Steam-Powered Popovers

A popover is a quick roll that rises entirely by water expanding as it turns into a gas. You can make savory versions by adding grated cheese and herbs, but my favorite is based on what my mom made when I was growing up: buttery popovers with a spoonful of strawberry or apricot jam, served for weekend breakfast.

Popovers are hollow. They’re unlike almost any other baked good—a descendant of Yorkshire pudding and cousin of Dutch baby pancakes. As the batter cooks, the top surface sets before the interior does, and as the interior cooks, water boils off into water vapor that is trapped by the top surface.

Traditionally, these are made in specialized popover cups, which are narrow, slightly sloped cups that have some heft to them, giving them good heat retention. Using muffin tins or ramekins works just as well.

Whisk together in a mixing bowl or blend in a blender:

Preheat both the oven and the popover cups or muffin tin at 425°F / 220°C.

Heavily grease the popover cups or muffin tins with butter: melt a few tablespoons of butter and put a teaspoonful in the bottom of each cup. Fill each cup about 1/3 to ½ full with batter and bake. After 15 minutes, drop the temperature to 350°F / 180°C and continue baking until the outside is set and golden-dark brown, about another 20 minutes.

Serve at once with jam and butter.

Notes

• If you have a real sweet tooth (or kids) try adding sugar and cinnamon, or butter and maple syrup.

• Don’t peek while these are baking! Opening the oven door will drop the air temperature, causing the popovers to drop in temperature and lose some of the water vapor that’s critical to their rise.

• Curious how the choice of flour affects the inside and crust of the popover? Try making two batches, one with low-gluten flour and the second with a higher-gluten flour. Fill half the cups with one batter and the other half with the second batter. Bake them at the same time and see what happens!

The hollow interior of popovers makes them perfect vessels for butter and jam.

My Dad’s 1-2-3 Crepes

My dad occasionally made these “1-2-3” crepes—named for the ratio of ingredients—before sending us off to school. (Why don’t we make these sorts of things before heading off to work?!)

Eggs, not flour, provide the structure for crepes, so try using different flours. In France, it’s common to use buckwheat flour in savory crepes (which are also, incidentally, gluten free). The buckwheat flour adds a wonderful robust flavor.

Whisk until entirely mixed, about 30 seconds:

Let rest for at least 15 minutes, preferably longer.

Start with a nonstick frying pan over medium-high heat and preheat for about a minute, until a drop of water sizzles when dropped onto it.

Butter: Grab a cold stick of butter with the wrapper partially pulled back and, using the wrapper as a handle, spread a small amount of butter around the pan.

Wipe down: Use a paper towel to wipe the butter over the surface of the pan. The pan should look dry; you want a super-thin coating of butter.

Pour: Pour in the batter with one hand while holding the pan in the air with the other and swirling it so that the batter spreads over the surface: use ¼ cup / 60 mL of batter for a 10” / 25 cm pan, adjusting as necessary to just coat the bottom evenly. Check the heat of the pan. It should be hot enough that the batter develops a lacelike quality—little holes all over the crepe—as the water in the batter boils and tunnels up through the batter. If lace holes aren’t forming, turn up the heat.

Flip: Wait until the crepe begins to brown around the edges, then use a spatula to push down the edge all around the circumference. This will release and lift the edge of the crepe. Flip the crepe using the spatula, or do what I do: grab the lifted edge with your fingers and flip it by hand. Let the crepe cook on the second side for half a minute or so.

Flip again: This will leave the better-looking side on the outside of the finished crepe.

Add fillings: You can cook eggs or melt cheese by leaving the pan on the heat during this step (add the filling directly on top of the cooked crepe); otherwise, transfer the crepe to a plate and then fill. After adding fillings, either fold the crepe in half and half again, or roll it up like a cigar.

Some suggestions for fillings:

• Cheese, eggs, and ham

• Cream cheese, dill, and lox

• Roasted vegetables and goat cheese

• Powdered sugar and lemon juice

• Bananas and chocolate spread

• Fresh fruit with ricotta

• Pie filling with whipped cream

Seeded Crackers and Easy Flatbreads

If you want a culinary experimental journey, start with the idea of “three parts flour, one part water” baked in a hot oven for 10 minutes, iterate half a dozen times, and you’ll end up rediscovering what the Ancient Egyptians first made: flatbread. Making crackers and flatbread is easier than you think. Way easier.

Crackers and their untrimmed version, flatbreads, are sometimes leavened—pita and saltine crackers, for example, use yeast—while other times unleavened. Unleavened versions take minutes to mix and minutes to bake, hence their religious symbolism in Judaism’s Passover and Christianity’s Eucharist. Regardless of symbolism, they’re quick to make: 20 minutes, start to finish.

You’ll find these crackers to be crisper than their leavened counterparts—treat them as vehicles for toppings.

In a bowl, measure out:

Using a spoon, mix to form a “shaggy” dough. It will be quite dry. Pick it up with your hands and knead it for a minute or two. Divide in half, setting half aside for a second batch.

On a lightly floured cutting board, roll the dough out into a strip about 6 inches (15 cm) wide, and as long as possible. You want the dough to be rolled out as thinly as possible; aim for about an eighth of an inch (a few millimeters). If your crackers come out tough, roll them thinner!

Using a knife, trim the dough into squares or strips—or leave untrimmed for a large, flatbread-style cracker.

Prick the dough with fork tines (this prevents pockets of air from billowing up the crackers), then transfer to a baking sheet.

Bake at 400°F / 200°C for 10–12 minutes, until light brown. If your crackers come out chewy, bake a few minutes longer.

Notes

• If the seeds and herbs toast well, then they’ll work well in crackers. Try sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, poppy seeds, fennel seeds, ground black pepper, rosemary, and all their combinations.

• I can’t resist adding a non sequitur here: in technology, a cracker is someone who illicitly breaks into systems, while a hacker is someone who “thinks like a geek” and creatively uses things outside their original purpose.

Pistachio Chocolate Baklava

Phyllo dough is easy to work with and can be used to create spectacular textures. Baklava, a Middle Eastern dessert, is typically made by baking alternating layers of phyllo dough and a nut mixture, and then coating the outside with a honey sauce.

My version here is rolled like a cigar to make a log that is sliced after baking, and served with whipped cream and lemon zest. Don’t skimp on those two ingredients—they balance out the flavor in an incredible way!

Defrost 1 package of phyllo dough per directions on box (typically a few hours in the fridge and an hour on the counter; plan ahead!); you’ll need 6–9 sheets (a few extra in case one tears).

Preheat oven to 350°F / 180°C.

In a pan, toast 1 cup (100g) coarsely chopped pistachio nuts and 1 cup (100g) coarsely chopped walnuts, pecans, or almonds until they just begin to brown.

Transfer the nuts to a small bowl and mix in the following ingredients, stirring until the butter is melted:

In another small bowl, measure out 2 ounces (~60g) chopped bittersweet chocolate.

Melt ½ cup (115g) butter in a small bowl or measuring cup.

Lay out a sheet of phyllo dough on a large cutting board. Using a pastry brush or a flat rubber spatula (or, in a pinch, two fingers), spread a thin layer of melted butter over the entire sheet. Place a second sheet of phyllo dough on top, and brush another thin layer of butter on it.

Using a third of the nut mixture, make a strip 2” / 5 cm wide along one of the short edges of the phyllo dough. Sprinkle a third of the chopped chocolate on top of the nut mixture. (Mixing the chocolate and nuts together beforehand would melt the chocolate.)

Carefully fold the side of the phyllo dough with the nuts on it over onto itself, starting to roll up the sheets. Brush the exposed underside with a thin layer of butter, and then roll again, buttering and rolling until the dough is completely rolled up.

