The Cook's Book: Recipes for Keeps & Essential Techniques to Master Everyday Cooking

© 2023 by Brianne McKoy

Published by Revell

a division of Baker Publishing Group

Grand Rapids, Michigan

www.revellbooks.com

Ebook edition created 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

ISBN 978-1-4934-4137-2

The author is represented by Alive Literary Agency, www.aliveliterary.com.

Interior design by Jane Klein.

Principal photography by Laura Klynstra and food styling by Mumtaz Mustafa.

Photos on pages 121, 125, 156, 166, 168, 208, 240, 262: Bri McKoy.

Photo on page 208: Shutterstock

Baker Publishing Group publications use paper produced from sustainable forestry practices and post-consumer waste whenever possible.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

How to Make the Cook’s Book Your Book

Aperitif

A Home Cook’s Manifesto for Everyday Cooking

A Note on Salt

Part 1: A Kitchen That Works for You

Creative Ways We’ve Made Our Kitchens Our Own

Essential Kitchen Tools

Kitchen Appliances

Pots and Pans

Bringing Your Kitchen Together

Your Pantry and Fridge

Forever Grocery List

A Vision for Your Kitchen

Part 2: Using Your Senses

From Recipe Reader to Home Cook

Calling All (Five) Senses

The Five Taste Perceptions

Part 3: The Most Powerful Kitchen Techniques

There’s a Knife for That

Cook Without Food Sticking to Your Pan

Deglazing Pans and Thickening Sauces

Part 4: The Meats

Different Cuts of Meat

Cooking Methods for Meat

Part 5: Adding Flavor Like a Pro

Flavor Layering

Fresh and Dried Herbs and Spices

Part 6: Let’s Get Saucy!

The Mindset

There’s a Sauce for That!

The Science of a Sauce

Everyday Sauces

BBQ Sauces and Marinades

Dressings and Dips

Umami-Packed Sauces

Part 7: Side Hustles

Part 8: The Art of Soup

A Case for Soup

Freezing Soups

Favorite Tools for Making Soup

Foundational Soup Recipes

Go-To Weeknight Soups

Chili

Part 9: Home Cookish

Part 10: Everyday Food and Wine Pairings

A Guide for How to Pair Wine with Food

Let’s Get Bubbly

Rosé All Day

The Makeup of White Wine

It Doesn’t Have to Be Buttery to Be Chardonnay

Sauvignon Blanc: Brightness in a Glass

Rieslings: The Gateway into Wine

Pinot Grigio Is Always a Good Idea

The White Wine Guide

A Love Letter to Red Wine

If You Like Bordeaux, You Don’t Hate Merlot

Is It Syrah or Shiraz?!

Grenache: The Magic of a Red Blend

The Red Wine Guide

Part 11: The Beginner’s Bar Cart

Bar Basics

Alcohol Basics

Digestif

Cook’s Club Sous Chefs

Acknowledgments

Index

Back Cover

This book is created with recipes that teach how to cook. This book is your book. You’re the cook. Put your name on it. Mark it up with a pen, Sharpie, washi tape, sticky notes, splattered sauce. Think of this more like a craft book, ready for you to add your own delicious mark to it.

I created this book to teach the most essential techniques for everyday cooking through sharing skills and recipes. Each recipe in this book will teach powerful cooking techniques. Every time you make a recipe, you’ll learn a skill that you will use over and over again as you bring other recipes to life—even recipes that are not in this book.

The first time you use this book, move through it chronologically. Try not to skip ahead. Each skill being taught builds on the previous ones, and each recipe incorporates skills from previous lessons.

Aperitif

YOU CAN FIND JOY AND CONFIDENCE IN EVERYDAY COOKING

Between mouthfuls of salty, lime-laced pad thai, my new husband, Jeremy, looked at me across the table full of takeout containers and said, We should probably learn how to cook.

