These days, nothing is more fun—nor more socially ac­ceptable—than "messing about in the kitchen." What with pressure cookers, electric broilers and blenders, packaged mixes, bottled sauces, every possible herb or spice from the Indies, and something new every day in the frozen food sec­tion of any supermarket, Cookery is the latest game, the newest fad.

Now that women find it's fun to cook, and men are remem­bering that every great name in gastronomy from Epicurus to Escoffier is masculine, the next step is Gourmet Cookery —and turning yourself into a Cordon Bleu is no longer diffi­cult.

In this book we present a selection of great traditional dishes, as well as some "novelties." All are designed to be prepared in a limited time for the modern-day reproduction of a Lucullan Feast—and all are proportioned for four hun­gry gourmets. Note, too, that all gourmet recipes are intended for adults—because a child's palate does not develop until the late teens.

Even ten years ago, many of these recipes could not have been included, and there is no denying that some great culi­nary masterpieces still cannot be prepared in only thirty min­utes. Even with a pressure cooker, the true Coq au Vin, Blanquette de Veau or Boeuf BourguigNonne, while edible cannot possess the suave blend of flavors that comes from leisurely simmering.

Time is essential, too, for chilling or resting of some dishes that can easily be prepared in a few minutes. Therefore, a few recipes are included that require 30 minutes or less to prepare—but which must be allowed to stand overnight be­fore the final minutes or preparation and service.

These are marked Two-Step Cookery; neither step requires more than 30 minutes—but if you like to think this a quibble, we can only recommend that you try the dish and hope it wall be found worthy of inclusion.

BASIC TIPS TO THE CHEF

1. It may actually be easier to prepare a glamorous dish (foreign name and all), than the run-of-the-mill dishes you've been eating all your life.
   
   
2. Read all the way through a recipe first; check to be sure ingredients are at hand. You will save time and achieve bet­ter results if you understand, in general terms, what you are going to do before you start to do it.
   
   
3. Never try to make more than one unfamiliar recipe for the same meal! A wise chef never tries a new recipe when there is "company," either. Always get the recipe under your belt at least once before you attempt to produce it with eclat for strangers.
   
   
4. Accurate measurements are essential; accurate timing is essential. Never hesitate to make your personal penciled comments next to the recipe; the annotated cookbook is a chefs most valuable possession.
   
   
5. Gourmet cookery requires the best quality in ingredient. Please, no substitutions 1 Real butter, real cream, the freshest mushrooms, the best olive oil ... all are essential for a gourmet dish.
   
   
6. When there are 4 or 6 people for dinner, the chef dictates the schedule: Finish the drinks, wash the hands, and sit down! But for more than 6 people (even if they will be formally seated at the table), it's wise to plan a main dish that can only improve with overcooking!
   
   
7. Wipe meats, poultry and fish on paper toweling, rather than washing—and never season before cooking, as this toughens the flesh. Seasonings go into sauces, or should be added at the end of the plain-cooking.
   
   
8. Spaghetti sauces, curries and stews are easy ways to use up leftovers—the easiest things to stretch for unexpected guests—and the simplest things to prepare when the cook wants to enjoy the fun as well as set a distinguished meal on the table.

GO-TOGETHERS AND SUBSTITUTES

1. Any recipe requiring: green pepper, scallions, celery, mushrooms, tomatoes or parsley, may be amplified or ex­ tended by adding an equal amount of any of the others.
   
   
2. Shrimp, crab, scallops and lobsters respond to a rich sauce of cream, white wine and mushrooms, plus a dash of nutmeg—or thin tart lemon-butter-parsley sauces . . . but oysters, clams and mussels prefer the thin sauce.
   
   
3. Salted or corned meats are exclusive and do not com­bine happily with anything but chicken and eggs. All other plain-cooked meats and poultry can be teamed for a chefs salad, a potluck curry, sliced meat platter, or creamed in patty shells.
   
   
4. In a dire emergency, chicken creamed or curried can be stretched by a tin of white meat tuna. Cut the oil with lemon juice, douse in cold water, and slice into neat pieces.
   
   
5. Yoghurt and sour cream are interchangeable—although the flavor will be slightly different in the final dish.
   
   
6. Use condensed cream soups for a quick white sauce: MBT soup packets are quicker to use than pressed bouillon or consommé cubes. Dilute cream soups % to % when used as a sauce. For dishes with plenty of cooking liquid, sprinkle powders directly into hot liquid and stir gently until dis­ solved.

SAUCES

The saying goes (although it's a gross libel today) that "The French have a hundred sauces to disguise a few foods —anil the Americans have a hundred foods disguised only by White Sauce!"

