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Gentle Cooking

AcknowledgementsI have served most of the dishes in this book to friends over the years, and I thank all of themwho have made comments on the tastes and presentations.I particularly thank my wife Marı́a. She long ago suckered me into becoming the chief cook andbottle-washer in the family by showering my cooking with compliments. She has to walk a thinline, however. Too many “constructive” comments could result in my abdication as chief cook.Her comments have sometimes been helpful, but the nonverbal responses have been more useful.If she does not attack a dish with her customary relish, I try to think of adjustments to maketo the dish.Other friends who have read recipes or viewed preliminary drafts of this book have made helpfulcomments. I particularly thank Jim Shine, who has prepared some dishes following the recipesin the book and provided useful feedback.This book began as a cure for cabin fever in June, 2020.An almost-up-to-date version of the book can be found atwww.dropbox.com/s/pwvt87nsj1pad4o/GC.pdf?dl 0This version was made on November 19, 2021.I encourage comments, especially “constructive” ones.jgentle@gmu.eduBy the same author, Buen Provecho: Favorite Recipes from South of the Border – and Beyond,available at www.dropbox.com/s/p0o9ajanaasqnwi/NS.pdf?dl 0c 2021 James GentleAlthough a hardcopy version of this book is available (for 1,256.38 plus tax and shipping, and with a4-month production backlog), you may prefer the free PDF version because it has hyperlinks and displaysnicely in portrait mode on a tablet in your kitchen.

PrefaceThis book contains some of my favorite recipes, along with comments and personal recollectionsabout food. But recipes are a dime a dozen. Any issue of a magazine like Good Housekeepingwill contain 10 or 15 recipes, and a web search for any food item will turn up dozens of recipesfor it.The recipes in this book are an eclectic selection, representing no particular cuisine. In somecases, I asked a chef or a home cook for the recipe of something I particularly liked. Sometimes,the chef gave me a nicely printed recipe, but many times the answers were given in brokenEnglish and involved local names for ingredients that I could never find.I have made most of these recipes multiple times over the years, and they have all evolved, inone way or another. I want something whose taste reminds me of the good food that I hadin a little dhaba on the road between Delhi and Chandigarh, in a fancy restaurant in the firstarrondissement in Paris, in a seafood restaurant on the outskirts of Colombo, or in a friend’scamp on Bayou Teche in Louisiana.I’ve been cooking for years, but I didn’t learn from my mom. My mom cooked because shehad to. My parents and their families ate because they had to, and they ate pretty fast. I eatbecause I want to, and I eat slowly.I plan trips around good places to eat. I usually book restaurants before I book flights andhotels. My guiding stars are those given by Michelin.I’m naturally a slow eater, so most meals are multi-hour affairs. It’s also been said that I liketo talk.Anyway, this book is not about just the eating, but it’s about home preparation of food andputting together meals with friends.Cooking should be fun. If you don’t enjoy it, don’t do it. You can always find prepared foodthat is amazingly cheap, and not too bad.Whatever or however you cook, enjoy it, and try to get better at it.You get better at cooking by tasting, experimenting and modifying. Head-to-head taste testsare best; try something both ways, or multiple ways, and see which you think tastes better.Don’t take my word or anybody else’s word; do the taste test.iii

ivPrefaceThe RecipesI learned to cook mainly from two sources, Julia Child’s Volume I1 (and later, also Volume II2 )and Joy of Cooking.3 Those books are treasure troves of great recipes and wise advice.I often get recipes from chefs when I have particularly enjoyed a dish, but some of the recipesin this book are entirely original. Even then, however, they are usually concocted to capture aremembered taste.Some people value “authenticity” in a recipe. I believe authenticity is a meaningless conceptdue to the diversity from household to household within a given locality, and from one decadeto the next. I celebrate that diversity.Over the years, I put a bunch of recipes in spreadsheets. I have a standard format that I use ina spreadsheet for a recipe. I collect the recipes of a common type, say soups, into a workbook.I have a master workbook in which each spreadsheet is a list of dishes of a particular type.Each item in the list is hyperlinked to the spreadsheet in another workbook that contains therecipe for that dish. I look at my recipe before cooking a dish, I make notes of additions ormodifications, and the recipes change over time.In writing this book, I have used my own notes, but I have also looked at other cookbooks.Being an old academic, I didn’t just steal from one source, that’s plagiarism; I stole frommultiple sources, that’s research.The Pleasure of EatingThere are several things that make eating more or less pleasant.First and foremost is taste. Everybody knows that.Each dish must taste good, but in a meal, it is the orchestration of the individual performersthat counts.Many other things affect the dining experience, such as the appearance of the food and the dishon which it’s served. Contrasting colors and overall neatness enhance the visual impact.Some other things are obvious. The comfort of the seating; the temperature; the company, evenif it is a company of one.Some things are more subtle. These involve the elegance in eating. If the dish requires intricatemanipulations by the diner, such as difficult knife work around bones or fat or peeling shells orother hand work, it detracts from the dining experience. The cook should do these things in thekitchen. (Of course there are exceptions; a good Maryland crab boil is one, for example.)1Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, and Simone Beck, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Alfred A. Knopf,1961. (Yes, I have the first edition.)2Julia Child and Simone Beck, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume II, Knopf, 1970.3Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker, Joy of Cooking, fifth edition, Bobbs-Merrill, 1964.

