Garten - Barefoot Contessa Foolproof

Copyright 2012 by Ina Garten

Photographs copyright 2012 by John Hall

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Clarkson Potter/Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
www.clarksonpotter.com

CLARKSON POTTER is a trademark and POTTER with colophon is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Garten, Ina.
Barefoot Contessa foolproof / Ina Garten. 1st ed.
Includes index.
1. Cooking. I. Title.
TX714.G36425 2012
641.3dc23 2012007526

eISBN: 978-0-7704-3340-6

Design by Marysarah Quinn
All photographs with the exception of those noted above are by Quentin Bacon.

v3.1

I love writing cookbooks and Im so grateful to the wonderful people who work with me. First and foremost, I couldnt get through the day without my amazing home team of Barbara Libath, Suzanna Guiliano, and Erica Katz. They keep me sane and giggling all day long.

For the books, thank you to my publisher, Clarkson Potter, headed by my friend Pam Krauss, plus editor Rica Allannic, book designer Marysarah Quinn, and publicist Kate Tyler. Ive been at Clarkson Potter since my first book and I love them all. Im so proud of the quality of the books we produce together; they make me look so much better than I am.

My photographic team and I have been together for a long timeQuentin Bacon taking such beautiful photographs, Cyd McDowell artfully styling all the food, and now we have the happy addition of Barb Fritz, who brings us the most elegant props to play with. I love the weeks we spend together. Thank you also to my friend Sarah Chase, who inspires me with wonderful ideas, and to John Hall, for beautiful garden photographs.

Theres also a team behind the scenes that is so important to me. Esther Newberg, my agent, brilliantly takes care of business, and Amelia Durand is extraordinary handling the demands of publicity. Thank you both so much.

But most of all, my sweet husband, Jeffrey, who is such a good sport on my TV show (yes, hes my real husbandnot my TV husband). I could never have done a day of this without his loving encouragement and support.

I love when people stop me in the street or at a book signing and tell me they love my recipes because theyre foolproof. I love to cookI find it really satisfyingbut between you and me, its not always easy. Between the shopping, the cooking, and cleaning up it can be hard work to actually get dinner on the table. Why go to all that trouble only to find that the result is ho-hum or, worse, that the recipe doesnt work at all?

Thats exactly why I wrote this book. Foolproof means so many things to me. Clearly, it means the recipe worksthat goes without saying. But theres more to it than that. Its a dish thats deeply satisfying to eat; its a company-friendly meal that can be made in advance to reduce your stress; and its an outrageously delicious dessert thats so easy to make that it becomes part of your regular repertoire. I want these all to be the recipes that you love so much that you make them over and over again because thats when a recipe becomes truly foolproof: when you feel that you can almost make it with your eyes closed.

I think many people have the impression that a recipe is a simple engineering problem and that a dish should come out exactly the same way every time we make it. But as any cook will tell you, cooking is more like driving a car than constructing something: a thousand things can influence the outcome. Once you have some confidence and experience under your belt, you make all kinds of small adjustments along the way, and you do it without even thinking because youve done it so many times before. The potatoes are a little bigger than last time so you know they take a little longer to cook. The tomatoes arent quite as ripe as youd hoped so you choose to serve them roasted rather than sliced fresh. The oven isnt really a consistent 350 degrees but rather it fluctuates and you might need to turn it to 375 degrees to make sure the chicken browns the way you like. And then theres my particular annoyance: the steaks you asked the butcher to cut 1 inches thick are actually only inch thickor even worse, some are 1 inch and some are 1 inches. Aarrggh! But since Ive had that problem before, I know that Ill want to put some of the steaks on the grill earlier than the others and to test them with an instant-read meat thermometer to be sure theyre all done to exactly the right internal temperature.

But the best news is that Ive made all of these recipes dozens of times before. Ive highlighted all the speed bumps and the blind spots along the way so you can make the adjustments you need to make as you go along. That way, you can get the recipes right not just the first time but every time you make them.

Foremost, the value of a cookbook comes down to its recipes. Heres how I write a recipe to ensure that it will come out perfectly each time and that its so delicious that your family says, You made this yourself? Youll never find an instruction in one of my recipes that says, Getting the right consistency can be tricky or Stir every 5 minutes for 2 hours. I write recipes that have ingredients you can find at your local food store (with a few special exceptions like truffle butter, which you can order online and keep in the freezer), that use the standard equipment you already have, over and over again, and that have cooking processes that are familiar. Hopefully, Ive anticipated your questions and the answer is right there in the instructions. In fact, Ive called out many of the tripping points to alert you. For example, for the

Its easy to say Have a well-stocked pantry, but who actually does? When Im having a party, I plan the menu a week ahead of time so I can shop for the shelf goods and refrigerated ingredients like eggs and butter a few days before I get down to the cooking. Then, on the day before the party, when I already have too much to do, I have just a short list of things like fish and fresh herbs to pick up at the store.