Transfer the log to a cookie sheet, coat again with butter, and repeat the process with the remaining sheets of phyllo dough and fillings.

Bake for 15–20 minutes, until golden brown.

While the baklava is baking, create a syrup. In a small pan, bring to a boil:

Remove from heat and add the juice of ½ small lemon, about 1 tablespoon.

Make about a cup’s worth of sweetened whipped cream (see page 301).

To serve, cut the baklava roll into 2–3” / 5–8 cm lengths. Place a piece on a serving plate, drizzle the syrup on top, and add a large spoonful of whipped cream on the side. Garnish with a sprinkle of diced lemon zest.

Savory Baked Seitan with Spicy String Beans

Seitan, high in plant proteins from gluten and thus a staple in vegetarian and vegan meals, is worth a place in every chef’s extended repertoire. It’s made using gluten from flour (see page 254 to learn how to make your own gluten). You can make many different textures and flavors of seitan by varying the amount of water, adjusting the seasoning, and changing the cooking method. Baking will lead to firmer seitan; steaming and boiling lead to softer textures. Try this savory baked seitan—high in umami, making it taste almost meatlike—as an introduction to making your own “mock meat.”

Mix together in a large bowl:

Add, and use a spoon to mix to a thick, elastic dough:

Coat a baking dish with a thin layer of olive oil. Shape the dough into a flat patty and place into the baking dish. Cover with foil and bake at 325°F / 160°C for 60–75 minutes, until the outside is partly brown. (Cut in half to check; if you see a “wet” center, it’s not done. If you’re not sure, or if you want to experiment with the texture, set aside a piece, cook the rest longer, and compare. Personally, I think overcooked is better than undercooked on this one.)

While the seitan is baking, prepare the string beans.

In a small pan, bring 1 quart (~1 liter) water and 2 tablespoons (35g) salt to a full boil.

Set out a frying pan with a thin layer of olive oil and add ½ teaspoon (0.5g) crushed red pepper flakes.

Snap the stems off of 2 handfuls (200g) fresh green beans and remove any fibrous “strings,” if you’re using an heirloom variety. Add them to the boiling salt water. After 2–3 minutes, depending on how firm you like your green beans, fetch them out with tongs or strain the pot, and then transfer them to the frying pan. Flip the heat under the frying pan to high and briefly sauté for another 2–3 minutes. Add the juice from one small lemon and toss to coat.

To serve, slice the seitan into strips and plate with the string beans.

Double-Crust Pie Dough

There are two types of pie doughs: flaky and mealy. Working the fat into the flour until it is pea-sized and using more water will result in a flakier dough well suited to prebaked pie shells; working it until it has a cornmeal-like texture will result in a more water-resistant, mealy, crumbly dough that’s better suited for uses where it is filled with ingredients when baked.

This recipe makes enough dough to cover both the top and bottom of a pie, called a double crust. If making an open pie, this’ll make two pie bottoms—you can save one in the fridge for a few days.

Following the quantities for either recipe on page 258, measure the flour, salt, and optional sugar into a mixing bowl or the bowl of a food processor. Cut the butter into small cubes (½” / 1 cm) and add. If using shortening, add that as well.

If your kitchen is warm, chill the bowl in the freezer for 15 minutes to buy some thermal insurance. You don’t want the butter to melt as you work; that would create a less flaky, tougher pie shell.

If you have a food processor, pulse the ingredients in 2-second bursts while slowly pouring in the water, adding just enough water for the dough to combine. Continue pulsing the dough until the ingredients hold together.

If you don’t have a food processor, use the backside of two forks, one in each hand (or a pastry cutter, if you have one!) to break up the butter into the flour, adding water as necessary until the ingredients are combined.

No rolling pin? A wine bottle or even a tall, straight glass will work in a pinch. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and roll away.

Once the dough is at a coarse sand- or pebblelike consistency, dump it out onto a floured cutting board, divide it into two roughly equal piles, and press them into two round discs, one for the bottom of the pie and the other for the top.

Using a rolling pin, roll a disc of dough out into a sheet, and then fold it over on itself and roll it out again, repeating a few times until the dough has been compressed and holds together. Transfer to a pie tin and fill per pie recipe.

Prebaked Pie Shell

Some pies, such as lemon meringue pie (see recipe on page 411), call for the pie shell to be prebaked. To prebake a pie shell, also called blind baking, roll out the dough and transfer it to your pie tin or mold, line with a sheet of parchment paper, and fill with pie weights. (You can use rice or beans; the parchment paper will prevent them from sticking to the dough or flavoring it.) Don’t skip filling the pie shell with weights! They prevent the dough from sliding down the edges of the pie tin during baking.

In a preheated oven set to 425°F / 220°C, bake the pie shell for 15 minutes. Remove pie weights and bake for another 10–15 minutes, until the shell is golden brown.

Parchment paper filled with dried beans or rice will prevent the sides of a pie shell from sliding down while baking.

Jim Lahey on Baking

PHOTO CREDIT: SQUIRE FOX

Jim Lahey is widely known for popularizing the “no-knead” bread method, which he chronicled in his book, My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work No-Knead Method (W. W. Norton, 2009). He received the James Beard Foundation’s Award for Outstanding Baker in 2015.

What brought you into baking?

Visiting Italy in my youth, I was exposed to food. All the ideas I had about good food were shaken to the core by this seemingly insular country that had region-by-region great food traditions. When I was able to eat this amazing, good-enough-on-its-own bread, it lit a fire in me and got me excited about figuring out how to make it. The breads of Rome at that time were amazing; there still were an enormous number of older practitioners of baking. Whereas today, most of the bakers in Rome rely on refrigeration to get a decent end result. I’m of the nonrefrigeration school.

How would you compare American and Italian culture in terms of their approaches to food and baking?

We’re an extremely heterogeneous society with different cultures and different traditions. We have foods that aren’t necessarily based on a particular tradition. If you looked at the gazillion locally produced “artisanal” foods or the popularity of different cultures’ cuisines, we are a bunch of “other.” I grew up with Italian neighbors sharing their family meatball recipe, so I’ve got my memory of making meatballs with my Irish-American mom. We have hamburgers in the States, but who owns the hamburger?

It’s amazing how much food has changed in the last few decades.

Part of it is the Internet and part of it is global travel. If you want to see how a loaf of bread is shaped, you can go online and watch thousands of videos. Granted, watching a video without some reference to what it’s supposed to be like doesn’t mean you’re going to succeed at making a loaf of bread.

Let’s talk about bread. What do you mean that you’re part of the nonrefrigeration school?

Well, obviously we need some form of cooling to store and ferment foods. I prefer, in my practice of making bread, not to refrigerate the dough after it’s been mixed so it’s not taking up valuable real estate in the refrigerator.

So it’s more pragmatic, as opposed to the way it changes the flavor of the dough?

Yeah. It’s true if you hold the dough at a colder temperature during the various stages of fermentation, you’re going to coax out certain flavor profiles that you might miss at room temperature. Refrigeration gives you the convenience of being able to get it right more often than not, but you’re not really learning about how things ferment. I view the act of making bread as a practice, like yoga or a martial art. If you’re making bread and you’re doing it at room temperature, you have a working knowledge; an intuitive sense of what temperature range the dough needs to stay within.

The wonderful convenience of dry yeast and of the no-knead method is that it just doesn’t matter whether you have that knowledge. What you gain from practicing it is the first step of understanding the power of fermentation.

Your no-knead bread that Mark Bittman wrote about in the New York Times got so many people into their kitchens to make bread.

It was magical because they didn’t have to have this notion of what that archetypal loaf of bread is, of what you might see made in the Mediterranean countryside.