PrefacevTastes Are PersonalThe recipes in this book are ones that I like. You may not like some of them, or you may likesome with less nutmeg — or more nutmeg — or you may like some with less cayenne — ormore cayenne. That’s fine. These recipes are suggestions; but they happen to correspond toproportions that I like.The individuality of tastes is driven home to me when I’m eating with a Chinese friend in arestaurant in Chengdu and he voraciously attacks the chicken’s feet and even graciously devoursmine when I say I’m full, or when a Honduran friend rapturously describes the Saturday morningmenudo (which I can barely get down) in a little restaurant in Choleteca, or when an Americanfriend orders, and eats, the pig’s ears in a trendy Napa Valley restaurant. To each her own. I’veeaten all of those at least once. I don’t like chicken’s feet, I don’t like menudo, and I don’t likepig’s ears.The individuality of our tastes is not just due to some whimsical preferences. Our senses oftaste and smell are rather complicated, and are different from individual to individual. Theyare, of course, controlled at least to some extent by our genes. There is actually a gene (tastereceptor 2 member 38, TAS2R38), for example, that determines whether or not we can taste thebitterness of certain foods, such as Brussels sprouts. Likewise, because of a gene, some peoplelack the ability to detect the smell of TCA in wine (2,4,6-trichloroanisole, the most commonchemical causing a wine to be corked). And then, of course, we have the wellknown asparagusand cilantro genes. There is not much you can do about your sensory abilities, or inabilities.Some people’s tastes are positively affected by such adjectives as “authentic”, “traditional”,“typical”, “heirloom”, “local”, or “organic”. These words in and of themselves don’t affect mytaste preferences, although I do support the ideals of “local” and “organic”.My approach to food is to eat a little of everything any other normal person eats, and if I like it,I’ll eat it again. I’ve eaten lots of unusual foods around the world; some I liked, some I didn’t. IfI don’t like the food, I’ll generally avoid it or eat around it, but I may still eat it with apparentgusto from time to time just to be polite.Old Chefs’ TalesIn the French tradition of an autocratic and dogmatic chef (that’s “chief” to them), there aremany dicta accepted as truths because a respected chef says that’s the way it is. I call the dicta“old chefs’ tales”.There are many old sayings and old rules, such as, “don’t use curly-leaf parsley; use flat-leaf”,because it’s “got more flavor”, or some other superficially reasonable reason. There’s actuallya lot of variation in the taste of different parsleys, even among ones that look alike. Try someside-by-side.Another old chef’s dictum is an absolute ban on garlic presses. Try the garlic press and a knifeyourself side-by-side. (In some dishes, there may be a slight difference, but in most preparations,there is none. It’s OK to use a garlic press. I do usually mince garlic with a knife like the chefsays, but it’s just because I like to use knives.)

viPrefaceNotationSome of the recipes in this book use only vegetable products, so I call them vegetarian. I realizethat there are different definitions of “vegetarian”; I don’t get into the distinctions.Vegetarian DishesIn the table of contents and elsewhere, I have indicated the recipes that are vegetarian by use ofthe symbol v , for example, Mushroom Puffsv . (I don’t use an indicator for some very obviousthings like sauces, breads, and desserts.)For dishes that can be made vegetarian simply by the omission of one or two ingredients, I usethe symbol v?, for example, Mini Fritatasv?. In some cases, a good meat substitute can beused in place of a meat ingredient. This is particularly true for a recipe that calls for groundbeef, such as beef empanadas or enchiladas.There are several soups and other dishes that would be vegetarian, except for the broth or stock,which is usually chicken broth. Personally, I avoid substitute broths, but some vegetable brothscan be pretty good, especially if you make them yourself. For dishes that are vegetarian exceptfor the broth, I use the symbol vb , for example, Asparagus Soupvb .Units of MeasurementI use American units of measure, and I abbreviate them in standard ways: “c” is “cup”; “tsp”is “teaspoon”; “Tbsp” is “tablespoon”; “lb” is pound; and “oz” is ounce.Temperatures are stated in degrees Fahrenheit.If the thing being measured is a liquid, “ounce” is a “fluid ounce”. If the thing being measuredis a solid, “ounce” is somewhat ambiguous; technically, it means a unit of weight, but I generallymean a volume.Two symbols that I often use are “S&P&C”, for “salt, pepper and cayenne powder”, and “AP”,for “all-purpose flour”.Gentle Cooking