The audacity of the suggestion almost had me laughing out loud, and I thought maybe Jeremy should try his hand at stand-up comedy. I thought I was going to choke on my takeout from the eruption of laughter about to come forth, but I looked up to scan his face and saw how utterly serious he was. I then thought he was trying to end our marriage. Which was unfortunate because it was so new, and I really did like him. But I was not interested in learning how to cook. Ever. And I made that explicitly clear by responding with a lot of exasperation and hand-waving and high-pitched speaking that basically was me stating, No. Next.

Maybe you’ve had a similar conversation or an experience when you first realized that you probably needed to learn to cook. Hopefully it was less traumatic than the conversation Jeremy and I had. Before that discussion, I had lived twenty-six years without knowing how to cook, and I found this to be an important part of my DNA. My interest was solely in the eating part. I had a lot of other talents and ways I gave back to society. Cooking was not one of them. (To be honest, this was quite remarkable given that my mom is an amazing home cook. She learned to cook from her mom, who had learned from her mom. But I’d broken that line.)

Once I calmed down and agreed that going into debt in our late twenties from ordering pad thai takeout every night could put a damper on things, I realized that maybe cooking was an idea. I mean, it wasn’t a great idea, but it was still an idea.

A few weeks later, I found myself looking at cookbooks at Barnes & Noble. I wanted a cookbook for someone who did not want to cook. You can keep your anchovy salad and your extremely involved roasted Cornish hens, I thought. I need something simple. Simple but satisfying! Easy but mouthwatering!

And I found it: The Cooking Light Cookbook. I was delighted in my discovery and promptly purchased it. It would take me a few weeks before I realized that this cookbook was focused on healthy cooking, not a light amount of cooking. I thought light meant less cooking—as in light, not heavy, on cooking. But there I was in our postage-stamp size of a newlywed apartment, flipping through a cookbook I’d thought was geared toward less cooking.

Because cookbooks overwhelmed me and I did not want to return to Barnes & Noble only to stare at more cookbooks and mostly consider why every cookbook had a smiling person on the front cover (Why are they so happy in the kitchen? Who smiles like that while holding a very sharp knife?!), I made it my mission to just stick with this one cookbook.

I cooked through practically the full book. At first I followed the recipes exactly, keeping the pages in pristine condition. But as I continued to work my way through the book, I realized I had thoughts. A lot of thoughts. And I needed to record these ideas and thoughts on the recipes themselves. I felt delirious with power when I started marking up the pages: Too salty . . . I think? or Meh. or Mom loved!

After going through that cookbook, I bought another. And then another. I was cooking so often I felt like I was really learning to cook. And in some ways I was—but I was actually just learning how to read a recipe. I lost count of the number of times I threw out a meal because I’d burned it or oversalted it or took it out of the oven still raw. There was no trying to save a recipe or figure out what went wrong. It was just bad. Next recipe, please!

Then I started a food blog, because of course I did. I started sharing my own recipes. Lots of recipes. Some people would comment and ask me what to do if something went wrong and I was like, Um, I don’t know. Read the recipe. Obviously.

I kept cooking, and I did have some wins here and there. But still it seemed as if we were eating more fails than should be natural for a food blogger. One evening as I was rinsing my overly salted roasted butternut squash in the sink, it came to my attention that maybe I didn’t know how to cook. Maybe I just knew how to read a recipe. And if anything went wrong, I didn’t know how to correct it or save the dish. (And yes, in case you didn’t catch that, I had added too much salt to my butternut squash, then roasted it and sampled it only to discover it tasted like a salt cube. So I thought I could just rinse the salt out and serve the soggy but less salty butternut squash.)

I didn’t know why I was adding salt. I was just adding it.

I didn’t know that deglazing a pan could add incredible, restaurant-quality flavor to a dish. I was just annoyed there was stuff sticking to my pan. (Also, what even is deglazing?)

The concept of elevating a dish by adding citrus or fat was not in my vocabulary.