Let’s talk about the variables in baking bread that someone at home might be missing.

Temperature plays a significant role. I see it with how much yeast I need to use and the length of time. I currently don’t have great heating in my bakery. In wintertime, for a batch of bread which involves yeast, I might have to put as much as 6 grams in for every kilo of flour. In the summertime, and this is all on the same formula, I can use a quarter of a gram!

There’s also change of insular properties of the dough. When you make dough, it’s not a liquid and it’s not a solid; it’s a viscous mass somewhere between a solid and a liquid. It has particular properties, a certain stickiness, cohesion, viscosity. But as it begins to ferment and become a sponge, its insular properties change dramatically. In winter, if you’re doing a large batch of dough, like 30 kilos, you’ll notice a 10 to 15 degree [5 to 8°C] difference from the outside of the blob to the center of the blob. I have to forecast what the weather is going to be in order to chart the course of the fermentation!

What differences, in your experience, would you expect to see between no-knead and kneaded bread?

If there’s any pigmentation in the wheat, a no-knead dough will retain the pigmentation. So you will actually see a crumb that’s maybe yellow or pinkish or brownish, depending on the type of wheat you use. If you knead the dough mechanically, the introduction of oxygen through the kneading process will create a lighter color from a bleaching effect. If you do a side by side of kneaded dough and an unkneaded dough, you can see it pretty clearly. Texturally, a no-knead bread has a looser, less defined crumb structure.

Since no-knead bread relies on time for the gluten to form, can one split the difference between no-knead and standard kneading for some sort of “low-knead” bread?

If you look at French baking, after you combine the ingredients together, it refers to this idea. The dough has been allowed to absorb water and smell and begins to awaken, and you introduce the salt as a functional conditioner for the dough. Éric Kayser has long promoted the low-knead method, where the dough isn’t kneaded intensively.

There’s a lot of mumbo-jumbo mythology around what people think. At the end of the day, we’re going to look at the end product as eaters. If you go to any supermarket, it’s not like they have particular strains of wheat. They have stacks of wheat and you don’t know where the grains came from, nor do you know the mills.

I always say: it’s not the wheat that makes great bread, it’s the knowledge of the baker. You can have the best wheat in the world and still make very low-quality bread. And you can have what one might consider the worst commercial flour in the world and be fantasizing that there’s some little farm, “it makes me think of the hillsides in France.”

No-Knead Bread

Mix everything in a large mixing bowl until the dough is shaggy, about 15–60 seconds. Cover and let rest at room temperature for 12–24 hours.

Place either a medium-sized cast iron pot or Pyrex or ceramic bakeware in your oven with the lid on and preheat to 500°F / 260°C.

While the oven is heating, transfer the dough onto a surface dusted with flour, wheat bran, or cornmeal. The dough should be almost stringy, clinging to the bowl as you dump it. Fold a few times and shape into a boule (a round loaf). Transfer the dough onto a generously floured cloth towel and proof until roughly doubled in volume, about another hour. Using the towel, flip and dump the risen dough ball into the preheated bakeware and cook with the lid on for 30 minutes. Take the lid off and bake until the crust has a brown chestnut color, about another 15–20 minutes.

Bread—Traditional Method

If you’ve never made bread before, a simple loaf is easy enough to make, and perfecting it will keep you busy for many years. This is one of those recipes that’s worth making several days in a row, making one change at a time to understand how your changes impact the final loaf.

In a large bowl, whisk to thoroughly combine:

Add:

Stir ingredients just to incorporate—maybe 10 strokes with a spoon—and allow mixture to rest for 20–30 minutes, during which time the flour will absorb the water.

After the dough has rested, knead it. You can do this against a cutting board, pressing down on the dough with the palm of your hand, pushing it away from yourself, and then folding it back up on top of itself, rotating the ball every few times. I sometimes just hold the dough in my hands and work it, stretching it and folding it, but this is probably unorthodox. Continue kneading the dough until it passes the “stretch test”: tear off a small piece of the dough and stretch it. It shouldn’t tear; if it does, continue kneading.

Form the dough into a ball and let it rest in the large bowl, covered with plastic wrap (spray the wrap with nonstick spray to avoid it sticking to the dough), until it doubles in size, normally about 4–6 hours. Try to store the dough someplace where the temperature is between 72°F / 22°C and 80°F / 26.5°C. If the dough is kept too warm—say, if you’re in a hot climate, or it’s too close to a heating vent—it will double in size more quickly, so keep an eye on it and use common sense. Warmer—and thus faster—isn’t necessarily better, though: longer rest times will allow for better flavor development.

After the dough has risen, give it a quick second kneading, called punching down, which is really more of a quick gentle massage to work out any large gas bubbles and redistribute any undeveloped regions. You can optionally add in nuts, herbs, or other flavorings at this point. Form the dough into a tight ball, coat it with a light dusting of flour, place it on a pizza peel (or piece of cardboard), cover it with plastic wrap again, and allow it to rest for another hour or two.

While waiting for the dough to bench-proof, place a baking stone in your oven and set it to 425°F / 220°C. (Ideally, you should keep a baking stone in your oven all the time—see page 35. If you don’t have one, use a cast iron griddle or cast iron pan, flipped upside down.) Make sure that the oven is fully heated before baking. A full hour of preheating is not unreasonable.

Just before transferring the dough to the oven, pour a cup or two of boiling water into a baking pan or cookie sheet and set it on a shelf below the baking stone. (Use an old cookie sheet; the water may leave a hard-to-clean residue on it.) Alternatively, you can use a spray bottle to squirt the inside of the oven a dozen or so times to increase the humidity, taking care not to hit any light bulb inside (it can shatter).

With a serrated knife, lightly slash the top of the loaf with an “X” and then place it into the oven. Bake until the crust is golden brown and the loaf gives a hollow sound when rapped on the bottom with your knuckles, about 30 minutes. In theory, you can check for doneness using an instant-read thermometer; the internal temperature should be around 210°F / 98.5°C, which is the temperature at which starches in flour break down (see page 206 for more about starch gelation). Theory doesn’t work out so well here, though, because the loaf needs to reach a certain dryness as well. Checking temperature will only help you prevent undercooking by making sure the dough is at least hot enough. (I suppose weight would work, if you had a heat-safe balance scale...) In practice, you’ll be better off learning to sense when it’s done baking: appearance and the way the loaf sounds when held and thumped with your knuckles can tell you more.

Allow the bread to cool for at least 30 minutes or so before you slice it; it needs to cool sufficiently for the starches to set.

Notes

• Try adding rosemary, olives, or diced and sautéed onion during the second kneading. For a savory-sweet bread, use only bread flour and add some large chunks of bittersweet chocolate or dried fruits.

• For a slightly more complicated method, try starting with a sponge: a prefermentation of flour, water, and yeast that allows for better flavor development. Instead of adding all the flour and water together at the beginning, mix half of the flour (210g) with 2/3 (160 mL) of the water and all of the yeast (4.5g), and allow that to rise until bubbles start to form on the surface and the sponge starts to fall. Once this stage is reached, mix the sponge up with the rest of the water (80 mL), add the rest of the flour (210g) and the salt (9g), and allow the mixture to rise per the earlier instructions.

Yeast Waffles

Baker’s yeast contains a number of enzymes, one of which, zymase, converts simple sugars (dextrose and fructose) into carbon dioxide and alcohol. It’s this enzyme that gives yeast its rising capabilities. Zymase doesn’t break down lactose sugars, though, so doughs and batters made with milk will end up tasting sweeter. This is why some bread recipes call for milk and why foods like yeast waffles come out with a rich, sweet flavor.

