Cooking School Secrets for Real World Cooks

309 Pages·2016·1.27 MB·English

by  Carucci

Praise for the first edition of Cooking School Secrets for Real World Cooks
“Linda imparts her invaluable culinary knowledge gently and sensibly, inspiring
her readers to lose any anxieties they may have of cooking. One can imagine her
peering over their shoulder, helping each one understand the recipe while at the
same time enjoying the entire process. She is the consummate teacher, cook, and
coach all rolled into one.”
—Thomas Keller, Thomas Keller Restaurant Group
“Carucci has no TV program or series of books to her name. She is, foremost, a
teacher who has worked her way through the ranks of culinary America…
Trained at the California Culinary Academy, she went on to become one of the
IACP’s Cooking Teachers of the Year. If this first cookbook is any indication,
that was a well-deserved honor. There’s much to learn here, and Carucci
presents the information clearly without dumbing it down, whether she’s
addressing the crucial roles of salt and butter or the fact that an enzyme in some
people’s saliva makes cilantro taste, to them, like soap. The first 50 pages cover
cooking basics and dig into topics like understanding the palate and using
knives. Drawings throughout illustrate such feats as slitting squid and
butterflying boneless chicken breasts. Of the 100 recipes offered, the best
combine Carucci’s formal training with her Italian ancestry. There are cinematic
mega-dishes like Double-Crusted Timpano with Fusilli, Ricotta, and Tender
Little Meatballs; staples like Chicken Cacciatore, and Braised Calamari in Red
Sauce; and four different risottos. Adventuresome dishes include Vietnamese-
Style Honey-Glazed Pork Skewers, and Turkey Mole, with over two dozen
ingredients. Chocolate appears not only in that mole but also in a handful of rich
desserts like Devil’s Food Cake with Dark Chocolate Ganache. However, the
greatest pleasures are the scores of tips and secrets alluded to in the title.
‘Beware of scallops that look pure white.’ ‘Potatoes cook evenly if you start with
cold water.’ Who knew?”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“As a professionally trained chef who teaches others how to cook, Linda Carucci
has been sharing insider information for 30 years. Some of her students have
gone on to become chefs. But at heart, she is an advocate for everyday cooks…
Cookbooks written by cooking school instructors are nothing new. What
separates Carucci’s…is that it is unusually accessible and well organized…
Carucci has a natural gift for instruction…she is precise, but not fussy.”
—The Washington Post
“Now, with Cooking School Secrets for Real World Cooks, you can glean the
best tips and insights from a cooking school experience right in your own
kitchen. And who better to provide this ‘behind the scenes’ glimpse than
legendary cooking teacher Linda Carucci? What a timely and inspired work—
congratulations, Linda, you’ve hit one out of the park!”
—Charlie Trotter
“The secret is out! Linda Carucci is at her best when she shares her culinary
pearls of wisdom with professional chefs and home cooks alike. Each of the 100
recipes in this wonderful book begins with a great tip from Linda—something
she learned from the California Culinary Academy. Now I wish I had taken
better notes when I was in cooking school!”
—Chef Martin Yan, Restaurateur and Host of Yan Can Cook on public
television
“Anything but a chore, cooking should be simple, easy, convenient and,
hopefully, fun. That’s the message one gets [here]…Carucci knows her way
around the kitchen as she’s not only a professional chef but a teacher, culinary
consultant and, now, an author… [who] wrote her first cookbook ‘because my
students asked for a reliable kitchen go-to guide with more than just recipes’.”
—Napa Valley Register
“…it’s the next best thing to plunking down several hundred dollars for a
comprehensive course. Linda Carucci has more than 20 years’ experience as a
professional cook and teacher…and in the book she skillfully combines these
two talents, giving her readers their money’s worth and then some…Carucci…
knows the key element of successful teaching: Don’t just tell students what to
do, but explain to them why they are asked to do it…The amount of information
presented…would be considered respectable in a volume twice its size. And we
haven’t even talked about the recipes yet. There are more than 100, all tested by
Carucci’s veritable army of home cooks across the country who give her
feedback, which, if critical, prompts rethinking and revision. So the recipes are
rock-solid and interesting, yet sensible…This is not a coffee-table book, and it
doesn’t carry a coffee-table book price tag. It’s a kitchen table book, and one of
the best I have run across in quite a while.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“Carucci’s chief delight, it seems, is learning and teaching. For her, it’s a natural
continuum. Inhale, exhale. Take in new information, give it to other people…I
was surprised to find that although it’s packed with tips, illustrations, recipes,
advice, anecdotes and explanations, it’s a convenient-size paperback. This
advice, anecdotes and explanations, it’s a convenient-size paperback. This
mountain of information is organized for accessibility and offered in reader-
friendly prose…Cooking School Secrets makes a great gift for the recent college
graduate setting up a new apartment and facing a kitchen alone for the first time.
It’s also a great refresher course for experienced cooks. Each recipe is explained
so thoroughly that it’s almost a class in itself. Not surprising, since the book is
based on the author’s eight years running her own school, Linda Carucci’s
Kitchen, in Oakland, California. It’s a book that begs to be used, and the reward
isn’t just recipes so tasty you forget they’re instructional. You also have the
pleasure of ‘meeting’ Carucci herself in her writing. Her sense of enjoyment is
an invigorating, illuminating force.”
—Chicago Sun Times
Cooking School
Secrets
for Real World
Cooks
Second Edition
Linda Carucci
AuthorHouse™
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.authorhouse.com
Phone: [phone]