It is true that many great gourmet dishes involve a special sauce, which used to take hours to prepare. For the quick gourmet chef, there's a way around this:

1. Hollandaise and Béarnaise: Both are available in glass jars. If you cannot find them in your local gourmet shop, consult the listing at the end of this chapter.
   
   
2. Madeira, Armoricainet Newburg, Supreme, et al: These, too, are available tinned or frozen, and will transform the humble hamburger or leftover into a gourmet's dream.
   
   
3. Bottled Meat Sauces: Heinz A-l, H-P, Escoffier's Diable, Robert or Cumberland sauce, Worcestershire, and a wide range of mustards from Devilled to Bahamian to Dijon— Wash your hands thoroughly, use a judicious few tablespoons of whatever you fancy, and rub it thoroughly into chops and steaks. This replaces the marinades which used to take hours.
   
   
4. Dessert Sauces: Be cautious about these! There are lots of edible varieties—but very few that come up to a gour­ met's standard! Escoffier's Sauce Melba, and General Foods Gourmet Fudge Sauce Royale are acceptable . . . but as you will see in Chapter 13, there are innumerable quick tricks with liqueurs and fresh fruit for presenting gourmet desserts in a minute.
   
   
5. Basting Sauces: Here you begin to be a gourmet chef, for a basting sauce is largely invention based on experience as you grow proficient with recipes

Basting sauces are used with fish, meat and poultry. Gen­erally, they are melted butter blended with herbs—or spices —or fruit and fruit peels—with or without a dash of cooking wine. The precise ingredients depend upon the final flavor desired: tangy, sultry, or sweetish.

The basting sauce should be made at the start of the cook­ing operation, placed over the lowest possible heat, allowed to sit and grow acquainted with itself. A quarter pound of butter makes an adequate basting sauce; half a pound is sometimes better—if you can bring yourself to it!

The basic procedure is to combine butter chunks and de­sired seasonings or flavorings in a small saucepot (a stainless steel one-cup measure with a handle is satisfactory), and to obtain the full savory blend by simmering gently during the first steps of searing meat or poultry, firming the fish flesh, etc. A basting sauce is used to moisten and flavor a dish during its cooking; it is brushed directly onto roasting meat or poultry with a pastry brush at 10 or 15 minute intervals, or poured over fish and broiled dishes every 5 minutes for quick cookery.

For long cooking roasts, when the basting sauce has all 10 been used, a roaster-baster will pick up pan juices for mois­tening the dish.

6. Wine Sauces: American wines are as good—and often better—than imported brands for cookery. "The better the wine, the better the dish" is the gourmet standard ... al­ though it's not necessary to buy fine vintage drinking wines for use in the kitchen.

Never buy cooking wine or liquor purely on a price basis; the cheap brands do not have sufficient alcoholic content to create a fiambee dish—and will not have enough flavor to remain in the sauce. White wines can be used for any recipes, but red wines can only be used for dark meats . . . when they will not discolor the dish.

At table, the only standard today is flavor, and red or white wines are served interchangeably.

When wine is added directly to a dish during cooking, lower the heat immediately or the meat will toughen.

7. Fats and Oils: For true gourmet cookery, there is no substitute for butter unless particularly specified. Sweet but­ ter is preferable, because the amount of salt varies in com­ mercial brands; if salt butter is used, decrease the amount of salt in a recipe and check seasoning just before you serve.

Butter is absolutely essential for sauces and basting, but cannot be used for frying; at high temperatures, it decom­poses chemically and burns.

For Deep-Fat Frying, use liquid or hydrogenated oils such as Wesson, Crisco, Spry, etc. These can be re-used once or twice, if you allow sediment to settle and decant (pour off) the clear top fat after each frying. Once frying fat has been used for fish, it cannot be used for anything else! If you enjoy fried foods, it's wise to have two fat kettles—one for fish, and one for everything else.

For all Italian, Spanish or Latin-American dishes, a table­spoon of olive oil can replace butter in starting the dish.

Lard is excellent for greasing baking potatoes or pan-frying fish. It cannot be re-used, but is inexpensive enough to dis­card and start fresh next time.

Bacon grease is equally good for baking potatoes or to saute fish, and can be smeared thickly over chicken breasts or squab before roasting. Because of its positive flavor, only tangy herbs will combine with it for added taste.

If you have time to melt it, or can buy it in jars, chicken fat also has many uses, either to baste poultry or (solidified) in place of half the butter required for pastry dough’s.

No gourmet cook ever uses margarine for anything.

8. Meat Glazes: For a handsome browned surface to meat or poultry, mix a tablespoon of commercial gravy coloring such as Kitchen Bouquet, Gravymaster, etc. with two table­ spoons of water. Paint all exposed parts of the poultry or meat before placing in the oven.