At least two hours in advance, but preferably the night before, measure out and whisk together:

Cover batter and store at room temperature. Make sure to use a large bowl or container with enough headspace to allow the batter to rise.

Briefly stir the batter and then bake in your waffle iron per the manufacturer’s instructions.

Notes

• In baking, use table salt, not kosher or flake salt, because finer-grained salt will mix more uniformly into the batter.

• Try using honey, maple syrup, or agave nectar instead of sugar, and try substituting whole wheat flour or oat flour for half of the all-purpose flour.

• If your waffles come out not as crispy as you like, toss them in an oven preheated to 250°F / 120°C—hot enough to quickly evaporate out water, cold enough to avoid caramelization and Maillard reactions.

Jeff Varasano on Pizza

PHOTO USED BY PERMISSION OF JEFF VARASANO

Jeff Varasano moved from New York to Georgia, where a lack of New York–style pizza drove him to years of experimenting—to the point where he clipped the lock on his oven so that he could bake pizza in a super-hot oven set to its cleaning cycle (see page 370). He eventually quit his job as a C++ programmer and opened Varasano’s Pizzeria in Atlanta.

How did you go from C++ programming to making pizza?

I moved from New York to Atlanta. Like a lot of people transplanted from the Northeast, I started to seek out the best pizza. A lot of places claim to be like New York, and you go there and you’re like, “Hmm, have these guys ever been to New York?” So I started to bake at home. At first I would just call up all of my friends and say, “Look, I’m making pizza tonight. It’s going to be pretty terrible, but why don’t you come try it?” And it really was pretty bad.

I started experimenting. I did all the flours. I experimented with different methods of heating my oven. I tried to do it on the grill. I tried to wrap my oven in aluminum foil to keep all the heat in. Then I moved to a new house and I had an oven with a cleaning cycle. I didn’t really know what a cleaning cycle was. I had never had an oven with a cleaning cycle, but I ran it and I realized that it was basically just incinerating the contents. It was like, “Aha, I’ve got to get in there!” So that’s where the whole idea of clipping the lock came from.

I threw up this website (now at http://www.varasanos.com/PizzaRecipe.htm). I really didn’t think too much about it. For a year and a half the counter was at about 3,000 and in a day it jumped from 3,000 to 11,000 and crashed my server. I realized that people were pounding that page and pretty much from that day forward I started to get email. That’s what started me down the whole tunnel of thinking about giving up the software stuff and going into pizza.

In the process of learning how to do your pizza, what turned out to matter more than you expected, and on the other side, what turned out to matter less?

Well, clearly what mattered less was the flour. Everyone is looking for the piece of equipment or secret ingredient that they can buy which will all of a sudden transform their pizza into something great. It’s not that. This is one of the things I realized early on. There is no magic bullet. If you look at the top five pizzerias on my list, you’ll see they use five different ovens: gas, wood burning, coal burning, electric, and believe it or not, an oil burning oven. Not only do they use different fuels, they’re different shapes, they’re different temperatures; some bake their pizza for two minutes, some seven. So what is it then? The answer is that it’s an art; it’s everything all together at that one moment. That’s what I realized, learning the basics and the fundamentals, you come into style and artistry and that’s much more difficult to define. It’s not going to be a single secret.

A lot of geeks who are learning to cook get hung up on the very small details and miss the big picture of just getting in there and trying something and playing with it.

Yeah. I’ve always been an experimenter. But I’ve always had sort of a different way of approaching problems. I don’t make very many assumptions about the way things should be done. Most people assume that knowing how things should be done is the best way, so they keep struggling within a very small circle, whereas I have a tendency to just try a much wider variety of things that may work and may not work.

So when you get stuck on one of these problems even though you’re working in a wider circle, how do you go about getting unstuck?

That’s an interesting question. Let me deviate from that slightly and then I’ll come back. Most people are familiar with the scientific method, which is holding everything exactly the same and changing this one thing. This reminds me of people trying to do one side of the Rubik’s Cube. Most of the good methods don’t involve getting any side. That’s the last thing you do. So people get stuck because they don’t want to toss in the towel on the progress they think they’ve made so far. So if you want to make it past one level, you may have to scrap your whole methodology and just start over. And you see that with pizzas.

Art begins where engineering ends. Engineering is about taking what’s known and carrying it to its logical conclusion. So what do you do when you have exploited everything you know, but you want to go to the next level? At that point, you have to start opening your mind up to completely random ways of thinking through something. That might involve taking multiple steps at a time. It might be that you don’t abandon one thing, but you have to abandon five things.

As an example using pizza, as soon as I switch flour, I can’t just keep the same hydration because if I change the flour then I may also have to change the water, or the dough may have a different consistency. Well, guess what, when I increase the hydration then the heat penetration into the dough is going to be slower because more of that water has to boil off. So now all of a sudden I might have to change the oven temperature, too. I’d love to conduct a controlled experiment that would conclude that Flour B is better than Flour A, holding all other variables constant. But in the real world such a test is somewhat meaningless. This is why it’s an art.

This makes a lot of sense. I think a lot of geeks out there would say that this would be a multivariate approach to finding one of these optimal points of pizza recipes and techniques.

That’s right. And you have to work on the underlying forces and begin to understand them independently, but in the end the results are not going to be a set of independent things, they’re going to be a set of interdependent things.

In the first stage of working a problem or trying to master a skill, you find that everything seems totally dependent and that’s when you have the least power. The next stage is to make things independent and to break things down and classify them. The whole idea is to segment things into finer and finer individual techniques. The ultimate stage is learning how to reconnect all of those parts that you separated out and now reorganize them into something where the pieces are interdependent rather than a collection of things that are independent.

I am at the middle stage myself, so I don’t quite see how all the pieces fit together. For example, if we don’t leave the heater on in the restaurant, then the dough warms up overnight at a different rate than it did a couple of days ago. I think, well, there really doesn’t seem to be that much difference but I know there was that two-degree difference, so I’ll correct for it. I’ll think I’m back where I started, but I am not. And then sometimes you don’t even know what’s different and then you just literally scratch your head. In a year it will be obvious what was different.

Can you give me an example?

One of the ingredients I had given pretty minimal thought to—and didn’t realize how important it was—was oregano. I have a little herb garden in front of my house and I grow some oregano. I didn’t like the strain I had. One day I found a better sample in an abandoned herb garden. I dug it up and I put it in my front yard and used it. So now I’m ready to launch the restaurant and I’m going to all my suppliers looking for oregano. Thirty-three oreganos later, I’m still sitting here saying none of them tastes like the one that I grew in my garden.

You don’t realize that there is a difference to be worked on, but that’s when you’re caught with your guard down. The oregano that I really, really like is a year away from production quantity so now I’m experimenting; maybe there’s a better way to dry the oreganos that I have. If I get a fresh one, maybe I can dry it differently and maybe the drying process will give me something closer to what I want. So now I’ve gone down the tunnel trying five, six, or seven ways of drying it—heated drying using a dehydration machine that blows a fan and a little bit of heat over it using dehumidifiers and all these different things.

So it sounds like your method for overcoming this is to try a lot of different things?

It really is, and you know it’s funny because I like to say, well, how do you know? I tried everything and a lot of people think, wow, it’s amazing you figured this out! People think there is some sort of secret magic, but the problem is that when you get to the end of what’s known, when you get to the end of engineering, you’re left with hunch and trial and error, but those carry you much further than people often give them credit for.

Pizza Dough—No-Knead Method

There’s a lot more to making great pizza than the dough—see page 267 for ideas on how to use this dough. This makes enough dough for one medium-sized pizza with the crust rolled thin. You’ll probably want to multiply these quantities by the number of people you’re cooking for.

