About this item
Introducing a new, mix and match approach to seared entres and fresh pan sauces.Sear, deglaze, enhance, and serve: flavorful dinners can be that simple. In her unique, approachable style, Susan Volland first explains how to skillfully wield a hot skillet to sear entres, then shows how a sauce can be made quickly in that same hot pan.In more than 60 enticing recipes for seafood, poultry, meats, vegetables, tofu, and eggs, Volland invites home cooks to adapt her recipes for taste, diet, and ingredient availability. Searing Inspiration gives cooks the confidence to invent their own dishes, reintroducing a classic technique to modern tastes and kitchens. 50 photographs
About the Author
I call myself a culinary communicator. Basically, I get paid to make people hungry instead of full. My job is to transform concepts and ideas into inspiring text, recipes, products, and images. For twenty years I've been perfectly happy working in "the back of the house" picking up freelance gigs; writing, developing recipes, testing, editing, and collaborating on books and promotional projects. Then I got this great idea for a solo cookbook.
Mastering Sauces is the culmination of decades of learning, experimenting, and developing my own tastes and preferences. The concept came to me after working on Nathan Myhrvold's Modernist Cuisine books. I spent a few years immersed in science and innovation, learning from amazingly talented and intelligent people who never hesitated to break established rules. Amidst all of this, I kept veering back to my core values and my belief that food doesn't have to be fancy to be good, and that home cooking tends to be the best food in the world. While in that mindset I had a sip of an extraordinary but essentially simple vegetarian jus and Mastering Sauces was born.
Sauce making can be intimidating. The term conjures images of classical preparations and fancy restaurants. But ketchup, curry, salsa, and salad dressings are also sauces.When home cooks want to understand more about sauce making they are inevitably pointed towards the French Mother Sauces. But here's the thing - there are a whole lot of great sauces outside of France. When you set aside Escoffier's lesson plans, you eliminate your reliance on veal stock, roux, and butter. You begin to see how all great sauces are made by following three core principles: Maximize Flavor, Manipulate Texture, and Season Confidently. It was time to take the formality out of sauces and nudge them into the 21st century.
My book is scientific yet very personal. Specific but still spontaneous. Contemporary, but respectful of the classics. The goal is to get people to cook and feel good about what they make - no matter what it is.
