Simple: The Easiest Cookbook in the World from chef Jean-Francois Mallet promises 200 recipes with no more than four steps or six ingredients, a promise that tempted the rookie cook in me. Its clean, simple design and artful photos seemed to say that even I could mix its ingredients into an impressive meal.
Thus, I found myself embarking on the first roasted chicken of my life on a Saturday night in December.
The first bad sign should have been my confusion at the grocery store. The instructions for roast chicken with paprika simply called for a "free-range roasting chicken." Easy enough. But arriving at the store, I was unsure about the size. Was 3 pounds too big? Too small? Would choosing one without "free-range" or "roasting" on the label doom the project? The doubts of a rookie cook can implode a project before it begins.
I entered the kitchen for battle, flipping to the first instruction: "Season the
chicken with salt and pepper." Hmm. Inside? Outside? Scoping out the inside, I met the unpleasant realization that I would have to take out the bird's innards.
Basic steps, sure, but for someone who has never roasted a chicken, they were new. Rubbing some salt and pepper over the chicken, I moved on. I combined paprika, curry and the juice of 2 lemons with the olive oil. Brushing it over the chicken, I stepped back to admire my work.
Forty minutes later, I wasn't so sure. That's how long the recipe said -- a six-word instruction. "Bake for 40 minutes, basting regularly." The basting was no problem. The 40-minute clock posed a wrinkle. On the chicken's wrapper, instructions said to cook longer than twice that, or until it reached a temperature of 165 degrees.
I followed the cookbook. But when cutting into the chicken revealed it to be uncooked, I deferred to the chicken wrapper's instructions. Eventually I deemed the chicken done based on temperature and appearance. It took an hour longer than the book instructed.
The second recipe attempt, medallions of pork with beer and apples, prompted the purchase of a Dutch oven. For the beer component, I grabbed the least likely to be quaffed from our fridge, a Miller Lite. An hour later, after the beer had simmered with pork and apples, I wondered if the months-old beer was the reason my meal appeared to be a congealed version of what I saw in the cookbook.
And here is the inherent problem in promising noncooks that cooking is easy. When someone doesn't enjoy standing over a stove, one obstacle might be a mere roadblock. But multiple problems become reasons not to attempt the task again.
I suspect that some cookbooks are written by chefs who long ago forgot the feeling of having zero intuition about cooking.
In Simple, some of the lack of details could stem from problems in translation. Because it was first published in France, some instructions might not have easily translated to the United States, or foods may not be easily available. When things are simplified, important instructions aren't specified. Should a chicken be placed in a pan a certain way? How small should 2 pounds of medallions of pork be chopped? Does "beer" signify any beer, or is one type better?
In my recipe nemesis, the roast chicken, the longest sentence detailed nothing stove-related, but instead how to arrange the dish. (Helpful for my "everything is great!" Instagram photo using a filter to hide the knife jabs.)
And other things just seemed left out. A cheesecake appeared to be garnished with a sprinkling of zest in a photo, but the recipe had no mention of setting any aside.
On the plus side, the cookbook's ingredients, too, were simple, without shortcuts such as packaged foods. Many were things I might have had at home, like potatoes, onions or white wine, and recipes often included a few fresh ingredients alongside garlic and olive oil.
In short, this book was a great starter kit to get in the kitchen. I'll try more recipes from it, with Google on standby.
Food on 03/08/2017