Weigh into a large bowl or container:

Using a spoon, mix together so that the salt and yeast are thoroughly distributed. Add:

Mix in the water using the spoon so that the flour and water are incorporated.

Cover the bowl or container with plastic wrap and let it rest on the counter for six hours, preferably longer. When ready, transfer the dough to a floured cutting board and gently stretch the dough out, pushing it into either a rectangular or circular pizza shape from the center. For a more rustic crust, leave the edge thicker and handle it minimally to leave more air pockets in the dough. For a thinner crust, roll the dough out. Follow standard pizza making instructions from this point on.

You can mix the ingredients together at breakfast time, before running off to your day job or wherever, and the dough will be ready by the time you get home. It’s the same principle as the no-knead bread (see page 261): the glutenin and gliadin proteins will slowly crosslink on their own.

Note

• If you want to experiment, order some sourdough yeast culture (which is actually a culture of both the well-known sourdough strain of yeast and the bacteria Lactobacillus). The ratio of yeast to bacteria in the dough will impact the flavor. You can control that ratio by letting the dough mature for some amount of time in the fridge, where yeast will multiply but bacteria won’t, and some amount of time at room temperature, where the bacteria will contribute flavors.

Buttermilk Pancakes

Given time, yeast and bacteria generate flavors that we often find pleasant. But what about those times when you’re craving that taste right now—or at least, sometime this morning? You can take a shortcut by using buttermilk, which has already been munched on by bacteria.

Whisk together to combine thoroughly:

In a separate bowl, melt:

In the same bowl as the butter, add and whisk together:

Mix the wet ingredients into the dry, stirring with a whisk or spoon to combine. Cook on a griddle or nonstick frying pan set over medium heat (if you have an IR thermometer, 325–350°F / 160–175°C) until golden brown, about 2 minutes per side.

Notes

• Normally, you can make a buttermilk substitute by adding 1 tablespoon (15g) of vinegar or lemon juice to 1 scant cup (240g) of milk. This will adjust the pH to be roughly the same as that of a cup of buttermilk, but it will not create the same texture or thickness, so don’t use that substitute for this recipe. If you don’t have buttermilk, use regular milk and substitute baking powder for half of the baking soda.

• You don’t need to butter the griddle or pan before cooking these—there is enough butter in the batter that the pancakes are self-lubricating—but if you do feel the need, wipe any excess butter out of the pan before cooking the pancakes. If you have any dots of oil on the surface, they’ll interfere with the Maillard browning reactions.

• Pull the buttermilk and eggs out of the fridge an hour or so before you’re ready to use them, to allow them to come up to room temperature. If you’re in a rush, you can double-duty a microwave-safe mixing bowl: melt the butter in it, add the buttermilk, and then nuke it for 30 seconds to raise the temperature of the buttermilk.

Spicy Holiday Gingerbread Cookies

Chemical leaveners aren’t always used to create light, fluffy foods. Even dense items need some air to keep them enjoyable.

In a bowl, mix together with a wooden spoon or electric beater:

In a separate bowl, whisk together:

Sift the dry ingredients into the bowl with the sugar/butter mixture. (I use a strainer as a sifter.) Work the dry and wet ingredients together using a spoon or, if you don’t mind, your hands. The dough will get to a crumbly, sandlike texture. Add ½ cup (120g) water and continue mixing until the dough forms a ball.

Turn out the dough onto a cutting board coated with a few tablespoons of flour. Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough until it is about ¼” / 0.6 cm thick. Cut it into shapes using a cookie cutter or a paring knife and bake them on a cookie sheet in an oven set to 400°F / 200°C until cooked, about 8 minutes. The cookies should be slightly puffed up and dry, but not overly dry.

Baking gingerbread cookies is, of course, a great holiday activity with kids.

Gingerbread Cookie Frosting

In a microwave-safe bowl, mix together with a fork or electric beaters:

Add food coloring if desired. Microwave the frosting for 15–30 seconds—long enough to melt it, but not so long that it boils. This will give you a frosting that you can then quickly dip the cookies into and that will set into a nice, thin coating that adheres well to the cookies.

One-Bowl Chocolate Cake

I have a thing against cake mixes. Sure, commercial mixes produce very consistent results—they use additives and stabilizers exactly calibrated to give the right amount of gluten and balanced for taste—but even for a quick birthday cake, you can make a truly homemade one that actually tastes like chocolate without much more work.

In a large bowl or the large bowl of a mixer, measure out:

Whisk together the dry ingredients, and then add to the same bowl, whisking to combine thoroughly (about a minute):

Add and whisk to combine:

Prepare two 9” / 22 cm or three 8” / 20 cm round cake pans by lining the bottom with parchment paper. Yes, you really need to do this; otherwise, the cakes will stick and tear when you try to remove them. Spray the paper and pan sides with nonstick spray or coat with butter, and then dust with either flour or cocoa powder.

Divide the batter into the cake pans. If you have a scale, use it to keep the weights of the pans the same; this way, the cakes will be roughly the same height.

Bake batter in an oven preheated to 350°F / 180°C until a toothpick comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Allow the cakes to cool before turning out and frosting. If your cakes sink in the middle, either your batter has too much moisture (see the baking tips on page 249) or your oven is too cold (see the lab on oven calibration on page 36).

Notes

• When placing the cake pans in the oven, put them on a wire rack in the middle of the oven. If you keep a pizza or baking stone in your oven (which I always recommend), don’t set the cakes directly on the stone; put them on a rack above the stone.

• Like buttermilk, baking cocoa powder is acidic! Dutch process cocoa powder, however, is alkalinized—that is, it has had its pH level adjusted, changing it from a pH of around 5.5 to a pH of between 6.0 and 8.0, depending upon the manufacturer. Don’t just blindly substitute Dutch process cocoa powder for straight-up cocoa powder; some of the baking soda will need to be switched out for baking powder.

Chocolate Espresso Ganache Frosting

In a saucepan over medium heat, heat 1 cup (240g) of heavy cream until it just begins to simmer. Remove from heat and add:

Allow ingredients to rest until the chocolate and butter have melted, about 5 minutes. Whisk to thoroughly combine.

To frost the cake, you can pour the still-warm ganache over the cooled cake, allowing it to run down the sides. This can get messy; on the plus side, it’s a great excuse for eating half the ganache.

To create a more traditional frosting, allow the ganache to set in the fridge, about 30 minutes, and then use an electric beater or mixer to beat it until it’s light and fluffy. Coat the top of each layer of the cake with the whipped ganache and stack them, leaving the sides exposed.

Notes

• Make sure your cake is cool before frosting it; otherwise, the hot cake will melt the ganache.

• For a tangier frosting, substitute buttermilk for half of the heavy cream. If you’re feeling inspired, try adding anything you think would work in a truffle. Cinnamon is easy to imagine, but why not cayenne pepper or lavender? Or infuse the cream with Earl Grey tea?

Patent-Violating Chocolate Chip Cookies

Fortunately for us, that patent (#4,455,333) has expired, so the only trouble you’ll run into with these cookies is people fighting over who gets to eat the last one!

The average chewy cookie recipe bakes for 12½ minutes; crispy cookie recipes usually bake for 15 minutes. Making a cookie that’s extra-crispy on the outside and extra-chewy in the middle can’t be done by changing the baking time, because...well, physics. The trick to these “crispy on the outside, chewy in the middle” cookies is to make two different doughs! This idea came to me after reading about a patent from the 1980s that uses the same technique.

Set out two bowls. Label one “crispy” and the other “chewy.” In each bowl, measure out:

Then, to just the “chewy” bowl, add:

Using a whisk, mix the dry ingredients in each bowl to blend them.

