Zuni Cafe chef sees perfection in simplicity

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THE ZUNI CAFE COOKBOOK, by Judy Rodgers, W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 2002, 550 pages, $35.

It seems there are certain prerequisites to becoming a chef of true stature. One of those appears to be having spent some formative years in France or Italy, preferably while still in your teens. Tony Bourdain is a good example of someone who achieved this, but Judy Rodgers really lucked out at age 16, when a friend (and what a friend!) arranged for her to spend a year in Roanne, France with les freres Troisgros at their three-star restaurant “Maison Troisgros.”

With a maturity way beyond, say, mine at that age, Rodgers spent her year not simply sampling France’s fine wines, but absorbing the wonders of French homestyle cooking. She may have cooked almost nothing during that time – “Timidity and respect for their metier [profession] held me back,” she says – but she watched, she tasted, took meticulous notes, and fell in love with the endless possibilities of fresh food prepared with thought and feeling. She also spent time following the Troisgros’ sister, Madeleine, watching her shop for the family table and seeing her conjure perfect family meals, just as good as her brothers were serving in their restaurant. But most importantly, she was seduced by cuisine genereuse, or honest food.

These early lessons suffused her subsequent approach to cookery. Fine food is not about fancy technique and obscure and expensive ingredients; it’s about perfection in simplicity. As Jean-Baptiste Troisgros – pere to the freres Troisgros – admonished her, never be taken in by “cinema dans la cuisine.” Flashy food, we might call it.

Such lessons were fortuitously reinforced upon her under the more-than-capable tutelage of the semi-legendary Alice Waters. Rodgers first dipped her toe into commercial cooking at Waters’ Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., where she eventually became both student and lunch chef, although at the time, “I was chief to no one,” she wryly notes.

After leaving Panisse, Rodgers returned to Les Landes, France for further immersion in French country cooking – this time with Pepette Arbulo. Running out of money, she returned to California and sought advice from Waters, who arranged, with more fantastic luck, for her to work with the equally semi-legendary Marion Cunningham at the Union Hotel in Benicia, Calif. Here Rodgers had the opportunity to apply lessons learned in Europe to traditional American food, and almost unwittingly became part of the “New American Cooking” movement.

But it was Italy that finally helped plot a course for Rodgers. After initially booking a farmhouse in Florence, she eventually completed a culinary tour of the entire country, closely observing, taking notes and tasting everything from prosciutto with fur (wild boar ham) to raw fava beans. By the time she headed back to California, Rodgers had a goal. “I would look for the restaurant where I could settle down to cook both French and Italian traditional food,” she says, “and evoke the spirit of dinner at Madeleine’s.”

The Zuni Cafe became that place. It was a vaguely Mexican-oriented restaurant opened by Billy West in 1979, “with a huge heart and exactly ten thousand dollars.” Eggs were cooked with a milk steamer and chicken grilled in the back alley. By 1987, when Rodgers was asked to become chef, those selling points were gone, but much of the romantic ambience remained. Rodgers lobbied for a brick oven, and swung the style of food towards her spiritual homes of Italy and France.

Rodgers makes few claims to be an original. With some disingenuity, says that almost all her food is “derivative. I cannot make a dish without trying to conjure where it came from, and where I first had it.”

That much is probably true of most chefs, and Rodgers makes this book a comprehensive confessional as she leads us through apparently almost every dish the cafe has served with her as chef.

Rodgers’ selection of dishes is what has made Zuni – the cafe – a continued success. It is also what makes this book a delight. Her approach of simple, honest food is obvious everywhere. With Rodgers, a dish as potentially austere as Braised Fennel is transformed with splashes of vermouth and pastis into something greater than its parts.

Simplicity elevated is a constant theme. Yet not all dishes are as easy to prepare as the fennel. One of the prerequisites for superb simple food is that it is prepared superbly. Many of the recipes here are far from the kind that are thrown together swiftly after work. Take the Zuni Roast Chicken with Bread Salad – a truly delectable meal; chicken crisp yet succulent, marinated raisins and warmed pine nuts. It is also a meal that really must be prepared over a couple of days and runs to nearly five pages of the cookbook. Don’t be put off by this – no great skill is required to pull this dish off, but thought, planning and time are.

Spicy Squid Stew with Red Wine and Roasted Peppers is the epitome of Mediterranean comfort yet “challenges the dogma that the best cooking lets ingredients and flavors sing clearly in the finished dish.” Almost a one-pot meal, it still demands careful, intelligent preparation and planning ahead. The result, again, is worth it – rich, thick, complex, flavorful, and perfectly accompanied by grilled bread rubbed with garlic.

Eventually, despite the focus on simplicity, “The Zuni Cafe Cookbook” may be a little intimidating to the uninitiated. If you’re only going to have one cookbook in your kitchen, Marion Cunningham’s ubiquitous classic “Fannie Farmer Cookbook” may be a better choice.

Still, for those with a modicum of comfort in the kitchen, and a desire to absorb new ideas and techniques. Zuni is a treasure trove of tips. Much of the advice is universal – use the right pans, taste everything constantly. Other tips may become regulars in your preparatory rituals. Rodgers’ habit of salting food early – up to a couple of days before cooking – is closely related to brining and, like its sibling, has a remarkable influence on the succulence of many meats and fish.