My chicken was served either raw or burnt. And I preferred the burnt version because at least it didn’t have salmonella. I liked to call it Dry but You’re Not Going to Die Chicken. A Bri specialty.

Somewhere during this journey in the kitchen, I decided I wanted to learn how to cook. I obviously loved recipes; I had a whole blog full of them. But when I stepped into the kitchen there was a lot that the recipe didn’t know about me. Things like . . .

what pan I was using

where the hot spot on my burner was

whether I was using a gas or electric stove

how juicy my lemon was

what kind of salt I was using

A recipe is an excellent compass, but when we step into the kitchen, we become the navigators. The compass is only helpful if we know how to navigate our own kitchen. If I wanted to become a master navigator, I knew I needed to go beyond the recipe on the page. I was going to have to learn how to cook by understanding the skills and techniques that turned everyday ingredients into incredible dishes. I had a new mission.

Learning how to cook brought me more confidence in the kitchen. I still enjoy using recipes, but now I’m able to read one through and know exactly what I’m going to change or add. Confidence gives me a sense of control over my meals, but it also helps me take back control when things start to go wrong with a recipe. And thankfully, confidence is not perfection. I will inevitably burn another meal. I will still sometimes oversalt the chicken. I will occasionally forget an ingredient. But now I don’t panic when that happens. Instead, I pause to access the cooking knowledge file folder in my head and come up with a plan. Ten years ago I was rinsing overly salted squash in the sink. Today if I tasted that salty, roasted squash, I would turn it into a soup by throwing it in the blender and adding stock, fresh garlic, and a little bit of nutmeg and cream.

This is the difference between knowing how to read a recipe and knowing how to cook.

Confidence in the kitchen gives us the ability to pivot, to understand what went wrong and when, and then to adjust. But in addition to gaining confidence, I also found an unexpected joy in noticing and experiencing the act of cooking: washing carrots, slicing onions, hearing the sizzle of oil when the chicken hits the pan at the exact right moment. I began to appreciate my ingredients and tools more. I stopped to smell my ingredients and to taste along the way. I was less frazzled and more able to interact with people in my kitchen while I cooked. I realized that confidence and joy were intertwined.

And that is why I wrote this book. I want to give you the recipes and skills you need in the kitchen in order to bring more people to your table—and to do it with confidence and joy.

The key below will help you identify specific kitchen adventures I’ve included that will sharpen certain techniques, such as chopping an onion or properly salting salsa.

A Home Cook’s Manifesto

for Everyday Cooking

1 You are the most important item in your kitchen.

2 A recipe is a compass, not a GPS.

3 Addition is easier than subtraction in cooking.

4 Bring all your senses to the party.

5 Not all salt is the same.

6 Read the full recipe before cooking.

7 Cook early.

8 A sharp chef’s knife is the best sous chef.

9 Mistakes are the best teachers.

10 If you need a kitchen win, start simple.

When I first went into the kitchen to learn to cook, my only real guiding light was a recipe and Google. My only objectives were: buy groceries, cook food. But there is so much more that goes into everyday cooking, and this manifesto has become the foundation that continues to give me wins in the kitchen. It has also allowed me a safe place to land when things don’t go according to plan.

You are the most important item in your kitchen. There was a time when I thought if I had all the right fancy kitchen tools, I would achieve expert home cook status. But a high-end stand mixer cannot tell me my dough is too dry. Only my hands can. A pricey stainless-steel pan cannot tell me my sauce is too salty. Only my taste buds can. You are the most important thing in your kitchen when it comes to bringing meals together.

A recipe is a compass, not a GPS. I used to cling to a recipe like it was the law. It didn’t matter if I thought my sauce already had enough lemon juice in it—the recipe said to add the juice of the whole lemon. I was giving the recipe all the control. But there is so much a recipe does not know about us, our preferences, and our kitchens. It doesn’t know how fresh our cilantro is. It doesn’t know what brand of salt we’re using. Think of a recipe as a compass pointing you in the right direction. You can deviate from it and still end up at your destination.