Set out two more bowls, and also label them “crispy” and “chewy.” In the new “crispy” bowl, add:

In the empty “chewy” bowl, add:

Using a hand or stand mixer, cream until incorporated and smooth each of the sugar-butter mixtures.

To each of the sugar-butter bowls, add:

Blend until fully incorporated. Add the dry ingredients, making sure to add the right dry ingredients into the right wet ingredients. Blend again to fully incorporate. To each bowl, add and then stir to combine:

Now, for the patent-violating part: smashing the two doughs together in a way that puts the crispy dough on the outside of the cookie and the chewy dough in the middle.

1. Drop a scoop of the crispy dough onto a lined cookie sheet.

   

2. Using the back of the scoop or spoon, smash the cookie ball in the center to make a cookie dough crater, just like making a well in mashed potatoes for gravy.

   

3. Drop a scoop of the chewy dough inside the crater.

   

4. Mush the two doughs together.

   

If you like, add a pinch of very coarse sea salt on top of each cookie before baking.

Bake at 350°F / 180°C for 10–12 minutes, taking care to not overcook them; otherwise, the chewy center will come out crispy!

Notes

• If you’re familiar with refrigerator cookies, instead of following the two-scoop method, you can form a log with the chewy dough in the center, wrapped by the crispy dough. This takes more work, but gives a more uniform edge on the cookie.

• If you don’t have corn syrup and you’re itching to try this right now, honey is a potential substitute: at 38% fructose, 31% glucose, it’s remarkably similar to corn syrup in that both are monosaccharides (sucrose is a disaccharide). Of course, honey will bring its own flavor and color to the cookie, but that might be interesting, depending upon the type of cookie you make. Crispy-chewy oatmeal cookies, anyone?

What happens if you flatten a ball of cookie dough before baking it? Or use fridge- or room-temperature dough? Play, experiment, and see what happens!

For my cookie recipe, flattening the dough made a size difference only for the crispy dough version. Using fridge- versus room-temperature dough didn’t make a difference in size but did change the texture.

Cinnamon Raisin Pumpkin Cake

There are two broad types of cake batters: high-ratio cakes (those that have more sugar and water than flour—or by some definitions, just a lot of sugar) and low-ratio cakes (which tend to have coarser crumbs). For high-ratio cakes, there should be more sugar than flour (by weight) and more eggs than fats (again, by weight), and the liquid mass (eggs, milk, water) should be heavier than the sugar.

Consider this pumpkin cake, which is a high-ratio cake. (245g of pumpkin contains 220g of water—you can look these sorts of values up in the USDA National Nutrient Database, available online at http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/.)

In a mixing bowl, measure out and then mix with an electric mixer to thoroughly combine:

Transfer batter to a greased cake pan or springform pan and bake in an oven preheated to 350°F / 175°C until a toothpick comes out dry, about 25–30 minutes.

Notes

• Try adding dried pears soaked in brandy. You can also hold back some of the raisins and sprinkle them on top.

• One nice thing about high-ratio cakes is that they don’t have much gluten, so they won’t turn out like bread, even with excessive beating. With a total weight of 920 grams, of which only roughly 20 grams is gluten, there just isn’t enough gluten present in this cake to give it a breadlike texture. There’s also a fair amount of both sugar and fats to interfere with gluten development.

If you’re making a quick cake like this pumpkin cake as the finale to an informal dinner party, try serving it directly on a single plate or even a cutting board. Besides lending a pleasant casual feel, this’ll mean fewer dishes to wash!

Tim’s Scones

Tim O’Reilly (founder of O’Reilly Media and publisher of this book) made these scones for me at his home when I interviewed him for the first edition. What Tim didn’t know was that it was my first time ever interviewing someone, so I have fond memories of his kindness that warm August day whenever I make these scones. Makes about one dozen scones.

In a bowl, measure out:

Using a pastry blender or two knives, cut the butter into the flour. When done, the butter and flour should look like small pebbles or peas.

Add and whisk to combine:

(At this point, you can freeze the dough for later use.)

In the center of the dough, make a “well” and add:

Stir dough until you get just shy of a gooey consistency. Start with only ½ cup (130g) of milk, adding more as necessary until the dough begins to hang together. If it gets very sticky, you’ve put in a bit too much milk. You can add more flour if you’ve gone in with less flour to begin with, but it’s better to bake them sticky than to add more than a total of 3 cups of flour—the stickiness is just a problem for shaping them, since the dough sticks to your fingers; too much flour, and they can become tough.

Prepare a baking sheet by lining it with parchment paper or a Silpat (nonstick silicone baking mat). If you don’t have either, lightly grease a baking sheet. (You can just rub it with the paper from the stick of butter.) Using your hands, shape the dough into small lumps and space them evenly on the baking sheet.

Crumbly scones? Flip the scone over and jam the bottom side of it instead of trying to slice it open.

Bake at 425°F / 220°C until the tops are browned, about 10–12 minutes.

Serve with jam, and, if you’re feeling piggy, with Devonshire cream (whipped cream works, too, from one of those aerosol cans, so you can just put a spot of it on).

Notes

• You can use a cheese grater to grate the butter into the flour. Chill the butter for a few minutes so it’s easier to handle.

• Tim freezes the partially mixed dough, adding the milk and currants to the dough after it’s pulled out from the freezer. (The frozen dough has an almost sandlike consistency, so you can pull out as much or as little as you want.) The benefit of the frozen dough is that you can bake scones a few at a time, adding just enough milk to bring the cold dough to a sticky consistency. This makes for a great quick treat, especially if you are the type who has unexpected guests occasionally. It’s also in the spirit of learning to cook like a pro: nothing goes to waste this way, and it’s efficient!

Whisking and Peaks

Which way should you be whisking?

If you’re trying to whisk air into food to create a foam, such as whipped cream or whipped egg whites, whisk—by hand!—in an up-and-down circular motion, catching and trapping air. If you’re trying to mix ingredients together without necessarily adding air, whisk in a flat circular motion. This is especially important for dishes like scrambled eggs where incorporating air reduces the quality. Also, when whisking, avoid tiny little stirring motions. Get in there like you mean it and whisk some air in there!

How do you know when you’re done whisking?

It depends on the recipe. If it calls for soft peaks, the foam should still be supple and pliable, but shouldn’t slide off the whisk. If it calls for firm peaks, the foam should hold and set its shape; stiff peaks look the same but should be firmer and glossier than firm peaks. Overwhisking will give you dry peaks that look like fluffy clouds and won’t rise as well. I prefer whisking egg whites and whipped cream by hand. Why? I’m less likely to accidentally overdo it.

No Peak Foamy stage is the ideal time to add cream of tartar.

Soft Peak Best time to add sugar.

Stiff Peak Good for hard meringues.

Dry Peak Overwhisked; won’t rise as well.

French and Italian Meringue

There are two general forms of meringues: those in which the sugar is directly added as the egg whites are whisked (French meringue), and those in which the sugar is dissolved into a syrup before being whisked into the egg whites (Swiss and Italian meringue—we’ll cover Italian here, but they’re similar). The French version tends to be drier (sugar is hydroscopic, sucking the moisture out of the whites—this is why it increases viscosity) and also grittier, and has the benefit of being faster to make. The Italian version has a smoother, almost creamy texture; it’s great for use as a topping on desserts!

Note that meringues use raw egg whites. You’ll want to bake the meringue if you’re concerned about Salmonella. The Italian version, even with hot sugar syrup, only reaches ~115°F / 45°C when being made. Heat-pasteurized egg whites don’t whisk well: the pasteurization denatures one of the protein complexes supporting the foam structure. Extended whisking time can produce a workable foam; hopefully pressure-pasteurized egg whites will become commercially available someday.

