Kornel Gyalokay - The Practical Family Recipe Cookbook: Delicious Recipes Worth Learning

Copyright 2018 by Kornel Gyalokay

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Print ISBN: 978-1-54393-834-0

eBook ISBN: 978-1-54393-835-7

Preface

On-line book distributors provide a comprehensive resource center for readers and cooks alike, so out of the countless culinary resources available, you may be wondering why you should host this one on your shelf or electronic device. If you like sitting down to a wonderfully delicious meal, its probably reason enough to purchase this book. However, Ive taken the time to also provide you with content that other cookbooks annoyingly omit.

Every recipe in this book is accompanied by a full-color photo so you will know what your dish is going to look like before you start. Yes, the appearance of what is being served in the culinary arts is a rather important factor. I dont know how many times I have ordered things at restaurants or followed a recipe in my kitchen for the first time, where my imagination conjured up an amazing delicacy, but the reality that appeared before me treated me to disappointment instead. Consequently, I say to a degree, its acceptable to judge a dish by its looks. Go ahead, give yourself permission, and save yourself both time and frustration if something just does not appear appetizing.

Every recipe in this book is accompanied by a nutrition label so you will know what the per-serving nutritional values are. In the days of old where terms like carbs, sodium, and cholesterol were rarely used in daily speech, per-serving nutritional labels for recipes were also clearly deemed unimportant or even ridiculous. Thankfully we no longer live in those times as we have become better educated about the impacts of nutrition. We find ourselves in a more health-conscious world that has made us sensitive to the nutritional content and the proper portion sizing of what we consume. This book will help you to know what you are serving your household and guests. Having this information at hand is rather practical.

Every recipe in this book has a verified time to make measurement, giving you that critical edge to know if you have enough time to make the dish before the family rebels, or at least to give you the heads up on when you should start on your dish if you are expecting guests. With time being our most valued commodity, not knowing how long its going to take you to make the meal will leave you with a frown. This book respects your time, by telling you up-front how long each recipe takes to make.

This book provides the very best recipes that I find myself repeatedly crafting as either daily meals or holiday specials. Sure, there are thousands of recipes out there in the wild, but what you find in this book is limited to our proven and very best family success dishes. Imagine having a book 100% full of worthwhile recipes to make. This book is exactly that. You will find that the recipes in this book are most closely aligned with folks in need of satisfying a craving for Americanized European cuisine. By Americanized, I mean to say that the recipes tone down the fats/sugars where they dont hinder holding onto the original flavors. As a native-born European, I passionately enjoy these specific recipes so much that it has been my motivation to take the time to meticulously capture them in this book. I have tried my best to write them in a format that is easy to read and follow, where the major steps are grouped for rapid comprehension and a way to quickly give you a progress indicator to find your place. The book is dedicated to my greatest critics and supportersmainly my wife and two daughters. We ought to do everything in life with excellence, and I certainly want to give my girls the very best, hoping that in due time I wont be a bottleneck in producing these gems for the dinner table.

Writing this book has taken a larger time investment than I initially anticipated, but in the end, I must say that it was worth every moment. I would like to thank God for having equipped me to do so much more than I ever imagined, my family for their unrelenting appetites and criticisms, and friends like Cameron Posey who got me thinking seriously about putting ink to paper. I also want to thank my youngest sister, Viktoria Vargo, who after repeatedly contributing amazing side dishes to the family holiday gatherings, has shared some of her personal recipes to better round out the book. Of course I cant forget about the rest of my family and all the folks we have shared meals with over the years. Happily sampling and providing the fine-tuning recommendations on the individual dishes, they have unwittingly served as my quality assurance agents. I hope you will find as much joy in making the recipes and sharing your creations with friends and family as I have over the decades.

Lets Get Practical

Thank goodness for the vast library of knowledge available on the Internet as well as for the smart devices of our day, where you can research the science behind cooking and the myriad of ways people have tried making dishes. But I wanted to impart some of the practical wisdom that Ive learned over the years through personal experience. This section brings together practical things for you to be aware of as a developing cook, such as cooking idioms to entertain and teach you, general guidance and encouragement, how to equip your kitchen, how to go about understanding measurements and conversions, and a temperate guide for proteins. You will master cookery in no time!

Introduction

Considering that we need daily sustenance to maintain our strength, learning how to cook is clearly a practical and worthwhile endeavor. Cooking can be seen as a financial savings plan, as you avoid losing a large part of your budget for services rendered at restaurants. Cooking allows a bond to be formed between shared meals to strengthen family, and allows youthe cookto control what you and your family eat, so you can stay on target with your health. Some consider cooking an art form, while others see it as a form of science. I would say they are both right. A beginner will want to hear the science emphasized and the logic well documented: exact measurements, ingredients, and the elements of time required to succeed. There is nothing wrong with that; in fact, we all start here.

I remember in my early years asking my grandmother Olga for a recipe, only to be baffled by the vague measurements, sometimes omitted ingredients, and nonspecific cooking times required to make a dish. It wasnt her fault, because she had been cooking for so long that it has become instinctual and intuitive for her. Some things were unsaid not because she wanted to omit steps, but because they were common knowledge to her and were simply assumed. She was a well-experienced cook who could make wondrous things with just a few available ingredients, perhaps the kind of person you inspire to be like. Someone who abstracts the goodness from ingredient relationships and learned formulas, using them as guidelines without allowing them to impose on creativity. Someone bound by the foundations of science, yet infused with intuition that respond to the subjectivity and desires of the human palates awaiting the finished work.