The keys to perfection

REVIEWS BY SYBIL PRATT

For a perfect French onion soup, start with white onions, cook them gently until soft but not browned, then saturate them with red wine to give the soup color, body and flavor. For a melt-in-your-mouth roast chicken, turn the bird over several times, basting it with the cooking juices. Lacy crêpes every time? Make sure your batter is lump-free and work with very small amounts. These are but a few of the insider insights that Marcus Wareing, a bright young Michelin-starred chef patron of two outstanding London restaurants, serves up in Cook the Perfect..., his lusciously illustrated new cookbook. Struck by how much professional know-how, acquired from long training and intense on-the-job experience, isn't included in most recipes, Marcus set out to deconstruct 80 elegant recipes, stripping them "back to basics, pinpointing the how and whys, and even the pitfalls." Whether you're a greenhorn or a gastronome, there are tricks of the trade here that you'll want to learn and recipes you'll want to master from creamy mushroom soup to salt and pepper shrimp, couscous with candied lemon to corned beef hash cakes, broccoli and green bean sauté to blissfully buttery shortbread. Under Marcus' direction you're headed for perfection.


Pre-made aid

Flavorful fast food that you can make at home is the cooking mantra of the moment (and a long, lingering moment it is), but I was surprised to see that Nancy Silverton, doyenne of dough, chef/founder of the famed La Brea Bakery and award-winning cookbook author, has taken it up. And I think that she surprised herself, too: "For me to write a book in which a jar of mayonnaise is even mentioned is revolutionary. But it's a revolution that I felt had to happen." To aid and abet that revolution and the millions of folks who don't have the time to make everything in a recipe from scratch but do want more than takeout, Nancy advocates the quality pre-made aid that comes in jars, cans, bags and boxes. She calls her revolutionary tract A Twist of the Wrist and offers 137 recipes that take advantage of the fabulous, readily available array of imported and homegrown products you can use to create satisfying entrées, soups, salads and desserts. You can jazz up a box of puréed corn soup with bacon and cheddar crostini; serve seared filet of beef on canned cannellini beans, topped with jarred olive tapenade; finish a meal with Greek yogurt swathed in orange marmalade and crowned with a scoop of orange sorbet. A twist of that wrist is all it takes.


Winging it

Cat Cora is an aficionado of fine fast food, too, with the emphasis on "go with what you've got," improvising in the kitchen and having fun while you do it. Cat, co-founder and president of Chefs for Humanity, is a star of "Iron Chef America" and that, she's sure, sharpened her ability to wing it, to put together a dish or a dinner at a moment's notice. Cooking from the Hip, her latest, is divided into four sections—Fast, Easy, Fun and Phenomenal—with each section offering ideas from starters to desserts. You can choose the recipe (there are more than 100) that suits your mood, time frame, situation and, naturally, what you have on hand (check out the "Pantry Makeover" tips sprinkled throughout). The parmesan, prosciutto and arugula sandwich is Cat's "fallback" for a fast dinner—or perfect picnic; chickpea and roasted pepper soup is an easy, excellent "from-the-cupboard-to-the-pot" first course or light lunch; goat fondue, served with apples, veggies and chunks of bread, is a fun take on a retro favorite; and lamb navarin, the quintessential spring stew, is phenomenal. Hip, hip, hooray!


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