Joy of Cooking

by Irma S. Rombauer

Joy is not a translation of professional practices for laypeople. We do not promise (and therefore do not expect) mastery, nor do we wish for our readers to aspire to perform every kitchen task “like a pro.” Both ends are worth pursuing but seem less urgent to us than enabling readers to approach the act of cooking—of feeding oneself and others—with confidence and ease. We wish to be there for all cooks—absolute beginners, harried parents, dabblers/aspirers, and professionals alike. Regardless of your skill level or how much time and effort you are comfortable giving, learning to cook begins in the home kitchen, and Joy is written by and for home cooks. This may seem like a fine point, but we think it is central to what has made Joy different from other cookbooks, and why it has found its way into so many kitchens and hearts.

Preserving tradition, but staying relevant and up-to-date… aimed at all skill levels, all demographics… comprehensive, but curated… authoritative, but authentic and relatable… resolving these contradictions—or at least artfully weaving our way between them—has defined the last 10 years of our lives. In all honesty, it’s an odd mix of imperatives, but we think they’re each important in their own way. More importantly, we hope that most cooks would recognize these competing needs as their own. If you're in the U.S., don't forget to enter our Giveaway for 'Joy of Cooking,' open for entries until March 31st: https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/304442-joy-of-cooking

Fine sea salt or Morton’s kosher salt can be used without having to make any adjustments.

We made the strategic decision to call for table salt in the recipes in Joy (in spite of the fact that we prefer to use Diamond kosher salt in our own kitchen). There are a few reasons for this. One, Joy’s recipes have always used table salt. Two, table salt is a particularly salty salt (it has tiny crystals, resulting in more salt by volume than, say, Diamond kosher salt). If someone were to substitute Diamond kosher salt for table salt in a recipe, the dish would be under-salted, which has an easy fix (just add more salt to taste!). The other side of the coin is if we were to call for Diamond kosher salt, but someone substituted table salt, they would end up oversalting their food, which can be unsalvageable. But most importantly, the vast majority of American home cooks use table salt. The subject of salt is a sticky one in recipe writing because the kind of salt you use can dramatically affect the outcome of any dish. For this reason, we wanted to clearly outline how to substitute other kinds of salt for table salt. You might notice that a few of our recipes specifically call for Diamond kosher salt, pickling salt, or fine sea salt. When salting meat, it is easier to get an even distribution of salt with Diamond kosher salt—it has a lighter, flakier crystal structure and is less salty by volume than table salt or sea salt. This makes it much easier to evenly distribute on the surface of foods. For fermentation recipes, we use Diamond kosher salt, fine sea salt, or pickling salt because these salts do not contain additives (such as anti-caking agents or iodine) that might interfere with fermentation or affect the flavor, texture, or color of the ferment. In pickling recipes, we call for pickling salt for a similar reason—it contains no additives that may discolor pickles or result in sediment in the bottom of the jar.

We understand the convenience of buying preground spices, but we strongly recommend going to a little extra trouble by buying them whole and grinding them yourself.

One of the easiest ways to cook tastier food is by using better ingredients. Often, that means spending more money. However, when it comes to spices, this is not the case. Spices have such an intense flavor because they contain concentrated amounts of volatile flavor compounds. When spices are ground, these compounds are exposed to the air, which causes oxidation. Over time, the flavors of the spices deteriorate. Whole spices are less prone to degradation because a far smaller percentage of those volatile compounds are exposed to the air. We are always a little shocked at the price of ground spices at the average grocery store, especially since any ground spice, no matter how freshly ground, is on its way to becoming a nearly flavorless dust. This is especially true for spices you use in tiny amounts, like cloves—by the time you reach the bottom of that jar of ground cloves, the flavor will be a shadow of its former self. However, if you buy whole cloves and grind them as needed, the flavor is going to be rich, vibrant, and nuanced. Preground coriander and cardamom, in our experience, are dead-on-arrival when we have made the mistake of purchasing them. We often buy whole spices at international markets, but there are many incredible purveyors of high-quality whole spices. Some of our favorites are Penzey’s, Diaspora Co., and Burlap & Barrel.

