Erskine - Gizzis kitchen magic

C ONTENTS

A BOUT THE BOOK

Gizzi Erskines magic touch is simple but effective. Instead of just dazzling one-off recipes, Gizzi gives you the cook confidence in the kitchen by helping you create the perfect meal every time. Shell provide you with techniques and tips that make time spent in the kitchen a real success.

From showing you how to master basic pasta dough and mix marvellous marinades, to making foolproof pastry and poaching the perfect eggs, Gizzi will ensure that cookery demons are a thing of the past.

As well as these techniques, Gizzi also adds an extra sparkle to some classic recipes. Whether its sprinkling some rosemary into your millionaires shortbread, infusing your chocolate fudge cake with Earl Grey, or combining old favourites in new ways such as Mexican chicken tortilla soup Gizzis Kitchen Magic guarantees youll soon be cooking with flair.

A BOUT THE AUTHOR

Gizzi Erskine is a food writer and stylist best known for being one of the presenters of Channel 4s Cook Yourself Thin and an author of the bestselling book by the same name. She trained at the prestigious Leiths School of Food and Wine, before going on to work at BBC Good Food magazine and is now a regular chef on GMTV, This Morning and Sky Ones Taste. She is the food columnist for Company magazine and has contributed to Marie Claire, In Style, Elle USA, and Arena, among others. Gizzi lives in London.

FOR MY MAMA, MARIA, MY BIGGEST INSPIRATION. AS YOU WILL SEE, THIS BOOK IS FULL OF ERSKINE SPECIALS.

I NTRODUCTION

Ive been cooking for as long as I can remember but I always struggled with some basic techniques, which I knew I needed to have under my belt. When I was at catering school, I would become a wreck when we had a pastry-making class. Pastry was my cookery nemesis. The best pastry is short crisp and a bit crumbly. The best short pastry is a bugger to roll out, it falls apart when you try to line a tart case and frankly made steam come out of my ears. But for years now I have been making my own pastry. I add more egg to it, thats all, which means I can work with it, and maybe if Michel Roux was coming for dinner Id be exposed, but between me, you and your mates no one is going to know.

So, I decided I wanted to write a cookery book that would address some of the cookery problems I had faced, including how to make foolproof pastry. My book would have a back-to-basics approach. I wanted to write a book that would complement more advanced cookery books out there. One that would arm you with the techniques and core recipes that would make cooking your favourites easier. And so Gizzis kitchen magic was born.

However, whilst this book includes techniques, tips and basic recipes, it is also full of inspirational recipes, which will help you practise some of these techniques, all with my own Gizzi stamp on them. Some come from my travels around the world (grilled snapper with chilli and mango sauce, Vietnamese prawns and lemongrass, lamb massaman curry), some inspired by my favourite London restaurant dishes (black cod with plum miso, Afghan yoghurt chicken, chicken katsu curry), some Erskine classics (chicken in weeds, Parma ham and sage-wrapped veal with tomato and spaghetti), and some from my love of being a bit experimental (millionaires shortbread with rosemary-infused salted caramel, Earl Grey chocolate fudge cake).

So bear with me on these techniques and hopefully they will allow you to approach cooking with more self-assurance. Youll be able to face the kitchen with new gusto and, fingers crossed, some of the magic that I have sprinkled into this book will translate into your own cookery.

Happy cooking!

Gizzi xx

Where doyou start when it comes to setting up a kitchen? Its hard to know, and it really depends on how much you think youre going to cook, but I hope youll agree that having a fairly well-stocked kitchen is a good idea. You can bet your life that its incredibly annoying to suddenly have the urge to bake cupcakes and not have any cupcake tins or cases to hand.

So, this chapter is all about kitchen basics, including what equipment you need to get started, what makes a great store cupboard, how to get the best out of a recipe, and how to chop an onion. Im aware that some of you might be right up there with the Ramsays of the world and be perfectly adept at chopping an onion, but let me tell you, my mum my biggest inspiration when it comes to food is hopeless when handling a knife, which goes to show that even experienced cooks still have something to learn. I also hope that this book will reach a few novices and so I think its important to start at the beginning.

E Q U I P M E N T

Most of us think basics means only pans, knives and the odd spatula, but a well-equipped working kitchen has a lot more going for it than that. Heres my guide to what you should have and why. I know some of these can be expensive, but if you want to cook with conviction theyre worth the investment.

PANS

Either stainless non-stick, cast iron or, if youre in a dream world (or mega-rich), copper. Get them in varying sizes, from a small milk pan (non-stick) right up to a huge stockpot. For a starter set I would advise going for a large heavy-based 20cm depth x 20cm diameter pan, a medium, 15cm depth x 15cm pan and a small 10cm deep x 12cm milk pan. Get two sizes of frying pan and go for non-stick. If you only want one, buy a larger pan. I live by my griddle pan. Its a fast and healthy way of cooking and adds heaps of flavour to dishes with the pretty lines it chars into the food. Make sure you get a cast iron one of these the others are rubbish.

KNIVES

While it is so tempting to go for those starter sets of knives or for knives from a supermarket, I beg you if you go out and spend money on one thing only, let it be knives. You dont need a huge set: just a large cooks knife, a small cooks knife, a fruit knife, a bread knife and a small paring knife. What makes a good knife is the quality of the metal. Japanese knives tend to be constructed in the same way as samurai swords, where the metal is folded over and over to ensure its really strong (cool, eh?!). You can sharpen them yourself at home too, which is a definite benefit.

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