Zuni is one of those great cookbooks you can simply pick up and read. By the time you return it to the shelf, you will surely have gleaned a new tip nestling in an anecdote. Far from being impenetrable such as, say, Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” Rodgers always leads gently, assuming little, and reminding a lot.

Many of us are unlikely to make it to California in order to taste Rodgers’ food in person. Fewer still will spend a few months in France or Italy to sample from the source. With “The Zuni Cafe Cookbook,” however, we can all bring a little down-home happiness – Mediterranean style – to our own kitchens.

Spicy Squid Stew with Red Wine

Serves 4-6

2 1/4 pounds whole squid

6 tablespoons mild olive oil

Salt

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons red wine

3/4 cup chopped drained canned tomatoes or 11/2 cups chopped peeled ripe tomatoes

3/4 cup diced carrots

3/4 cup diced celery

3/4 cup diced yellow onion

1 or 2 small dried chilis

3 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped, plus 1 clove peeled, to rub the toasts

21/2 teaspoons tomato paste

A sprig of fresh basil

A few wide strips of orange zest (removed with a vegetable peeler)

2/3 cup of roasted red or green bell pepper cut into large dice with its juice

4-6 slices of chewy, peasant-style bread

Begin to clean the squid by pulling out the tentacles as you grasp the body with the other hand. Look in the soft matter attached to the tentacles for the silver ink sac – it looks like a drop of mercury. Carefully transfer it to a small cup. Trim away the soft matter, cutting between the eyes and the “neck” of the tentacles. Squeeze the neck; a hard pea-sized “beak” should pop out. Discard it. Set the tentacles aside. To clean the bodies, starting at the closed tip of each, use your finger or the dull edge of a knife to gradually press and flatten the body, forcing out the insides. (Imagine you are flattening a toothpaste tube.) Cut the bodies into 1/3-inch rings. Rinse and drain the bodies and the tentacles. You should have about 11/2pounds cleaned squid.

Warm a tablespoon or two of olive oil in a 10-inch skillet over medium heat. Test with a piece of squid; when the oil sizzles on contact, add about half of the squid and cook briskly for about 45 seconds, stirring or tossing to cook evenly. Season lightly with salt, then tip the barely cooked meat into a 4-quart saucepan. Add another tablespoon or two of oil to the skillet and cook the rest of the squid.

Pour the red wine into the skillet to deglaze the squid juices, and stir and scrape as the liquid reduces by one-third. Add the tomatoes. If using canned tomatoes, simply heat through; if using fresh tomatoes, simmer to reduce by about half. Pour the mixture over the squid. It should be about half submerged in liquid.

Add the remaining 2 to 4 tablespoons olive oil, the carrots, celery, onions, chilis, chopped garlic and tomato paste. Pick the leaves off the sprig of basil, and set them aside. Drop the stems into the stew. Twist and drop the strips of orange zest into the pan. Place the ink sacs in a fine strainer, hold over the stew, and bathe with a few spoonfuls of the red wine and juices, pressing to extract the ink. Stir it into the darkening stew. Cover and simmer gently for about 20 minutes. The squid and vegetables will now be nearly submerged in liquid. The squid will be shrunken and may be disturbingly hard.

Taste for salt and add the roasted peppers and their juice. Simmer uncovered until the squid becomes just tender. How long this takes varies enormously, depending on the squid, the pan, and the burner; allow 10 to 30 minutes. Check again for salt, and spiciness – if the stew is too mild for your taste, fish out the chili pods, crush them with a little liquid in a small dish, and add a little, or all, of this super-spicy dose to the pot. Otherwise, remove the chilis and the basil stems and cool the stew completely. Cooling and then reheating the stew makes the squid more tender.

To serve, reheat gently, adding the reserved basil leaves as the stew comes to a simmer. Taste. The finished stew should be rich and slightly thick. Offer toasted or grilled bread rubbed with the garlic.

Braised Fennel

Serves 4

3 fennel bulbs, trimmed (about 8-10 ounces each)

2 to 3 tablespoons mild-tasting olive oil

About 1/2 cup dry white vermouth or dry white wine

About 1/2 cup chicken stock

Salt

Pinch of sugar if needed

A splash of pastis, such as Pernod or Ricard if needed

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Cut the fennel into 1- to 1 1/2-inch wedges

Warm a film of olive oil in a 10- or 12-inch skillet over medium-low heat. Make a crowded mosaic of fennel wedges in the pan and cook until delicately golden on the bottom, about 5 minutes, then turn and guild the other side. Salt lightly. Remove the cooked wedges, add more oil as needed, and repeat until you have browned all the fennel.

Arrange the wedges in a flameproof baking dish that holds them in a single very crowded layer. Add vermouth and chicken stock in equal proportions to come to a depth of 1/2 inch. Bring the dish to a simmer, then transfer to the oven and bake until the fennel is tender, 20 to 30 minutes. Taste the pan juices. If they are thin tasting or too acidic, tilt the dish to one side until the juices puddle and stir in the optional sugar and/or pastis to balance the flavor. Set the baking dish over low heat until the juice bubbles. Serve promptly.

Note: This dish is good reheated. Cover very loosely and reheat in a 350? oven.