explain the plan for preparing them, give you the info you need to do a good job, then shepherd you through the preparation.
We stand at the stove, say “Look, there’s the emulsion, now start whisking….” or “You need to calculate 2 tablespoons of sauce per person, so reduce the liquid until you have about what you need; then we’ll go on to the next step.” It’s not exactly hand holding, more like an on-going conversation and a great, personal way to learn authentic ideas.
Please note the new email address: troufood@me.com
You can telephone Robert at 503 233 1934 for further info on all classes.
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One Response to The magic of simple cooking
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The Chef Studio
Robert, Your story reminds me of one of my favorite anecdotes in a New Yorker article by Sue Hubble, titled The Great American Pie Expedition. She starts : “In season, though, all blueberry pies are good. A few years ago, I was visiting a non-baking friend, who asked me to make one. The oven wasn’t working, but we thought we might be able to bake it on the covered grill, over a wood fire. There was no piepan, but perhaps I could make do with an aluminum cake pan. There was no rolling pin or waxed paper, so I used a water glass to roll out the pie dough between two pieces of brown paper cut from a grocery bag. There were, however, plenty of fresh wild blueberries, and there was sugar and cinnamon and a lemon, which I cut up and added to the filling. The pie that came off the grill had rather too thick a crust, and it had cooked unevenly, and it tasted of wood smoke, but it wasn’t a bad pie; the blueberries were too good for that.”