French Meringue

In a clean bowl, whisk 3 egg whites to soft peak stage.

Add ¾ cup (150g) sugar—preferably superfine—one tablespoon at a time, while continuously whisking. If using regular sugar, you’ll need to whisk longer to make sure the sugar is entirely dissolved. To check, roll a little bit of the meringue between two fingers (it shouldn’t feel gritty).

Italian Meringue

Create a simple syrup by heating ½ cup (100g) sugar and ¼ cup (60g) water to 240°F / 115°C in a saucepan. Set aside.

In a clean bowl, whisk 3 egg whites to soft peak stage. Slowly pour in sugar syrup while whisking continuously, which will prevent the hot syrup from cooking the whites.

My Favorite Cake: Chocolate Port Cake

One of the great things about this chocolate port cake—besides the chocolate and the port—is the recipe’s wide error tolerances. Most foam cakes—those cakes that rely on a foam to provide the air—are very light (think angel food cake). The reason this recipe is so forgiving is that it uses a foam without trying to achieve the same lightness.

You’ll need a small saucepan, two clean bowls, a whisk, and a round baking pan or springform pan, 6–8” / 15–20 cm.

In the saucepan (over a burner set to low heat), melt and mix together, but do not boil:

Once the butter is melted, turn off the heat, remove the pan from the burner, and add:

Leave the chocolate to melt in the port/butter mixture.

In two large bowls, separate:

Make sure to use a clean glass or metal bowl for the egg whites, and be careful not to get any egg yolk into the whites.

Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks.

In the bowl with the egg yolks, add:

Whisk the egg yolks and sugar together until thoroughly combined. The yolks and sugar should become a slightly lighter yellow after being whisked for a minute or so. Pour the chocolate mixture into the egg yolk/sugar mixture and whisk to thoroughly combine.

Using a flat wooden spoon or flat spatula, add to the chocolate mixture and fold in (but do not overstir!):

Then fold in the egg whites in thirds; that is, transfer about a third of the whisked egg whites into the chocolate mixture, mix together, and then repeat twice more. Don’t worry about getting the whites perfectly incorporated, although the batter should be relatively well mixed together.

Grease your cake pan with butter and line the bottom with parchment paper to make removing the cake from the pan easier. Transfer the mix to the cake pan and bake in an oven preheated to 350°F / 175°C until a toothpick or knife, when poked into the center, comes out clean, around 30 minutes.

Let the cake cool for at least 10–15 minutes, until the edges have pulled away from the sides, then remove it from the pan. Dust it with powdered sugar (you can use a strainer for this: place a few spoonfuls of powdered sugar in the strainer and then jog it with your hand above the cake).

Note

• When working with chocolate in baking, don’t just substitute, say, 80% bittersweet chocolate for a semisweet bar. In addition to differences in sugar, the two types of chocolate have different quantities of cocoa fat, and recipes that rely on the fat level will need to be adjusted accordingly.

Simple White Wine and Cheese Sauce

This sauce needs very few ingredients and not much in the way of equipment—a whisk, a bowl, and a stovetop—making it an easy impromptu dish even in an unfamiliar kitchen. (For more on sauces, see page 104.)

The only tricky part is preventing the eggs in this sauce from getting too hot and scrambling. If you have a gas burner, you can manage this by moving the saucepan on and off a flame set to very low heat. Position yourself so that you can hold the pan with one hand while whisking with the other; you’ll need to move the pan to regulate the temperature. If you have an electric burner, use a double-boiler instead: fill a large saucepan with water and place the saucepan with the mixture inside it.

In a saucepan, separate 3 egg yolks, saving the egg whites for some other dish. Add ¼ cup (60g) white wine and whisk to combine.

Once you’re ready to start cooking, place the pan over the flame or in the water bowl bath and whisk continuously until the egg yolks have set and you have a frothy foam, about two to three times the volume of the original. This can take 5–10 minutes. Be patient; it’s better to go too slow than too quick.

Add 3–4 tablespoons (15–20g) freshly grated Parmesan cheese (not the powdery stuff in a can!) and whisk until thoroughly combined. Add salt and pepper to taste, and serve on top of an entrée such as fish with asparagus.

Note

• White wine is quite acidic, with pH levels of around 3.4 (Chardonnay) to 2.9 (Riesling). Since acids help prevent egg yolks from coagulating under heat, the wine actually helps protect against coagulation. (Pour yourself a glass; that’ll help too.)

Zabaglione (Sabayon)

This dish is easy, but it does benefit from a few practice runs. Luckily, the ingredients are cheap!

Zabaglione is the dessert equivalent of white wine and cheese sauce, made by whisking wine, sugar, and egg yolks over low heat; it’s essentially a foamy custard, but without the milk. And, like the white wine and cheese sauce, this is a great recipe to have tucked away in the back of your head.

Measure out ¼ cup (60g) Marsala wine and set aside.

In a saucepan, separate 3 egg yolks, saving the whites for something else (meringues!). Add ¼ cup (50g) sugar to the yolks and whisk to combine.

Place pan over heat, following the directions for the white wine and cheese sauce. Pour in a tablespoon of the Marsala and whisk. Continue adding the Marsala a tablespoon or so at a time, whisking for a minute between each addition. You’re looking for the egg yolks to froth up and foam; the heat will eventually set the egg yolks to make a stable foam. If you notice that the egg yolks are scrambling, quickly pour in more of the Marsala to cool the mixture down; it’s not ideal, but it’ll prevent you from having an entire dish of sweet scrambled eggs on your hands. Once the sauce begins to show soft peaks, remove from heat and serve.

Traditionally, zabaglione is served with fruit: spoon a small portion into a bowl or glass and top with fresh berries. You can also store it in the fridge for a day or two.

Fruit Soufflé

You’re probably wondering what soufflé is doing in the section on egg yolks, right? After all, it’s the egg whites that famously give soufflés their rise. I have a confession to make: I make my fruit-based dessert soufflés by making zabaglione. (I am so never going to win a James Beard award.)

Preheat your oven to 375°F / 190°C. Prepare a 1 quart / 1 liter soufflé bowl—which will hold enough soufflé for two or three people—by buttering the inside and then coating it with sugar (toss in a few spoonfuls, then rotate the dish back and forth to coat the side walls).

Prepare the fruit:

Fresh strawberries, raspberries, and white peaches work exceptionally well; wet fruits such as pears can work, but the water may separate while cooking, so start with berries. Rinse and dry the fruit. If using strawberries, hull them; if using peaches or other stone fruits, peel them, quarter them, and remove the pits. Reserve about ½ cup—a small handful—of the fruit for placing on top of the cooked soufflé. Prepare a second handful of fruit, again about ½ cup, for cooking by slicing it into small pieces; cut strawberries into eighths and peaches into very thin slices. (Raspberries will fall apart on their own.)

Make zabaglione:

Start by making a zabaglione: whisk 3 egg yolks with ¼ cup (50g) sugar over low heat and add ¼ cup (50g) of kirsch—cherry-flavored brandy—instead of Marsala. (Save the egg whites for whisking.) After adding the kirsch, add the fruit that’s been sliced into small pieces and stir, thoroughly mashing in the fruit. You don’t need to actually cook the egg yolks until they set; you’re just looking to stir and whisk them until you have a frothy, warm, soft foam. Set aside while preparing the egg whites.