9. Shallots are a small onion bulb resembling garlic in formation of cloves, but very mild in flavor. Typically French, they are not always available but make all the difference in a sauce if they can be had. Minced scallions (spring onions) are an acceptable substitute—and in moments of stress, a tablespoon of grated white onion will equal 2 minced shallots.

10. Grated orange and lemon peel are readily available in jars; a teaspoon equals the grated rind of a whole medium- sized fruit.

11. Garlic can be bought powdered (a quarter teaspon equals a fresh clove), but a garlic press will produce a much better flavor from a peeled garlic clove—if you can afford the time.

Onion and garlic juice are also available; use them purely for flavoring, as many dishes are better with sauteed pieces of onion. Onion flakes are good for home-cooking, but not sufficient for gourmet results.

INGREDIENTS

Despite the immense and satisfying variety of foods in the United States, not everything is equally available everywhere.

Frozen sweetbreads exist on the West Coast, for instance —but are mysteriously not to be had in the East; frozen trout are generally cheaper in the East than in the West; snowpeas are often available in average Western supermarkets, but can only be found in Chinese sections of Eastern cities, and so on.

Meat varies enormously, both in cut and price. Generally speaking, the West Coast has little understanding of meat "extras," and veal kidneys, sweetbreads, tripe and calves' brains are far cheaper there than in the East . . . but the thin pounded veal slices for scallopini are relatively harder to find in the West than in the East. Mutton chops are also unknown to the West—but none too easy to procure in the East, either!

Western lobsters do not possess claws—but abalone is unknown in the East. There is no state of the union that does not contain some sort of local fresh-caught fish, but far too many people seem not to know how good a fish dish can taste.

For the lucky people who live in rural areas with their own vegetable gardens (how we envy them!), there are tiny, fresh garden greens unknown to city dwellers.

So everything is available somewhere—but a gourmet cook learns to use what is freshly available in his own locality. Perhaps there will be some recipes you cannot try because the makings are not at hand—but take heart! Unquestionably, there will be some dishes you can do superbly, which will be impossible for cooks in other parts of the country.

Nearly every community has a store catering to the new interest in gourmet foods; most supermarkets have a fancy food department. If you still cannot find what you need, write to any of the following for an order catalog:

CAVIARTERIA, 153 West 57th Street, New York 19

CHARLES & CO., 340 Madison Avenue, New York City

GOURMET TREATS, 52 West 72nd Street, New York City

JURGENSEN'S, 409 North Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills, Calif.

MAISON GLASS, 52 West 58th Street, New York City

MARYLAND GOURMET MARKET, 414 Amsterdam Avenue, New York City

VENDOME, 15 East 48th Street, New York City

LAST WORDS

Meal-planning can be a terrible trap for the unwary. A gourmet menu must be considered as a whole; each course is a subtle bridge between all others; each flavor should be separate, yet blend with everything else; wine is used as an accent to clear the palate.

In the excitement of mastering gourmet-cookery, do not go overboard, and create an end product of indigestion for all!

1. The theme of the meal depends on the main dish; other courses should support this. If East Indian curry is the entree, do not precede it by Italian antipasto—or follow with crapes Suzettel
   
   
2. Emphasize one course, and simplify all others so they will point up the masterpiece.
   
   
3. Never serve more than one rich sauce within the same course. A Chateaubriand with Sauce Beamaise does not team with Broccoli Hollandaise, although this will be wonderful with plain broiled hamburger.
   
   
4. Salad is used to clear the palate, in preparation for the final sweet dessert. Following a richly sauced main dish, serve a plain salad with tart dressing—and because salad is basically used in this way by gourmets, wine is never served with it.
   
   
5. Learn to think of food in its colors: green peas, red tomatoes, white fish, yellow squash, and so on. No gourmet cook would schedule creamed cauliflower with mashed pota­ toes and boiled codfish, for no amount of paprika or minced parsley could relieve the general colorless appearance.

Think, too, of the color of china, tablecloth, candles and flowers; gourmet cooks display a delicious dish to advantage . . . red tomatoes in a white dish, lettuce in a brown wooden bowl, white mashed potatoes against pink roses . . .

6. Some foods (spinach, asparagus, broccoli) are always watery; French fried foods grow soggy in contact with plate juices; noodles, mashed potatoes and such acquire added savor from meat sauce. A gourmet cook considers which foods may be combined on one dinner plate—and which should be served at the side, such as Asparagus Hollandaise.

7. No matter how small the apartment, get the guests on their feet and away from the dinner table after the dessert course! If you like to be lazy over coffee and liqueurs, serve them elsewhere (even if only three feet from the table; the entire effect of a delicious meal is dissipated by sitting too long over the remnants. Furthermore, even this small move­ment will prevent torpidity as an aftermath of good food, and allow everyone to digest, feel good, and sparkle conversa­tionally.

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