While we strongly believe that cooking is based just as much on experience and intuition as it is scientific accuracy,

Here we introduce measuring and cross-reference instructions for doing so by volume, weight, and temperature. As this initial sentence suggests, we do not want to overemphasize measuring as some sort of miraculous guarantor of success. Measuring is one of many skills, and we want beginners (the intended audience for this chapter) to approach it as such. In recent years there has been a push towards treating cooking like a science. Whether it’s concocting experiments to find the “best” way to make something or referring to the kitchen as a “lab,” scientifically approaching the preparation of food is in vogue. We certainly appreciate this approach: the scientific method—broadly defined—is at the heart of recipe writing, not to mention any other knowledge gained through careful observation, experimentation, etc. We certainly relied upon the work of many food scientists while revising Joy. That said, we feel something is lost when you look at your kitchen as a researcher looks at a laboratory. Simply put, life intervenes. You become a good cook not by following exacting formulas but by embracing and learning to cope with the astonishing number of variables you are confronted with every time you step in the kitchen. It is hard to keep up the kitchen-as-lab pretense when the heat of every stove is a little different; ambient humidity, atmospheric pressure, and temperature affect results; and the ingredients used vary tremendously in flavor and size. Add to this the capriciousness of personal tastes and you can see how cooking might defy scientific rigor! The point here is that cooking is not just about following rules. It is about having the experience and confidence to make innumerable judgment calls.

Typically, the ingredients added “to taste” are salt and acid.

One of the biggest mistakes we see home cooks make is not tasting food as it cooks or even before it hits the dinner table. How do you know something is going to taste the way you want it to unless you actually try it while you still have the chance to impact the end result? 99% of the time, when you taste a dish and feel like it needs a little something, that something is going to be salt or acidity. Salt doesn’t just make food taste saltier. It brings out other flavors, making everything taste a little more “of itself.” Acidity gives food character or vibrancy. Once, we were talking with a farmer about the variety of blackberries he grew. It was a punchy blackberry with a lot of acidity, and we kept going back for more. Eschewing sweeter varieties, he said “acidity is what makes food taste good.” An oversimplification maybe, but there’s a grain of truth there. Acidity makes food really pop, throwing other flavors into stark relief. It also makes food interesting. This is why we put a big bowl of cranberry sauce on the table at Thanksgiving or spread a mouth-puckering mustard on sandwiches made with cold cuts—contrast is important in making food taste good. If you’re interested in how acidity makes food delicious, and about the different types of acids you can use in cooking, also see the section called Acidic Ingredients on page 950.

Alcohol can be part of a balanced diet if you stick to the limits of one drink a day for women and two for men.

We love that this is one of the most highlighted parts of the book! While there aren’t really health benefits to drinking alcohol, it is a huge part of human culture around the world. Turns out people really like to drink and socialize! Done responsibly and in moderation, drinking can enhance the experience of eating and provide joy in its own right. The complex flavors of wines, beers, ciders, and spirits are enjoyable and infinitely varied. If you want to learn more about alcoholic beverages, check out the Cocktails, Wine, and Beer chapter where we discuss individual liquors, wines, and beer, and how they go with food. And since all alcoholic beverages are fermented, read About Fermentation on page 938.

⇒ To make a sanitizing solution, mix ¾ teaspoon household bleach with 1 quart of cool water. The best option is to keep a 32-ounce spray bottle under the sink for easy access and convenient use.

This is the first time Joy has ever included a general food safety section, but we felt it was important. There are lots of small steps you can take to make sure your food is safe for everyone to eat, and sanitizing work surfaces that have come in contact with raw meat is an easy one. We know how busy home cooks are, and we understand that it can be tempting to skip proper sanitization steps. This is why we recommend having a spray bottle of bleach solution ready to go. This is one small example of Joy’s commitment to being a truly comprehensive cookbook. Most other cookbooks don’t go into things like food safety, but we want to be a complete resource for cooks, no matter what they’re looking for, be it how to sharpen a knife, purify water, churn butter, build a campfire, or make scrambled eggs.

