It’s time to take back the kitchen.
So insist the authors of a slim little cookery book — “The Lost Art of Real Cooking” (Perigee, $18.95) — that just might stir up a kitchen revolution.
Ken Albala, a culinary historian, and Rosanna Nafziger, a farm girl turned writer and scratch-only cook, say it’s time to reclaim the old-fashioned satisfaction and flavor that comes with cooking from scratch.
So toss aside all your whiz-bang, 10-speed kitchen gizmos, and roll up your sleeves. There is money to be saved, joy to be found. And, best of all, a deliciousness that’s hard to find in a box or a jar or a bag on the ready-made shelves at the grocery store.
Here are two of the recipes, excerpted from this most-charming book.
Marmalade
The classic marmalade orange is the unpalatably sour Seville orange, which is full of seeds and can be rather dry. You don’t have to have Sevilles for marmalade — sweet oranges, grapefruits, Meyer lemons, and bergamot oranges all make fantastic marmalade. Just avoid seedless oranges and anything sweetly bland.
Basic citrus marmalade
On the first day, take four large sour oranges and a lemon, wash them very well, cut them in half around the equator, and reach up inside their pockets to fish out all the seeds. Save the seeds in a little dish. For the most transparent marmalade, juice the fruit at this point and reserve, sieving out the pulp and carving out and discarding the bitter pith from inside the rinds. Otherwise, just use the whole fruit. Cut the fruit into very thin, uniform slices or small dice — aesthetics can be your guide so long as each bit of orange or lemon cooks through as quickly as the next. Tie the seeds up in a scrap of cheesecloth and put all the fruit pieces, the seed bag and the juice in a bowl. Add four cups of water, push the fruit chunks and seed bag under the surface of the liquid and cover with a plate. Put it somewhere out of the way and leave it until the next day.
The next day, put everything in a nonreactive saucepan and bring it to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer until the rinds are quite tender and can be pierced easily with a fork. Pull out the seed bag, let it cool for a minute, and squeeze the thick juice out of it back into the saucepan. You can get rid of the seeds now. Add a cup and a half of sugar or a cup and a quarter of honey. Bring to a rapid boil and cook until you achieve the “coated spoon.” At this point, you can let the jam sit overnight or jar it right away. Just bring it to a boil before you ladle it into sterilized jars and seal.
Sauerkraut
The classic recipe is simple. Cut white cabbage finely or grate it. I use three small organic cabbages equaling two and a half pounds, which almost fills a quart jar. One large cabbage works fine (or two, equaling about five pounds, if you want to make a gallon). Put the cut cabbage in a bowl and add two tablespoons kosher salt and knead by hand for about 10 minutes. Voila, it makes its own luscious brine. You will not need to add any water, or anything else for that matter. Transfer the cabbage to a crock or jar, weigh it down with a plate or ceramic jar lid so everything is submerged, and pop it into the “cellar.” Let it sit for three or four weeks at a cool temperature. You will end up with beautifully sour, crunchy and piquant sauerkraut. You can also do this on the kitchen counter if you keep the temperature around 70 degrees; it will work much faster, perhaps as quick as a week, but will not be quite as complex in flavor. Be sure to taste it often, and when you like it, it’s ready to eat.
Sauerkraut is lovely cooked. Romanians cook it slowly with butter and paprika for a few hours until brown. The dish is called varsalita, and it is always on my Thanksgiving table. A few caraway seeds thrown in won’t hurt, either. One can also stew the kraut slowly with onions and apples, perhaps with a few sausages tossed in.
More Top Picks Best Tower Fans