Addition is easier than subtraction in cooking. We have all oversalted something. If you haven’t, you will, and it will be a great learning experience. One that might come with the perk of emergency takeout. It is so much easier to add something more to the dish than to take something away. If I’m reading a recipe and it says to add 1 tablespoon salt and I waver, I might only add ¾ or ½ tablespoon salt. I can always add more salt later. Same with lemon juice or red pepper flakes. Adding just a little more is so much easier than trying to figure out how to make something less salty or less spicy. (It can be done, but the easier route is addition over subtraction.)

Bring all your senses to the party. Using the senses available to you—touch, taste, hearing, smell, sight—will change everything when it comes to cooking. We’re often taught to rely most heavily on our sense of taste to bring a dish together, but using all of our other senses is what levels up our game in the kitchen.

Not all salt is the same. We’ll cover this more in the next section. Find the salt you love to use for cooking and learn its saltiness!

Read the full recipe before cooking. Reading the full recipe hours before you begin cooking lays a foundation for success. If I am cooking from a recipe, I like to read the recipe the morning of, preferably while enjoying my coffee. This gives me an idea of how much time the dish will take in case I need to give myself an earlier start. Or if the recipe will come together super fast, I’ll want everything ready and chopped before I even turn on the burner. This might mean I can chop all the ingredients on my lunch break or get the chicken marinating in the morning.

Cook early. A few years ago it occurred to me how ridiculous it is that we are required to cook a meal at the end of the day. This is like asking a marathon runner to start running at 5:00 p.m. after they get off work. It’s not ideal. So I take a break from work to cook the full meal around 2:00 p.m. This works well with soups and dishes such as casseroles that can easily be reheated, and it’s great for people who do not batch cook and who have access to their kitchen earlier in the day. I don’t do this every day, but even doing it once a week helps. It especially helps in the winter months when the sun goes down so early. I cook my full meal and then put it in the refrigerator. At around 6:00 p.m., I pull it out, reheat, and serve.

If you do not have access to your kitchen throughout the day, assess if there is anything you can prep earlier before leaving the house or even the night before. In The Lazy Genius Kitchen, Kendra Adachi teaches about asking the magic question, What can you do now to make life in your kitchen easier later?1 Even if it’s only chopping all the ingredients in the morning and putting them in a container to pull out at dinner time, this small step will have you more motivated to make dinner by the time six o’clock rolls around.

A sharp chef’s knife is the best sous chef. Okay, maybe having an actual trained sous chef in your kitchen would be nice. But we are everyday home cooks, not the royal family. (Unless you are the royal family, and then thank you for reading!) In this vein, I need you to listen very carefully: you might hate cooking because your knife is dull and you are spending entirely too much time sawing through your vegetables. I understand. I used to use a dull knife because I thought I was not skilled enough for a high-quality sharp knife. Then one day I was in my friend’s kitchen and she asked me to cut up an onion. I took her knife and the first slice through the onion was so effortless I almost started crying. (That could have just been the onion, but we’ll never know!) I chopped that onion in record time, and my hand didn’t hurt afterward. The next day I went straight to my kitchen store, bought a high-quality knife, and have never looked back.

Mistakes are the best teachers. Some of the most powerful lessons I have learned about cooking have come through my mistakes. I graduated from Salt 101 the day I oversalted that butternut squash. I graduated from Trust Your Sense of Smell the day I burned my chicken because, yes, it did smell like it was burning but the recipe said to cook for ten minutes and it had only been six. My favorite course was when I graduated from Turn Down the Burner (Advanced Level) after always keeping my heat on high because Don’t I want this to cook all the way through? Isn’t high heat cooking my food? Are medium and low heat even there for a reason?

We are allowed to get a little annoyed or frustrated when we make a mistake in the kitchen, but don’t forget it means you probably just graduated from a course you didn’t even know you were enrolled in.

If you need a kitchen win,