© 2016 Linda Carucci. All rights reserved.
Second edition text copyright 2016 by Linda Carucci Front and back cover photographs by Dan Mills
Studio Carucci, Linda.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without
the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 06/28/2016

ISBN: 978-1-5049-8362-4 (sc) ISBN: 978-1-5049-8361-7 (e) Library of Congress Control Number:
2016904472

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,
and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have
changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of
the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any
responsibility for them.
CONTENTS
Introduction
PART ONE: COOKING BASICS
Equipmentmatters
Knife Skills And Cuts
Mise En Place
Do No Harm: Food Safety
Cooking Methods
How Cooking Changes The Texture And Flavor Of Foods
Using Your Senses When You Cook
Understanding Your Palate
Cooking With The Seasons
Organic Versus Conventional Produce
Seasoning To Taste
Brining And Today’s “New” Meats And Poultry
Attentive Tasting
A Few Words About Menu Planning
Creative Cooking
A Few Words About Plate Presentation
PART TWO: RECIPES
Guidelines For Preparing The Recipes In This Book
Stocks, Soups, And Salads
Secrets For Successful Stocks And Broths
Secrets For Successful Soups
Secrets For Successful Salads
Store Walnut Halves And Pieces –And Other Shelled Nuts–In The Freezer To
Keep Them Fresh.
Risottos And Pastas
Secrets For Successful Risotto
Secrets for Cooking Perfect Pasta
Seafood, Poultry, And Meat Main Dishes
Secrets For Preparing Fish And Shellfish Successfully
Secrets For Selecting And Cooking Poultry Successfully
Secrets For Preparing Meats Successfully
On The Side
Secrets For Pairing Side Dishes With Main Dishes
Sweet Endings
Secrets For Choosing An Appropriate Dessert
Secrets For Preparing Successful Desserts
PART THREE: SEASONAL RECIPES, MENUS, AND SOURCES
Seasonal Recipes
Twelve Seasonal Menus For Casual And Special Occasions
Sources
Bibliography
Table of Equivalents
Foreword to the Second Edition of Cooking School
Secrets for Real World Cooks
Why a second edition?
Here’s the story: In 2005 Chronicle Books published the first edition of Cooking
School Secrets for Real World Cooks. The book received a starred review in
Publishers Weekly (my editor told me they rarely reviewed cookbooks back
then), and critical acclaim in the food sections of newspapers across the U.S. In
2006, the book was a finalist for both James Beard and Julia Child First Book
Awards, for which I still feel both humbled and exhilarated.
Four printings and 40,000 copies later, that book has gone out of print. Yet
millions more people have discovered cooking—through television, online, and
by nature of their being old enough to stand behind the stove, or retired, with the
time to enjoy the pleasures of cooking. People are still asking for the book—in
independent bookstores, at my cooking classes, and online. And lately, they’re
asking for an electronic version.
So I’ve teamed up with AuthorHOUSE, a division of Random House, to produce
two new formats of Cooking School Secrets for Real World Cooks: an electronic
version and a larger, printed format with easier-to-read typeface (no more hard-
to-decipher fractions).
My dear friend Dan Mills of Dan Mills Studio (www.danmills.com) shot a
glorious new front cover image, and we’ve added to the back cover of this
edition his photograph of yours truly.
As I was preparing the manuscript for this reprinting, it occurred to me that I
have an opportunity to not only change the format and look of the book, but it
would be prudent to update the content (including the Sources at the back of the
book) and fine-tune the index, too. So what started out as a reprinting has
become a second edition.
Cuisine is alive. That’s the mantra that allowed me to commit my recipes and
“cooking secrets” to print the first time around. While I still cook the same
recipes, over the years I’ve made a few adjustments to how I prepare—and write
about—certain timeless classics and kitchen practices. For example, air-chilled
chicken was as off-the-radar in 2005 as a cell phone that took pictures. Hard to
believe, I know. And I hadn’t yet discovered the joys of using Real Salt, a
mineral-rich fine sea salt from Utah. So I’ve taken this opportunity to update the
content, as well. I hope you enjoy both reading and cooking from this second
edition of Cooking School Secrets for Real World Cooks.
Finally, of all the rewarding jobs I’ve had—and projects I’ve worked on—over a
culinary career that spans 30-plus years, teaching cooking continues to be my
favorite professional activity. I don’t teach big classes in my home-based
cooking school anymore—although students do still come here occasionally for
private cooking lessons (which I thoroughly enjoy). But I still love teaching at
cooking schools across the U.S., especially in the San Francisco Bay Area where
I live. Thank you for inviting me into your kitchen and allowing me to share my
craft through the second edition of Cooking School Secrets for Real World
Cooks. And, by the way, please don’t miss my YouTube video “Cooking School
Secrets”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0l4cLD-zguI&feature=youtu.be
Here’s to lots of fun in the kitchen!