Whisk egg whites, fold, and bake:

Whisk the egg whites to soft peak stage, adding a pinch of salt for taste. Fold the egg whites into the fruit base and transfer the mixture to the soufflé bowl. Bake in the oven until the soufflé has risen and the top is browned, about 15–20 minutes. Remove and place the soufflé dish on a wooden cutting board. Dust the soufflé with powdered sugar, place the reserved fruit on top (slice strawberries or peaches into thin slivers), and serve at once. If you’re in informal company, it’s easiest to just set the soufflé in the center of the table and hand everyone a fork to dig in.

You can use this same technique with the white wine and cheese sauce from the previous page to make a savory soufflé.

David Lebovitz on American and French Cooking

PHOTO OF DAVID LEBOVITZ USED BY PERMISSION OF PIA STERN

David Lebovitz has written several well-received books on desserts and was formerly a pastry chef at the renowned Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California, for over a decade. His website is at http://www.davidlebovitz.com.

What was working at Alice Waters’s Chez Panisse like for you?

Chez Panisse is a great place to work. Money is no object when it comes to sourcing ingredients, and it’s a great training ground for cooks. The restaurant really supports the owners and the other cooks, who are very, very interested in producing good food. Once you’re in that environment, it’s hard to leave. You go somewhere else and you’re working with a bunch of line cooks that just care about who won the game last night and how fast they can cook the steaks on the grill so they can get out and go drink beer.

The whole idea of Chez Panisse is to find good ingredients and do as little to them as possible. When we had beautiful fruit, we would often just serve a bowl of fruit or a fruit tart with ice cream; or if we had really good chocolate, we would make a chocolate cake, but it wasn’t a cake that was highly decorated, it didn’t have a lot of technical swoops and things. Chez Panisse is all about flavor. A lot of the fancy stuff doesn’t taste good, so we were more concerned with flavor.

I had dinner last night at a fancy restaurant. They brought this chocolate mousse and there was tapenade on the side. Someone was, like, “Olives: it would be really cool on the plate!” But if someone tasted it? Disgusting. I just wanted to go into the kitchen and say, “Have you guys tasted this food? Because it’s stupid.”

You had worked at Chez Panisse for years before taking culinary training. What surprises did you run across in that culinary training?

I wasn’t expecting things not to taste good. I took a course in making cakes in France, and I thought, “We’re going to make cakes that are delicious.” It actually was making mousses with gelatin and with fruit purées from the freezer, and everything was like sponge cake, gelatinized fruit purée, and decorations. It was interesting, and I learned something, but those skills don’t even translate to what I do. Even if you use fresh fruit, it’s just not the best way to use it. I’m an ingredients-based cook.

I did go to chocolate school and that was great; I learned a lot about chocolate, how to work with it, how to manipulate it. Once again, I’m more interested in finding wonderful hazelnuts and in rolling them in chocolate, rather than opening up a can of hazelnut paste and making chocolates out of it.

What would you recommend to somebody who wants to learn how to bake?

The best thing they can do is just bake. The thing about baking is it’s very recipe-oriented. If you want to learn to make a pound cake, you just make a recipe, and the longer you go, the more you see how things work, how you can change things. You can add an egg yolk to make things richer or substitute sour cream for the milk in the recipe.

A lot of bakers are very precise, and we do have a reputation, especially in the professional world. A chef once said to me, “Why are you guys all so weird?” There are a lot of strange people in the pastry world, because we are very precise, we do like to go in our own little world, and we’re very analytical people in general. We think a lot about things, whereas a line cook, it’s a lot of brawn; it’s big, bold flavors; it’s roasting meat; it’s frying vegetables; it’s grilling. Those are ways of coaxing flavor out, but pastry is a much more delicate thing, it demands a lot more care, a lot more softer skills.

When you’re working on a pastry, how do you go about getting unstuck when it’s just not coming out the way you want it to?

If you knew how to get out of that, you wouldn’t be in there in the first place. I develop recipes and write books, so I’ll be making things, I’ll make them over and over again, and if I’m really stumped, I have a decent network of people who can help me. I might write to a friend who is a bakery cooking professor and say, “I’m trying to make persimmon pie; have you ever made it?” and he’ll be like, “Oh, persimmons have a chemical in there that prevents this from happening, and try doing this...” Also, a lot of baking is science. If I make a cake and I want it to be moister and higher, I just have to sit down with my calculator and work it out.

How do you know what the formula is for working it out?

There are printed formulas, which some bakers use. But I’m not so good with math. Michael Ruhlman wrote a wonderful book on ratios, but my brain isn’t wired to think that way. So I just make things a million times, until I get it right.

So yours is a much more try-it-and-see approach, as opposed to sitting down and trying to figure out the optimal formula?

Yeah.

A lot of people are very analytical about cooking, and they want to know how things work. It’s a different method. It’s like a lot of Europeans wonder why Americans won’t give up their measuring cups and spoons, which is a terrible way to cook. It’s inaccurate and leads to people doing all sorts of weird things. Americans like to hold measuring cups and spoons; it makes us feel good, so we’re not going to give them up. Cooking is a visceral thing; a lot of people like to overanalyze recipes. They’re like, “Can I make this cake without the quarter teaspoon of vanilla extract?” and I’m like, “Okay, well, think about it, what do you think?” A lot of people don’t know, because they’re overanalyzing the recipe. They’re not stupid, it’s just that they’re not, I don’t know what... It’s like, “If I let 5% of the air out of my tire, can I still drive?” “Yes. Better if it’s full.”

Why do you think Americans overanalyze recipes?

I think that Americans are in this weird space where they want to be told what to do. They want an authority to tell them that this is the recipe, don’t change it, rather than say, “Wait a minute, look at the facts!” A recipe might say bake a chicken for an hour, and someone will write and say they baked it for an hour, and it was too dry. Well, your chicken was probably four pounds instead of six. There’s only so much stuff you can put in a recipe.

[My] website was started in 1999, when my first book came out, because I thought—famous last words—I thought it would be a good way for people to get in touch with me in case they had problems with the recipes. You don’t want people saying the recipes don’t work; you’d rather have them write to you and say, “I made this cake and it didn’t work; what did I do wrong?”

I have a recipe—actually, it’s in the oven right now—for a cake that has one egg in the whole cake; that’s the only fat in it. Some woman wrote me—she’s trying to eat less fat—what could she replace the egg with? I’m like, one egg yolk? That’s 5 grams of fat for 12 servings. Somebody actually asked that, and then I wonder how these people go to the bank every day, get their driver’s license, pay bills, write a check, and work. What’s going through their minds?

I’m not quite sure I follow you there.

Those kinds of things seem like common sense to me. Somebody who is concerned about eating an eighth or a twelfth of an egg yolk because they’re on a low-fat diet? I don’t understand that thinking. It’s like saying, “I don’t like chocolate; how can I make these chocolate chip cookies without chocolate?” It’s like, sorry, that’s what it is.

What do you think of people who really feel like they need to have the most up-to-date technical equipment and toys?

Well, that’s an American thing. I go back to America and everyone has wine refrigerators, and they’re filled with Kendall Jackson Chardonnay. If you have good wine, you don’t put it in one of those refrigerators, because they have compressors that shake, which is bad for wine. Unless you have a very good wine refrigerator that doesn’t shake, you’re better off without it. It’s funny to see people who have wok burners and wine refrigerators and all that stuff in their house. A lot of people want to have the illusion of cooking; they want to have all these bottles of olive oil wrapped up on the counter in baskets and things, but on the other hand, do they really need all that stuff?

It sounds like one piece of advice you would give to somebody is to not obsess over equipment?

Yes. You don’t need every saucepan in the world, you need like three. For me, having a mixer is very important; for me, having an ice cream machine is important. But you don’t need a panini grill; you can use your skillet and just put a weight on top of it, something like a can of tomatoes, and there you have it.