Canned foods can usually be eaten well past their indicated dates, provided there are not visible signs of rust or bulging.

Fun fact: the reason commercially canned goods are so reliably safe these days is largely because of NASA. A microbiologist named Howard Bauman worked with NASA in the late 1950s to ensure that food sent into space with astronauts was 100% safe to eat. In response to some food contamination incidents in the 1970s, including a botulism outbreak, the standards that Bauman helped develop for astronaut food—called HACCP, or Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points—were adopted by commercial food producers, resulting in canned goods that are remarkably safe. Thanks, NASA! Further, “expiration dates” are set by food manufacturers and are usually good indicators of when a food will start to deteriorate in quality or flavor, but not necessarily when it is unsafe to eat. That said, it is good pantry practice to rotate stocks of food using the FIFO principle—First In First Out. Move older items to the front and put newer ones behind them so you go through food in a timely manner.

First, set yourself up for success by preparing as much as you can ahead of time.

This is our saving grace when we entertain. We almost never make something for guests that needs to be cooked à la minute. Not because we think we can’t do it, but because it saves us a little stress and allows us to enjoy our company more. We have been known to take this principle to the extreme—washing and drying salad greens and having them ready to go in a salad bowl in the fridge, for example. It’s just extra peace of mind and one less thing to have to do once guests arrive.

boil. Much of learning how to cook is really learning how to observe. It is difficult to observe much of anything if you are running

This passage occurs in our discussion of mise en place, the French term for prepping all of the ingredients before starting a recipe. As with entertaining, having everything ready to go makes the act less stressful. In addition to improving your mindset, you have more time to actually socialize with your guests. Prepping all of the ingredients for a recipe is very similar: you are less likely to freak out, to be sure, and you are able to spend “quality time” with your ingredients, getting to know them intimately as they caramelize, sear, etc. Taken out of context, the proposition “learning how to cook is really learning how to observe” is mildly provocative and needs to be unpacked a bit. We wrote this shortly after finishing the Cooking Methods and Techniques chapter. At the beginning of that chapter (page 1042), we wrote the following: Marion began this chapter in 1975 with an anecdote well worth repeating: "A hard-boiled professional cook was asked what she regarded as the most useful, elementary advice for an ambitious beginner. She tersely replied, “Stand facing the stove.” While Marion’s deadpan wit may lurk beneath this nugget of common sense, we think a different reading might be worth considering. To begin, we must open our senses to observe and appraise our tools, the workspace, and situate ourselves in relation to them. Much intervenes between a recipe on the page and food on the plate: the quirks of your stove or cooktop, the particularities of the ingredients you purchased, the tastes and preferences of those you cook for. These myriad factors can only be accounted for by an inquiring mind observant of its surroundings." Our explanation of Marion’s anecdote is an attempt to arrive at a more holistic picture of cooking than the exacting, scientific approach—or, for that matter, the idea that cooking is an artform that must be mastered. Cooking does not have to be framed as “scientific” or “artistic.” Central to both is the simple act of observing: taking the measure of ingredients, adjusting heat, interpreting the instructions of a recipe… “stand[ing,] facing the stove,” as Marion wrote. You may be guided by a desire to put things together in a graceful way or you may be animated by a need for precision and the promise of guaranteed outcomes. Or, you may simply be hungry. Regardless, at the heart of cooking is a never-ending conversation we participate in. Our appetites and aspirations meet the world, we assess the situation as best we can, and try to negotiate a good meal out of the exchange.

If using a steamer basket, place it inside the pot, bring the water to a boil, and gently place the eggs in the basket with long-handled tongs. Cover immediately and steam the eggs 5 minutes on high heat for large eggs.

Steaming eggs is our favorite way to hard-cook them, hands down. Boiling enough water to steam eggs takes much less time than that required to boil them, and the shells are easier to peel. Our steamer was handed down to us (it was Marion’s), and has a perforated insert that stacks on top. We definitely prefer it over the collapsible baskets that fit inside a pot, since all you need to do is place the eggs in the insert, bring the water to a boil, then place the insert on top and cover. (Lowering eggs into a pot with tongs is not our favorite thing to do.)