Keith Schroeder - Cooking Light Mad Delicious: The Science of Making Healthy Food Taste Amazing

TABLE OF CONTENTS Cooking Light MAD DELICIOUS THE SCIENCE OF MAKING HEALTHY FOOD TASTE AMAZING ! KEITH SCHROEDER Opinionated, fun, and a little geeky all at the same time, Keith Schroeders Mad Delicious is both a delightful read and a terrific, seriously useful compendium of cooking techniques (and accompanying explanations) and recipes. Who knew that the chef behind one of my favorite craft ice creams, High Road, had this kind of book in him? ED LEVINE, founder, Seriouseats.com Cooking Light MAD DELICIOUS Every recipe in this book looks like something Id make every day and hide from my wife so I could eat it all myself. J. KENJI LPEZ-ALT, author of The Food Lab, a column unraveling the science of home cooking INTRODUCTION I was a budding home cook by the age of 6. When I was growing up, eating was the only thing I did regularly that I truly, deeply enjoyed. I guess I pretended to be interested in cooking at the onset so I could get the hottest, freshest sliver of steak off the grill or the first mushroom from the gravy.

A LOVE AFFAIR WITH COOKING When Thanksgiving time came and my mother needed help in the kitchen, I would pull up a step stool and make the crudit platter (we didnt call it that) with buttermilk dressing (with the packet). I marveled at how a packet of spices and sugars and starches would morph from thin, drippy, and undesirable to thick, rich, and (admit it) addictively appetizing after an hour or so in the fridge. So began my love affair with the transformation of ingredients. Over time, I began to formulate opinions about what was delicious and what was not, and how to prepare food in ways that were both aesthetically pleasing and crowd-winningly tasty, but the wonder that came from tinkering with ingredients, and the satisfaction I got from being helpful, never left me. Eventually, it pushed me into professional kitchens. Youd think that was where the real cooking happened, in restaurant kitchens.

Whats hard for a chef to admit, though, is that cooking at home can be more satisfying than cooking in a restaurant. After all, cooking is an intimate, generous, and personal act, expressive of culture, place, community, and tradition. Thanks to a lifetime of cooking in restaurants and hotels as well as teaching both home cooks and culinary professionals, Ive had the luxury of living, working, traveling, food shopping, and eating in many places around the world. That, I suppose, qualifies me to teach you about food science, culinary technique, and the alchemy that we call cooking. What I want to share most, however, is that its important to pay attention to whats in front of you, whether its a tomato, a beautifully forged knife, or your third cousin coming over for dinner. And while there are elements of chemistry, biology, and physics to be explored and understood, and techniques involved, being a great cook is about more than being the best technician.

Maintaining an emotional connection with food, while developing a comfort level with the whys of cooking, will help you become more intuitive in the kitchen. My aim is to teach you to work with your head, your heart, and your hands. I want to encourage exploration, and to equip you with the methods and mindset necessary to be a nimble and confident home cook. MY TEACHING METHOD I wanted to write this book because Im a teacher at heart. I offered the team at Cooking Light some recipes with a format that mirrored the way I approach cooking, one that explained the purpose for using each and every ingredient in each and every recipein tabular format. Amount. Why. Why.

Its a format Ive long used when teaching people how to cook. Sometimes the why was fundamental to the recipes success. Oftentimes, I offered up some science-meets-life experience reasons for tinkering with tradition. Good cookings like thatattentive and purposefulwithout being sterile or rote. I was told the format and the voice were unique. Pause.

Look at serious editor. Whew. It was good unique. Being a first-time cookbook author and gazillion-hour veteran cook, I had to translate the techniques and the methods I use intuitively and automatically in the kitchenmy culinary autopilotinto words. What follows in this book are many, many words. Rather than being dense and academic as a book about kitchen science could be, these recipes are not only really well developed (they workI promise), theyre fun to read.

Youll find yourself being there, whether there is your ready-to-rock kitchen or the village or city or home or professional kitchen from where the recipe is inspired. The recipes talk a lot, but with the very honest intent of making you a commanding cook. Bear with me. The results are worth it. THE MEANING OF MAD DELICIOUS With the good intention of eating healthier, many home cooks cut out the sugar, salt, and fat from their favorite recipes. But in doing so, they often sacrifice flavor and texture.

You shouldnt settle for subpar meals in the name of better health. Actually, you dont have to. Good-for-you food can taste amazing. Thats where this book comes in. Mad Delicious shares the science behind light cooking, from selecting the right ingredients and choosing the proper cooking technique to composing flavors so every bite is delicious. Not just delicious impressively delicious, stunningly delicious, insanely delicious, Mad Delicious.

A FEW NOTES ON THE RECIPES