Cooking/General Basic tools, techniques, ™ and recipes for creating Making Everything Easier! 4th Edition easy, delicious meals 4th Edition Cooking Basics It doesn’t take culinary mastery to be a great cook. This friendly Open the book and find: guide digs you out of microwave dinners and propels you with all the ingredients you need to become a superior home • Explanations of basic cooking cook. You’ll discover the fun and easy way to prepare meals all techniques your guests and family members — from die-hard vegetarians • Tips for planning your menu to the most passionate meat eaters — will love. • Advice on stocking your pantry • Warm up to your kitchen — set up your cooking space with essential and fridge Cooking Basics tools and equipment and get to know basic cooking techniques from boiling and steaming to braising and stewing • The scoop on using herbs and spices • Take a stab at working with knives — get expert tips on the only knives you really need to have on hand and find out how to safely • How to make savory and sweet work with them to chop, dice, mince, carve, and more sauces that impress • Start cookin’, good lookin’ — make tasty dishes for every meal • Secrets for stretching your food of the day, from perfectly poached eggs to sumptuous soups and dollars salads to crowd-pleasing pastas • The 4-1-1 on kitchen safety and • Don your baker’s hat — discover how easy it can be to thrill your dealing with disasters family with homemade pies, cakes, breads, cookies, and more • Wow your guests — figure out how planning and practice can remove the stress of hosting parties (and even Thanksgiving dinner!) Learn to: • Master grilling, slow cooking, baking, roasting, sautéing, and more Go to Dummies.com® for videos, step-by-step examples, • Make tasty, affordable meals the how-to articles, or to shop! whole family will enjoy • Prepare a complete holiday or party menu Bryan Miller $21.99 US / $25.99 CN / £16.99 UK Food and feature writer, The New York Times Bryan Miller is a food and feature writer covering restaurants and ISBN 978-0-470-91388-8 Marie Rama dining trends all over the world. Marie Rama is an independent food, Food, beverage, and media consultant beverage, and media consultant. Eve Adamson is the coauthor of The Mediterranean Diet. Miller Eve Adamson Rama Member of the International Association Adamson of Culinary Professionals Get More and Do More at Dummies.com® Start with FREE Cheat Sheets Cheat Sheets include • Checklists • Charts • Common Instructions • And Other Good Stuff! To access the Cheat Sheet created specifically for this book, go to www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/cookingbasics Mobile Apps Get Smart at Dummies.com Dummies.com makes your life easier with 1,000s of answers on everything from removing wallpaper to using the latest version of Windows. Check out our • Videos • Illustrated Articles • Step-by-Step Instructions There’s a Dummies App for This and That Plus, each month you can win valuable prizes by entering our Dummies.com sweepstakes. * With more than 200 million books in print and over 1,600 unique Want a weekly dose of Dummies? Sign up for Newsletters on titles, Dummies is a global leader in how-to information. 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Cooking Basics FOR DUMmIES‰ 4TH EDITION by Bryan Miller, Marie Rama, and Eve Adamson 01_913888-ffirs.indd i 12/3/10 11:09 PM Cooking Basics For Dummies®, 4th Edition Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc. 111 River St. Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774 www.wiley.com Copyright © 2011 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published simultaneously in Canada No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permit- ted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written per- mission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http:// www.wiley.com/go/permissions. Trademarks: Wiley, the Wiley Publishing logo, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, A Reference for the Rest of Us!, The Dummies Way, Dummies Daily, The Fun and Easy Way, Dummies.com, Making Everything Easier, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. 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Library of Congress Control Number: 2010939968 ISBN: 978-0-470-91388-8 Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 01_913888-ffirs.indd ii 12/3/10 11:09 PM About the Authors Bryan Miller is a food and wine writer and a former restaurant critic for The New York Times. He has written and co-written 11 books. In the past 25 years he has received numerous awards, including three writing awards from the James Beard Foundation, and the organization’s prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award. Marie Rama grew up in the restaurant business surrounded by a large Italian family of food professionals and entrepreneurs. She has worked as a pastry chef, a recipe tester, and an account executive and spokesperson for national compa- nies and associations such as Tabasco Sauce, The United Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Association, Korbel Champagne, and Sunkist Growers. In addition to Cooking For Dummies, Ms. Rama also wrote Grilling For Dummies (with John Mariani) and is working on a cookbook that celebrates the many uses and irresist- ible enticement of bacon. Ms. Rama has two sons, Nicholas and William, and lives in Yonkers, New York with her husband and literary agent Mark Reiter. When she’s not in the kitchen testing and researching new recipes, Ms. Rama is either volunteering for her favorite foundation, Yonkers Partners in Education, or play- ing golf. Eve Adamson is a New York Times best-selling author who has written or coau- thored over 50 books on food, cooking, dieting, and lifestyle subjects, including several other For Dummies guides, several books on the Mediterranean diet, and a book on craft beer. Eve is a member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals and a self-taught home cook who loves to travel and sample the cuisines of different regions and cultures. She lives in Iowa City with her family, where she spends her days writing, cooking, planning her next trip, and contem- plating remodeling her kitchen (pretty much in that order). To find out more, visit her Web site at www.eveadamson.com. 01_913888-ffirs.indd iii 12/3/10 11:09 PM Publisher’s Acknowledgments We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments at http://dummies.custhelp.com. For other comments, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 877-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax 317-572-4002.